Overview

Prehistoric human images have fascinated archaeological, anthropological and social researchers for many generations. They are known from the Upper Palaeolithic, but in the Neolithic their number increased significantly, forming part of the archaeological record throughout Europe. In Iberia, especially in the south, thousands of figurines have been preserved. These are small human figures of men, women, boys and girls, with female images predominating in funerary and domestic contexts. This volume brings us closer to the current state of knowledge in Iberia, from romantic archaeology to processual and post-processual archaeology. The book explores the number, geographical spread and extended chronology of the figurines – from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BC – and the social practices that lay behind their production and use. From goddesses to women, this exceptional legacy indicates an unprecedented role for women in these societies. The figurines illuminate the representation of identity, its chronological depth, the existence of workshops and distribution circuits, and the continued manipulation of these pieces over generations.

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9781805831372

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Primitiva Bueno Ramírez, Professor of Prehistory at the University of Alcalá, is a specialist in megaliths. She has field experience in Europe’s most emblematic monuments, where the performance of death included decorated walls, coloured corpses, steles, statues and menhirs, as well as figurines. She has taken an interest in reconstructing these processes beyond architectural typologies, to provide evidence on identity, gender, provenance, burial garments and shared iconographies on both a small and large scale. Jorge A. Soler Diaz is the director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Alicante. As coordinator of major exhibitions at the Archaeological Museum of Alicante, he has participated in projects with museums in Asia, Europe and America. He is specialist in late prehistoric collective burials in the caves of the region, from which he has studied collections of decorated long bones, interpreting them as ideological systems for the establishment of social pacts.

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