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Palaeolithic Art as Cultural Memory: a Case Study of the Aurignacian Art of Southwest Germany

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2010

Martin Porr
Martin Porr
Affiliation:
Archaeology, M405, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia, Email: martin.porr@uwa.edu.au
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Abstract

This article examines aspects of social memory in the Aurignacian mobiliary art of southwest Germany. An analytical distinction is introduced between cultural and communicative memory with different characteristics and functions in Palaeolithic social life. It is argued that the statuettes are reflections of cultural memory, but also stood in a complex and unstable relationship with the flexible conditions of everyday life. The figurative objects are not passive reproductions of collective ideas. Rather, they have to be seen as products of an active individual and intense concern with the field of meanings and associations of cultural memory, and consequently represent individual variations of a socially shared meaningful ideology

Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Archaeological Journal , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , February 2010 , pp. 87 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research 2010

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