Read more
This book examines ancient figurines from several world areas to address recurring challenges in the interpretation of prehistoric art.
List of contents
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.
About the author
Richard G. Lesure is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. He conducts archaeological fieldwork in Mexico and has authored papers on prehistoric figurines in Current Anthropology and the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. His most recent book is Settlement and Subsistence in Early Formative Soconusco.
Summary
Examines ancient figurines from several world areas to address recurring challenges in the interpretation of prehistoric art. Early interpreters seized fancifully on resemblances between figurines from different places, but contemporary practice rejects such interpretive leaps. Lesure argues for the necessity of comparison and offers a new analytical framework.
