Search results for ""Author Robert G. Bednarik""

This book examines systematically both the theoretical and practical issues that have characterized the discipline over the past two centuries. Some of the historically most consequential mistakes in archaeology are dissected and explained, together with the effects of the related controversies. The theoretical basis of the discipline is deliberated in some detail, leading to the diagnosis that there are in fact numerous archaeologies, all with different notions of commensurability, ideologies, and purposes. Their various perspectives of what archaeology is and does are considered and the range of views of the human past is illuminated in this book. How humans became what they are today is of profound importance to understanding ourselves, both as a species and individually. Our psychology, cognition, diseases, intellect, communication forms, physiology, predispositions, ideologies, culture, genetics, behavior, and, perhaps most importantly, our reality constructs are all the result of our evolutionary history. Therefore the models archaeology—especially Pleistocene archaeology—creates of our past are not just narratives of what happened in human history; they are fundamental to every aspect of our existence.

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Gudenus Cave summarises the author's 60 years of research (1962 to 2021) at the earliest human occupation site known in Austria. The cave had been excavated in 1883-84 without separation of sediment layers, and subsequent endeavours to clarify its stratigraphy and dating have failed. The book describes the strategies and methods of studying a Pleistocene cave site that had been regarded as fully excavated, and their long-term applications. A significant part of the fieldwork was conducted before 1967, but the use of analytical processes and literature review continued for several decades after that. Through sustained interrogation of the site's clear palynology and lithic typology, the volume succeeds in clarifying the cave's stratigraphical sequence and placing its several Palaeolithic occupations chronologically. This has significant effects on our understanding of the local Palaeolithic sequence that has been the subject of various controversies. These are discussed in the concluding chapter, which places Gudenus Cave first within its Austrian context and then into the wider picture. The book thus shows that intensive archaeological research can reinstate the scientific importance of a site even after it has been declared bereft of all sediment.

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This book contains a series of selected papers presented at two symposia entitled ‘Scientific study of rock art’, one held in the IFRAO Congress of Rock Art in La Paz, Bolivia, in June 2012, the other held in the IFRAO Congress in Cáceres, Spain, in September 2015; as well as some invited papers from leading rock art scientists. The core topic of the book is the presentation of scientific approaches to the materiality of rock art, ranging from recording and sampling methods to data analyses. These share the fact that they provide means of testing hypotheses and/or of finding trends in the data which can be used as independent sources of evidence to support specific interpretations. The issue of the materiality of visual productions of the distant past, which in archaeological theory has attracted much attention recently and has stimulated much conceptual debate, is addressed through a variety of scientific approaches, including fieldwork methods, laboratory work techniques and/or data analysis protocols. These, in turn, will provide new insights into human agency and people-image engagements through the study of rock art production, display and use.

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