Theme:
1. The Material Record: Current Trends and Future Directions
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
Shifting Focus: The Cultural Context of Figurines in the European Neolithic
Content:
Figurines and other figurative representations, both anthropomorphic and zoomorphic, are an essential part of many cultural phenomena of the European Neolithic. They have been widely discussed in research with respect to their making and meaning, but their interpretation is still elusive even today. Nevertheless, they continue to fascinate, as they offer a glimpse into the mind of Neolithic people and can be used to reconstruct their makers' view on the world and on themselves.
This session aims to contribute to discussions surrounding the social significance of figurines. Rather than discussing typologies or single individual pieces, we want to focus on figurines embedded in their cultural context. What characterizes societies that use figurines in contrast to those who do not? Which role do figurines have alongside other manifestations of belief, such as enclosures, burials in settlements and cemeteries, depositions or even other figural objects?
In this respect, changes and discontinuities are especially interesting: changes in quantity, quality, shape/appearance, sensory qualities, use and depositional modalities, but also changes in distribution over time, within the same cultural phenomenon or throughout larger areas.
Presentations can address figurines in their associated cultural context roughly between the seventh and the fourth millennium calBC.
Keywords:
Neolithic, figurines, cultural context, figurative finds
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
Main organiser:
Valeska Becker (Denmark) 1
Co-organisers:
Daniela Hofmann (Norway) 2
Rune Iversen (Denmark) 1
Affiliations:
1. University of Copenhagen
2. University of Bergen
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