Stephanie Moser

The visual language of archaeology: a case study of the Neanderthals

Two notable reconstructions of Neanderthal individuals are analysed in this perceptive study of the role of visual reconstructions in archaeological debate. The author concludes that such images are more than popular by-products of academic discussion, and play a crucial role in the construction of archaeological arguments.

Representing archaeological knowledge in museums: Exhibiting human origins and strategies for change

Abstract Archaeological representation is a relatively new field of inquiry in the discipline, focusing on the construction of knowledge by the diverse range of ‘non-academic‘ media that present the past. In this analysis the subject of museum display and the construction of disciplinary knowledge is addressed, with a case study on the way the subject of human origins has been exhibited. After an initial discussion outlining the manner in which displays construct the past, I proceed to establish that displays of human origins have created a highly formulaic and restrictive version of our evolution as a species. This critique is then followed by a set of five proposed strategies for dismantling the display canon so firmly entrenched in museum practice. These are: 1) engaging the present; 2) challenging the iconography; 3) abandoning the narrative; 4) telling different stories; and 5) harnessing emotion.

Science, stratigraphy and the deep sequence: excavation vs regional survey and the question of gendered practice in archaeology

Do gender roles, or expectations about gender roles, affect what kind of study is pursued by the individual researcher? Has excavation been rather a mans business? And if so, have other kinds of study — regional survey, for example — rather become womens business? These issues are explored as they are illuminated by the research careers of two eminent Australian contemporaries.

Visions of the Australian Pleistocene: Prehistoric Life at Lake Mungo and Kutikina

In addition to the vast number of historic images of Australian Aboriginal peoples, a number of archaeological images depicting life in prehistoric times in Australia have recently been produced (Attwood and Edwards 1987; Deiley 1979; Jones 1987a; Wood 1977). While the historic images include drawings, paintings and photographs produced in association with the early scientific expeditions to Australia and the European settlement of the country, the prehistoric images include drawings and paintings which have been produced in association with the excavation of major archaeological sites in the country. The historic images appear in colonial accounts and expedition memoirs, and have been used as a documentary resource in a wide range of disciplines including history, anthropology, archaeology and art history, and the prehistoric images appear in popular scientific texts and have been used as a resource for communicating archaeological findings to the wider public. While the historic images have been used to assess the ways in which the Europeans rationalised their invasion of Australia and their oppression of the Aboriginal population, the prehistoric images can be used to assess the way in which prehistorians have rationalised their reconstruction of prehistoric behaviour and their development of theories about how the continent was first colonised by human populations. In essence, both the historic and prehistoric visions of Australian Aboriginal peoples constitute a critical resource for understanding both the colonial construction of Australian Aboriginal identity and the archaeological construction of prehistoric Aboriginal lifeways. Despite the fact that the prehistoric images or visual reconstructions are limited in number, they still make an important contribution to the rich iconographic tradition of depicting Australian Aboriginal peoples. Similar to the historic images, the value of the prehistoric images lies not so much what they tell us about what the Aboriginal peoples looked like and what they did , but also in what they tell us about ourselves and how we have constructed knowledge about Australian prehistory. This paper constitutes a preliminary attempt to outline the role that such images play in the conceptualisation of the Australian Pleistocene.

Robin Derricourt . Antiquity imagined: the remarkable legacy of Egypt and the ancient Near East. 2015. xi+288 pages, 40 bw 978-1-78453-275-8 hardback £25.

pottery from elsewhere in the Levant. Quantities are by sherd count, but are transformed to percentages in the graphs. Given the differences in sample size from phase to phase, and uncertainty about the length of each phase, the graphs do not make it very clear whether the differences in the distributions are significant or not, and a simple statistical analysis would have been welcome. The bulk of the chapter is a fairly exhaustive illustrated catalogue of sherds organised by form and phase. The plates are clear and very useful for comparison, although the convention for showing burnish (solid black) could obscure details in some cases; there are two colour plates at the end. The assemblages have strong connections to the ‘dark-faced burnished’ tradition in the northern Levant, but also to the tradition of cord-marking, found in high proportions at sites of the central Levant.