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Interpretation of Neolithic Figurine Art

 

CHAPTER 1 - EARLY HUMAN FIGURINE ART


Early figurine art has appeared in the Late Paleolithic. It is a phenomenon repeated often and in distant geographical coordinates. There has always been a frequent tendency to be related to human religious beliefs; however it is a great challenge to be investigated through a social approach of religiousness.

We do not know whether time-consuming figurine art is evidence of hidden cultural structures, neither if anybody could have the intelligence and capability to become a modeller.

Neolithic figurines are numerous in the Balkans, the South-Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean, their number decreasing suddently by the end of the period. They present an enormous variety of subjects but they are not spectacular concerning the raw materials they are made of as it happens with figurines in historical times. Due to the fact that they are often surface finds (hence without stratigraphical coordinates) they are difficult to be accurately dated and to form homogenous entities according to their provenance or typology. For this reason there has not been, up to present, any commonly accepted theoretical and methodological approach of Neolithic figurines.

Introduction| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3