How to Cite

Haidle, Miriam Noël et al. (Eds.): Images, Gestures, Voices, Lives. What Can We Learn from Paleolithic Art?, Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Publishing, 2025 (ROCEEH Communications, Volume 2). https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1453

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Identifiers

https://doi.org/10.17885/heiup.1453
ISBN 978-3-96822-290-5 (PDF)
ISBN 978-3-96822-291-2 (Hardcover)

Published

08/14/2025

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Authors

Miriam Noël Haidle (Ed.), Martin Porr (Ed.), Sibylle Wolf (Ed.), Nicholas J. Conard (Ed.)

Images, Gestures, Voices, Lives. What Can We Learn from Paleolithic Art?

ROCEEH Communications

The concept of ‘Palaeolithic art’ and its study have changed considerably in recent decades. The modern notion of ‘art’ is cross-culturally and diachronically problematic. The phenomenon cannot be reduced to material visual culture, but also has acoustic, haptic and other dynamic aspects. It must be understood as a variety of processes that can encompass both the everyday and the extraordinary. In this volume, archaeologists, philosophers and anthropologists approach ‘Palaeolithic art’ from different perspectives, including its conceptualisation, aesthetics, relations to art history and art brut. The contributions deal with the challenge of materiality, evolutionary aspects, physical re-enactment by actors, digital technologies as a means of interpreting art objects, and the protection of cultural heritage. The volume offers innovative insights into past practices and contemporary ideas and approaches related to Palaeolithic art, based on careful empirical research combined with reflective and sophisticated theoretical approaches.

Miriam N. Haidle is a Paleolithic archaeologist and paleoanthropologist. Since 2008, she coordinates the Research Center “The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans” (ROCEEH) at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Her research focuses on evidence of cognitive and cultural evolution from material remains. In 2021, she co-curated the exhibition Menschsein. Anfänge unserer Kultur (Being human. The beginnings of our culture) at the Archaeological Museum, Frankfurt/Main.

Martin Porr is Associate Professor of Archaeology and a member of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia (UWA). He was recently awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship for the project Deep Time Images in the Age of Globalisation: Contemporary Heritage, Future Opportunities. He has published widely on Palaeolithic art and archaeology as well as general theoretical aspects of archaeological and rock art research.

Sibylle Wolf is a prehistorian by training. Since 2016, she is scientific member and scientific coordinator of the Senckenberg Centre HEP at the University of Tübingen. She is an expert on Paleolithic figurative artworks and personal ornamentation. Her research focuses on osseous raw materials. Wolf is involved in numerous museum exhibitions.

Nicholas J. Conard is a Palaeolithic archaeologist. He is the director of the Department for Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, the founding director of the Institute of Archaeological Sciences at the University of Tübingen, and the scientific director of the State Museum of Prehistory in Blaubeuren. His work focuses on cultural evolution in the Middle to Late Pleistocene. He is head of research at UNESCO world heritage sites of “Caves and Ice Age Art of the Swabian Jura” in Germany and “The Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour: The Pleistocene Occupation Sites of South Africa” as well as the famous spear-site of Schöningen, Germany. His team discovered numerous ivory figurines and musical instruments from the Aurignacian in the caves of the Swabian Jura.

Chapters

Table of Contents
Pages
PDF
Title
I-IV
Dedication
V
Contents
VII-VIII
Martin Porr, Miriam Noël Haidle, Sibylle Wolf, Nicholas J. Conard
Introduction
Images, Gestures, Voices, Lives. What Can We Learn from Palaeolithic Art?
1-13
Part I: Palaeolithic ‘Art’ and the Eternal Quest for Beauty
15
Rémi Labrusse
The Collapse of the Origins
Prehistory Beyond Art History
17-27
Thomas Heyd
Understanding Palaeolithic Figurative Manifestations as Art
an Hermeneutic Perspective
29-46
Harald Floss
Modern Art, Prehistory and the Search for a Universal Human Language
With an Analysis of Art Brut
47-59
Oscar Moro Abadía, Bryn Tapper
Beyond Art?
Recent Developments in the Conceptualization of ‘Paleolithic Art’
61-74
Part II: The Challenge of Materiality
75
Shumon T. Hussain
The Animal Within
The Triple Inheritance of Late Pleistocene Rock Art
77-109
Chris Low
Insights from the San: A Role for San Aesthetics in the Archaeology of Art
111-128
Part III: Beyond Evolution and History
129
Marc Kissel, Agustín Fuentes
Semiosis, Niche Construction, and How We Can Better Engage Paleolithic 'Art' in Human Evolution
131-146
Rimtautas Dapschauskas, Andrew W. Kandel
Derivatives of Ritual
Investigating the Origins of Paleolithic Art from the Perspective of an Evolutionary-Psychological Archaeology
147-180
Part IV: Perception, Practice and Performance
181
Adeline Schebesch
The Lady and the "Lionmen"
An Experimental Study in Body Language of the Upper Palaeolithic Anthropomorphic Figurines of Hohle Fels Cave, Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave and Geissenklösterle Cave, Swabian Jura
183-202
Part V: From Digital Documentation to Meaningful Analysis and Protection
203
Ewa Dutkiewicz
3D Models of Some Figurines from the Swabian Aurignacian
New Insights into the Markings
205-222
Nicholas J. Conard, Conny Meister, Nuria Sanz, Sibylle Wolf
The Path to UNESCO World Heritage
Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura
223-245
The Authors
247-250

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