2024/06/12 by Fiona Hughes · 1 voice
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeology and Rock Art Studies #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayae011
openalex publication_date 2024/06/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Abstract I initiate the concept of ‘making-remote’ to capture various strategies for representing the human in late Palaeolithic cave art. Drawing out the role of remoteness within phenomenological accounts of perception (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty), as well as offering an analysis of a wide range of archaeological evidence, I argue that realism does not capture the specificity of these human representations. In contrast to naturalistic animal representations, humans are consistently represented with a high degree of abstraction e.g. schematisation and abbreviation. I also argue for a site-specific distinction between deep caves and rock-shelters. Following Bourdier (2010) and Pinçon (2012), art at sites such as Roc-aux-Sorciers is best understood as stylised ‘public art’. Meanwhile, the highly expressive and realist art of La Marche is domestic in contrast to the exclusively symbolic art of deep caves. In conclusion I argue that ‘making-remote’ in cave art’s human representations exhibits complex relations to self and others.