berghahn New York · Oxford

Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword: Culturing Emergent Bodies
Rosemary Joyce

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Towards a Culturing of the Paleolithic Body
April Nowell and Benjamin Collins

Chapter 1. Enveloping Oneself in Others: Semiotic, Spatial, and Temporal Dimensions of Ostrich Eggshell Bead Use in Southern Africa
Peter J. Mitchell and Brian A. Stewart

Chapter 2. Manufacturing Social Landscapes: Bead Production, Exchange, and Social Connections at Grassridge Rockshelter, South Africa
Benjamin Collins, Amy Hatton, April Nowell, and Christopher J. H. Ames

Chapter 3. Perspectives on Stone Age Sociality: A New Role for Ostrich Eggshell Beads
Jennifer M. Miller

Chapter 4. A Shell Bead from a Faraway Ocean: Significance Assessment of a Single Indigenous Ornament from Southern Australia
Keryn Walshe

Chapter 5. Building identities and social organization throughout the Early Holocene: Interpreting the personal adornments of the last hunter-gatherers in Portugal
Lino André

Chapter 6. Beads on the edge of the world: Atlantic identity and sociality during the Upper Paleolithic of western Iberia
Nuno Bicho and Lino André

Chapter 7. Constructing Identity: Body decoration and modification in the Swabian Aurignacian
Ewa Dutkiewicz, Sibylle Wolf, Elizabeth C. Velliky, and Nicholas J. Conard

Chapter 8. What’s in a color? Ochre use in the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa
Tammy Hodgskiss

Chapter 9. The Best Dressed Hominin: Clothing, tanning and textile production in the Paleolithic
April Nowell and Aurora Skala

Conclusion: Culturing Bodies in the Past: Similarities Across Diversity
Benjamin Collins and April Nowell

Index

Culturing the Body

Past Perspectives on Identity and Sociality

Edited by Benjamin Collins and April Nowell

Foreword by Rosemary Joyce

326 pages, 65 ills., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-80539-460-0 Hb Published (March 2024)

eISBN 978-1-80539-461-7 eBook

Details

“As direct evidence for body decoration and modification is scarce, due to the perishable nature of most of the measures, the authors in this book give examples of evidence how archaeologists can find and reconstruct body decoration, as well as what these practices mean for humans in relation to their individual and social identity.” • Ewa Dutkiewicz, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte Archäologisches Zentrum

The human body is both the site of lived experiences and a means of communicating those experiences to a diverse audience. Hominins have been culturing their bodies, that is adding social and cultural meaning through the use pigments and objects, for over 100,000 years. There is archaeological evidence for practices of adornment of the body by late Pleistocene and early Holocene hominins, including personal ornaments, clothing, hairstyles, body painting, and tattoos. These practices have been variously interpreted to reflect differences such as gender, status, and ethnicity, to attract or intimidate others, and as indices of a symbolically mediated self and personal identity. These studies contribute to a novel and growing body of evidence for diversity of cultural expression in the past, something that is a hallmark of human cultures today.

Benjamin Collins is affiliated with the Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba, and the Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town. His research explores social networks and connections among past forager societies.

April Nowell is a Paleolithic archaeologist and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Victoria in Canada. She directs an international team of researchers in the study of Paleolithic sites in Jordan and collaborates with colleagues on the study of cave art in Australia. She is known for her publications on cognitive archaeology, Paleolithic art, the archaeology of children and the relationship between science, pop culture, and the media. She is the author of Growing Up in the Ice Age (2021).

Subject: Archaeology Anthropology (General)

Area:

BISAC: SOC003000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Archaeology; SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; ART055000 ART/Body Art & Tattooing