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Seeing visual narrative. New methodologies in the study of prehistoric visual depictions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2014

Liliana Janik
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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to establish how visual narratives can be used in the social context of storytelling, enabling the remembrance of events and those who participated in them in prehistory around the White Sea in the northernmost part of Europe. One of the largest complexes of fisher-gatherer-hunter art is located here, dating from the Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age (ca 6000–4000 B.P.). A number of methodological strands are brought together to aid in the interpretation of the art, combining Western art-historical and non-Western visual traditions that challenge our modern ways of seeing. The paper proposes an unconventional interpretation of this rock art, in which the prehistoric imagery is ‘translated’ via two short films creating the visual link between past and the present.

Keywords

prehistoric artperception of visionrock carvings
Type
Articles
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , June 2014 , pp. 103 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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