Interpreting Ancient Figurines
Context, Comparison, and Prehistoric Art

This book examines ancient figurines from several world areas to address recurring challenges in the interpretation of prehistoric art.

Richard G. Lesure (Author)

9780521197458, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 February 2011

260 pages, 95 b/w illus. 6 maps 6 tables
26.2 x 18.5 x 1.8 cm, 0.76 kg

"Recommended." -Choice

This book examines ancient figurines from several world areas to address recurring challenges in the interpretation of prehistoric art. Sometimes figurines from one context are perceived to resemble those from another. Richard G. Lesure asks whether such resemblances play a role in our interpretations. Early interpreters seized on the idea that figurines were recurringly female and constructed the fanciful myth of a primordial Neolithic Goddess. Contemporary practice instead rejects interpretive leaps across contexts. Dr Lesure offers a middle path: a new framework for assessing the relevance of particular comparisons. He develops the argument in case studies that consider figurines from Paleolithic Europe, the Neolithic Near East and Formative Mesoamerica.

Introduction
1. The travails - and continued relevance - of universalist explanation
2. Comparison and context
3. The questions we ask of images
4. A cross-cultural explanation for female figurines?
5. Mesoamerican figurines and the contextualist appeal to universal truths
6. Figurines, goddesses, and the texture of long-term structures in the Near East
7. On figurines, femaleness, and comparison.

Subject Areas: Prehistoric archaeology [HDDA], Art of indigenous peoples [ACBK]