Description
Book SynopsisThe Prehistoric Rock Art of Portugal presents significant interpretive perspectives in Portuguese rock art research and offers an excellent representation of core rock art areas, along with current thinking and interpretations.
The various chapters deliver a personal approach to the many issues, themes and approaches that are embedded within the rock art of the outpost of western Atlantic Europe. Ethnographical perspectives have often dominated the study of rock art but unlike other well-studied regions, the western Iberian Peninsula is absent of an ethnographical or ethno-historical past and therefore the production of rock art can only be archaeologically assessed. Thus, the work promotes interpretive perspectives on Portuguese rock art, illustrating the richness, chronology and context of these unique artistic expressions and explores the variability of rock art imagery and the diversity of landscapes and social contexts in which it was produced.
Although focusing on Portuguese rock art the book includes a number of universal themes that will appeal to a broad range of scholars researching in archaeology and anthropology, history of art, as well as professionals engaged in rock art heritage and conservation.
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Changes and dynamics in western Iberian prehistoric rock art; 1. The Discovery of Paleolithic Art in Portugal: The Escoural Cave; 2. Looking Through Rock Eyes: Being Upper Palaeolithic in The Côa Valley and its Territory of Lithic Raw Material Sourcing; 3. The Palaeolithic Rock Art of Northern Portugal and Galicia (Spain); 4. Philosophical Mechanics of An Engraved Horse: The Upper Palaeolithic Open-Air Rock Art Within The Tagus River Basin, Central Portugal; 5. From Hunter Gatherer to Farmer or Something in Between: The Rock Art of Early Holocene; 6. Understanding the Painted Form: The Archaeometric Studies; 7. Schematic Art Paintings in Northern Portugal; 8. Painted Schematic Rock Art Within Central and Southern Portugal; 9. The Tagus River Rock Art (Central Portugal); 10. The Guadiana Valley Rock Art Complex; 11. Picturing In Western Iberian Neolithic Dolmens; 12. Atlantic Rock Art of the Northwest Portugal; 13. Thinking about the Bronze Age Rock Art of Portugal. What's New?; 14. Iron Age Rock Art: Old and New Figures; 15. The Use of Geographic Information Systems [Gis] in the Field of Rock Art
