Overview

This book introduces readers to the belief and symbolism present in the prehistoric art of the Bering Strait region. For about a century, the archaeology of this area has mainly focused on material, economic, and technological perspectives, leaving studies of prehistoric spirituality, religion, and cosmology to be under-conceptualized. This text questions the nature of materiality, and the relationship between it and spirituality. It employs an analytical and methodological approach located within the frameworks of practice theory and animist ontologies to open up thought-provoking avenues for interpretive possibility. This book also provides new knowledge about the prehistoric material culture of ancient Inuit people, and offers an assessment of contemporary archaeological theories, such as cognitive archaeology, structural archaeology, and shamanism theory, in order to examine the reliability of these theories in the studies of prehistoric art. According to the ontological trend which has constituted a powerful challenge to traditional nature/culture and body/mind dichotomies, this book reconsiders prehistoric Inuit cultures, providing an analysis of therianthropic motifs on prehistoric ivories to explore potential shamanism within ontological and cosmological structures.

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9781527557529

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Feng Qu (Gilbert) received his PhD from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, USA, in 2013. He is an archaeologist and anthropologist, and the founding Director of the Arctic Studies Center at Liaocheng University, China. His research focuses on Arctic prehistory, the Chinese Neolithic and Bronze ages, Inuit ethnography, and Chinese Tungus cultures. He has published numerous journal articles related to shamanism, totemism, animism, symbolism, and rituals in both English and Chinese. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Arctic Studies.

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