How can archaeologists interpret ancient art and images if they do not treat them as symbols or signifiers of identity? Traditional approaches to the archaeology of art have borrowed from the history of art and the anthropology of art by focusing on iconography, meaning, communication and identity. This puts the archaeology of art at a disadvantage as an understanding of iconography and meaning requires a detailed knowledge of historical or ethnographic context unavailable to many archaeologists. Rather than playing to archaeology’s weaknesses, the authors argue that an archaeology of art should instead play to archaeology’s strength: the material character of archaeological evidence. Using case studies - examining rock art, figurines, beadwork, murals, coffin decorations, sculpture and architecture from Europe, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and north Africa -the authors develop an understanding of the affective and effective nature of ancient art and imagery. An analysis of a series of material-based practices, from gesture and improvisation to miniaturisation and gigantism, assembly and disassembly and the use of distinctions in colour enable key concepts, such as style and meaning, to be re-imagined as affective practices. Recasting the archaeology of art as the study of affects offers a new prospectus for the study of ancient art and imagery.

The book discusses the creative mental processes of the prehistoric and contemporaryartists, as well as of the archaeologists studying them from the perspective ofcognition and art. Its intention is to highlight the artistic thinking within theimagination of the archaeologist, as well as to discuss the concepts of imagination andart in the current scientific research.From this perspective the book suggests a type of research closer to the complexity ofthe human nature and human thinking that can approach cultural and psychologicalsubjects ignored until now.It is hoped that one of the results of the book will be the formulation of new meaningsfor art from the perspective of archaeology.Responding to the recent ongoing growing interest in the art-archaeology interaction,the editor has carefully selected papers written by a series of eminent European andAmerican scholars with a background in ancient and contemporary art, symbolicthinking, semiotics, and archaeological imagination, with the intention of introducingnew arguments and discussions into the emerging art-archaeology discourse. Thebook is composed of three parts: “Art and the ancient mind”, “Experiencing theancient mind”, and “Exploring the act of creation”.

This illustrated study "uses works of art and the revelations of archaeology as evidence of the ancient Greeks' respect for reason and scientific inquiry and of their humanistic worldview--values that dominate Western civilization to the present day"--From jacket.

Of all avian groups, birds of prey in particular have long been a prominent subject of fascination in many human societies. This book demonstrates that the art and materiality of human engagements with raptors has been significant through deep time and across the world, from earliest prehistory to Indigenous thinking in the present day. Drawing on a wide range of global case studies and a plurality of complementary perspectives, it explores the varied and fluid dynamics between humans and birds of prey as evidenced in this diverse art-historical and archaeological record. From their depictions as powerful beings in visual art and their important roles in Indigenous mythologies, to the significance of their body parts as active agents in religious rituals, the intentional deposition of their faunal remains and the display of their preserved bodies in museums, there is no doubt that birds of prey have been figures of great import for the shaping of human society and culture. However, several of the chapters in this volume are particularly concerned with looking beyond the culture–nature dichotomy and human-centred accounts to explore perspectival and other post-humanist thinking on human–raptor ontologies and epistemologies. The contributors recognize that human–raptor relationships are not driven exclusively by human intentionality, and that when these species meet they relate-to and become-with one another. This 'raptor-with-human'-focused approach allows for a productive re-framing of questions about human–raptor interstices, enables fresh thinking about established evidence and offers signposts for present and future intra-actions with birds of prey.