The Lion-Man figurine from Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in southwestern Germany is one of the oldest and most spectacular Paleolithic figurines. It is approximately 33,000 years old and was carved from mammoth tusk. When discovered in 1939, it was in hundreds of small pieces which fit together with this result:
This is a splendid example of therianthropy, a [...]
Tags:Elisabeth Schmid·Hohlenstein-Stadel·Joachim Hahn·Lion-Man·Paleolithic art·Paleolithic figurines·ritual object·shamanic·symbolism·therianthrope
When fully modern humans left Africa, their journey is often described as the “colonization” or “peopling” of the world. Characterizing things this way can give rise to the mistaken impression that the journey out of Africa was unprecedented and unique. This of course ignores the fact that human ancestors pulsed out of Africa multiple times [...]
Tags:Aborigines·adaptive radiation·colonization·complex cognition·Iain Davidson·Jane Balme·language·migration·out of Africa·peopling of Australia·peopling of world·southern arc route·symbolism
There was a time when Paleolithic cave paintings were construed primarily through the lens of “art,” an interpretive stance which assumes that at least some Paleolithic peoples were “artists” who painted for pleasure. Because this lens is so subjective (and creative), all manner of interpretations were offered. Whether prosaic or fanciful, this approach raised troubling [...]
Tags:altered states of consciousness·art history·ASC·cave art·cave paintings·dark zone art·David Lewis-Williams·doodles·entoptics·flutings·form constants·France·functionalism·hallucination·Jessica Cooney·Kevin Sharpe·Leslie Van Gelder·Paleolithic·petroglyphs·play·ritual·Rouffignac·shamans·symbolism
Yesterday I spent a good portion of the day researching Upper Paleolithic “Venus” figurines. These carved female figures began appearing in the Danube corridor about 35,000 years ago, and from that time forward become increasingly widespread in time and space. They have drawn more than their fair share of scholarly attention, and anyone interested in [...]
Tags:amulets·Bananarama·Danube corridor·female figures·Female Figurines of the Upper Paleolithic·fertility cults·fertility figuines·goddesses·Karen Diane Jennett·symbolism·Texas State University·Upper Paleolithic·Venus figurines
Over at Discovery, Jennifer Viegas reports on an 11,000 year old piece of elk antler, found in Poland, that is incised with zigzags:
The artifact will be described in the March issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science. Polish archaeologist Tomasz Plonka talked to Viegas about the find:
“The ornament is composed of groups of zigzag lines [...]
Tags:adornment·altered states of consciousness·ASC·David Lewis-Williams·decoration·elk antler·entoptic·etchings·fertility·fetish·forms·geometric patterns·images·incisions·Jennifer Viegas·material objects·Plains Indians·Poland·Robert Lowie·symbolism·Tomasz Plonka·zigzag
I just finished reading David Swartz’s superb article, “Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion: Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Symbolic Power” (open access), and must recommend it not only to cultural theorists but to archaeologists as well. Several aspects of Bourdieu’s thought lend themselves readily to novel interpretations of what otherwise might appear to [...]
Tags:archaeological theory·behavorial modernity·Bridging the Study of Culture and Religion·cultural theory·David Swartz·embodiment·Foucault·Marx·materialist history·Nietzsche·paleolithic hominids·Pierre Bourdieu·political economy·ritual objects·sociology of religion·spiritualist history·symbolic power·symbolism·Weber
As you can see from Texas A&M’s anthropology aggregating site (which is one of my favorite places on the net), at least a dozen stories have appeared in the past week about new archaeological finds near Stonehenge. Using ground penetrating radar and other non-invasive technology, archaeologists have discovered another henge — which was wooden, approximately [...]
Tags:Aztecs·Babylon·barrows·burial grounds·chieftains·city-states·cosmology·Druids·Egypt·elites·empires·ground penetrating radar·materialism·Mayans·megalithic·megalithic architecture·megalithic structures·pagan·pyramids·royal family·Stonehenge·Sumeria·symbolism·temples·unilineal evolution·Woodhenge·ziggurats
