Synopsis
In the realm of rock art, humanlike images appear widely through time and space from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, and for some continents to later, yet still prehistoric, times. The artworks discussed in Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings range from paintings, engravings or scratchings on cave walls and rock shelters, images pecked into rocky surfaces or upon standing stones, and major sacred sites (among them Gobekli Tepe, Avebury, Stonehenge, and the Palaeolithic Chauvet Cave) in which the possibility exists of recovery of the meanings intended by the artists and sculptors. Such prospects can relate to known or inferred legends, myths, folklore, rites and ritual, and often allude to matters that recognise the unremitting benefits of human, animal and crop fertility to humankind. Occasionally, relevant art forms are present not in whole but as pars pro toto, in which a part stands for or symbolises the whole. Images or artistic compositions often articulate, in ways more or less manifest, scenes of dramatic action as with hunting and dancing, mating and birthing, ritual and ceremony, some of which may openly or latently express yearnings for the rewards of fruitful fecundity – as with the much-loved worldview known as the hieros gamos or Sacred Marriage.
Table of Contents
Continental Europe and Britain and Ireland
Chapter 1: Fertility Petroglyphs at Drombeg Stone Circle Help Explain Through Hieros Gamos the Calendar Planning Principles of Drombeg and Other Recumbent Stone Circles Including Stonehenge - Terence Meaden
Chapter 2: Hieros Gamos—ἱερός γάμος—Symbol of Fertility and Orphism in Thracian Ideology - Stavros D. Kiotsekoglou
Chapter 3: An Image Description Method to Access Palaeolithic Art: Discovering a Visual Narrative of Gender Relations in the Pictorial Material of Chauvet Cave - Gernot Grube
Chapter 4: The Grotta Palmieri of Lettopalena (Chieti, Abruzzo): Preliminary Presentation of a New Site with Rock Paintings - Tomaso Di Fraia
Chapter 5: Representations of the Human Figure in the Anfratto Palmerini on Monte La Queglia: Engravings, Paintings, Symbols - Guido Palmerini
Chapter 6: A Unique Example of Engraved Transfigurative Rock Art at Avebury Cove in Wessex, Southern England - Terence Meaden
Chapter 7: Anthropomorphic Images in High Lunigiana, Massa Carrara, Italy - Angelina Magnotta
Chapter 8: A Rock Art Site on the Avebury Hills in Wessex Whose Images Express a Perception of Death and Possibly a Mystical Link to the Solstice Sunsets - Terence Meaden
Asia
Chapter 9: Gobekli Tepe, Anatolia, Turkey – the Womb of the Mother Goddess - Anu Nagappa
Chapter 10: Revelatory Style Art: The Human-plant Engagement Revealed by the Jiangjunya Petroglyph, China - Feng Qu
Australia
Chapter 11: Anthropomorphic Engraved Images in South-East Queensland, Australia - Marisa GiorgiChapter 12: Anthropomorphic Images in Australian Rock Art through Time and Space - Mike Donaldson
Africa
Chapter 13: The Postures of Childbirth in the Bovidian Women in the Rock Art of Tassili N’ajjer, Central Sahara of Algeria - Hassiba Safrioun and Louiza Belkhiri
North America
Chapter 14: What Can Be Learnt from Body Postures and Gestures of Anthropomorphic Figures in Petroglyphs of the Southwest USA - Carol Patterson
Chapter 15: Some Select Vulva Rock Petroglyphs and Forms in North America - Herman E. Bender
Chapter 16: Manitou or Spirit Stones and Their Meanings, Personification and Link to the Native American Cultural Landscape in North America - Herman E. Bender
Chapter 17: Multi-Layered Meanings in Anthropomorphic Figures in Yokuts and Western Mono Rock Art, California - Mary A. Gorden
Chapter 18: The Thunderbird in Native American Rock Art - Herman E. Bender
South America
Chapter 19: Anthropomorphic Representations in the Cave Paintings Located in the Archaeological Region of Seridó in Brazil - Nathalia Nogueira and Daniela Cisneiros
Chapter 20: Anthropomorphic Figures at the Alto De La Guitarra Site, Moche Valley, Peru - María Susana Barrau and Daniel Castillo Benítez
Chapter 21: Exceptional Anthropomorphic Figures at the Monte Calvario Site, Poro Poro, Cajamarca, Peru - Daniel Castillo Benítez and María Susana Barrau
Index
About the Author
Terence Meaden has Oxford University degrees in archaeology (MSc) and physics (MA, DPhil). Formerly a physics professor, in retirement he is working full time in fieldwork and landscape archaeology studying aspects of the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, chiefly in Ireland, Scotland and England. Recent publications include Stonehenge, Avebury and Drombeg Stone Circles Deciphered (2016), contributions to the Edinburgh University Journal of Lithic Studies (2017), and The Origins of the Universe, Earth, Life and Humanity (2018).
Herman Bender is an independent researcher with a background in geology and industry. An amateur astronomer with decades of experience and a historical consultant, he has been internationally published in the fields of archeoastronomy, prehistoric trail research, petroform research, applied geophysics and cultural landscape studies.
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