Visualising the Neolithic

by Andrew Cochrane, Andrew Cochrane (Editor), Andrew Meirion Jones (Editor)

Prehistoric imagery is enigmatic and has been largely overlooked by archaeologists; it is only in the last two decades that it has garnered serious academic attention. This volume addresses this lacuna and discusses visual expression across Neolithic Europe. The papers in this volume result from a meeting of the Neolithic Studies Group on the topic of 'Neolithic visual culture' at the British Museum in November 2010. The intention of the meeting was to assess new studies of rock art from across Britain and Ireland, and to compare these with studies of Neolithic visuality from continental Europe. Here, the scope of the original meeting is widened, and includes further papers to provide a broader context and more coherent analysis of prehistoric expressionism. The volume is organised so that the rock art and passage tomb art traditions of the Neolithic in Britain and Ireland are compared for the first time to the rock art traditions of Northern and Southern Europe, with the mortuary costumes and figurines of South-eastern Europe.

315 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 30, 2012

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a scholarly text, not a book for the casual art history reader. I read it as a companion to the early art history I am doing in a class. The cup and ring patterns are interesting (why are they all over. what do they mean??) Where the patterns are found is also interesting. Climates have changed, but some of these spots, like Lake Onega and the islands of Scotland seem unfriendly places to establish a civilization.