Anthropologie naive, anthropologie savante: de l'origine de l'homme, de l'imagination et des idees recues.

Anthropologie naive, anthropologie savante: de l'origine de l'homme, de l'imagination et des idees recues. As a European Palaeolithic archaeologist, with explicitly feministconcerns that include the scrutiny of the ways in which knowledge (aboutthe past) is and has been produced, the task to review these threebooks, as an ensemble, is both pertinent and excruciating. It isexcruciating because the issues raised by the intersections of the threebooks demand a substantial consideration that cannot be contained withina review essay of this sort. The first two volumes - considerations ofthe depiction of females in European Palaeolithic art - are moreobviously well-paired for a single review. The addition of the thirdvolume, which is a critical intellectual history of how we have come tothink the way we do about the origins of humans and of human culture,was an inspired editorial addition.I will provide expected summaries of each volume, but suggest fromthe outset that the Duhard treatise on the manifest 'realism'(of a certain sample) of female depictions in (French) Palaeolithic artprovides the fulcrum fulcrum:see lever. between, one the one hand, Delporte's morecomprehensive and reasoned catalogue of a wider sample of Palaeolithicfemale depictions and, on the other hand, the Stoczkowski essay that hasas one underlying thesis that it is the 'conditionedimagination' which is the source of scientific conceptions.Delporte's volume is a second and 'augmented' editionof a 1979 compendium of the same title. For nearly two decades, most ofus conversant CONVERSANT. One who is in the habit of being in a particular place, is said to be conversant there. Barnes, 162. with Palaeolithic art in the Anglophone world have wishedfor an English translation of this still-essential book. The basicinformation in this volume on the images, the sites, the issues ofchronology, along with important historical information oninterpretation and discovery could have informed dozens of publicationson the female figurines and depictions that are the poorer for theauthors' failures to consult Delporte. While I do not uncriticallyendorse Delporte's approach or interpretative positions,nonetheless, no one should consider themselves informed on the scope ofthe subject without consulting this work.Delporte, it seems, was inspired to produce a second edition in partby the several dozen new finds and by wanting to consider (or even, tohis credit, re-consider) a variety of interpretative possibilities, butalso in part by the positive reception to his 1990 volume - equallyelegant and aesthetically pleasing in presentation and format -L'image des animaux dans l'art prehistorique (Delporte 1990).The two make a handsome pair of treatises that are willing to engagewith epistemological issues, with some of the Anglo-American literature,with an emergently refined notion of the relation between technology andstyle, and with the interpretive challenges of dealing with such adiverse, temporally extensive and yet culturally loaded (to us) corpusof prehistoric imagery.As with the first edition, the second is divided into two partsfollowing an Introduction that includes concise overviews of thePalaeolithic and chronologies for Palaeolithic art. From the beginningDelporte insists on the not too well-known fact that the images ofhumans in Palaeolithic art are numerous and varied. The first majorsection of the book is the presentation of the repertoire of femaledepictions, including a few of the male ones, as well as some discussionof probable fakes. These are arranged into five geographic groups. Whilesome of these groups have notable spatial integrity, not all canimmediately be accepted as the 'objective, perfectly defined'analytical units 'lacking interpretive implications' uponwhich Delporte insists. Within this figure-by-figure catalogue -accompanied by notably fine black-and-white photos - Delporte considerseach depiction in terms of techniques used (sculpture, engraved, etc.),the themes (pregnant, svelte, with clothing, etc.) and the chronologicalinformation (often the most problematic aspect).Where relevant, Delporte brings in the 'new' observationson figurine form and treatment as elucidated by Duhard, whose treatise(see below) argues for the 'realism' of the French femaledepictions that he analysed. In general, Delporte accepts most ofDuhard's observations, and he even includes a section in hishistoric overview of Style (pp. 237-40) that summarizes Duhard'srecent work. Included here is a gentle critique: Duhard does notdifferentiate adequately between the sculpted and engraved depictions,and underestimates the (powerful, to Delporte) role of the raw materialor the 'support' in structuring many of the attributes of thefemale depictions that Duhard assigns to anatomical, physiological orothers of his realisms (see below). That is, to Duhard, many of theattributes (e.g., an arm folded across the breast of the figure) are adirect and deliberate choice on the part of the maker, in trying toachieve a realistic and functionally meaningful depiction, more thansomething that emerged out of dynamic dialogue between subject matterand the parameters and possibilities of the raw materials employed, asDelporte would often argue.The second part of Delporte's volume again comprises three'synthetic' chapters: on the geographic and chronologicaldistributions; on varying techniques of manufacture and styles; and onsignification SIGNIFICATION, French law. The notice given of a decree, sentence or other judicial act. and motivation for the imagery. Here Delporte is at hisanthropological best, and also most frustrating. He is frequentlythoughtful and interestingly prudent about the all-too-ready use inprehistoric art The perspective and/or examples in this article do not represent a world-wide view. Please [ edit] this page to improve its geographical balance. of ever-problematic terms, such as 'style'. Aswell, Delporte refuses that there will be a single unified motivationbehind the making of female depictions, but his idea of models orscenarios for the Palaeolithic ones are firmly chronocultural (there isthe Aurignacian one, the Gravettian one and the two variants of theMagdalenian one), and understandably derived from what he considers asformal variations in technique, style and 'theme'. What thishighlights, however, is the problem that we are far from the requisiteand explicit differentiation of the depictions as representation (or, asthe outcomes of culturally-inspired representational acts or practices)and as historical artefacts (that can be located in time and space)(after Mack 1996). While the two are ineluctably intertwined, they allare too often still conflated.Delporte gives one much to grapple with to enter into contest with, resolutely and courageously.See also: Grapple , from the detailed analysesof differing techniques of engraving to the final musings about theemergence of a Magdalenian world view that hinged on a 'female/animal' cosmological duality - a world view that, in connectingfemales with Nature ('le Monde n. 1. The world; a globe as an ensign of royalty.Le beau mondefashionable society. See Beau monde.Demi mondeSee Demimonde. vivant') (p. 276), is, at some15,000 years ago, a rather precocious appearance of what has been bothshown to be a historical construction within the recent western past(see Merchant 1980) and a topic of debate within feminist and otherintellectual circles (e.g. Keller 1985; Strathern 1980).In contrast, Duhard's volume is more limited in scope: in thesample of female (and human) depictions under consideration, intheoretical sensibilities and thoughtfulness, in any consideration ofarchaeological context In archaeology, not only the context (physical location) of a discovery is a significant fact, but the formation of the context is as well. An archaeological context is an event in time which has been preserved in the archaeological record. , and in entertaining multiple, plausibleinterpretive possibilities. While recognizing diversity in the forms ofthe depictions, Duhard argues that the figurative art Figurative art describes artwork - particularly paintings - which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational. The term "figurative art" is often taken to mean art which represents the human figure, or even an animal figure, and, of thePalaeolithic, based on his sample of some 200 depictions available tohim as first-hand (not photographic) evidence in collections in France,respects live morphological diversity, and is thus 'perfectlyrealistic'. In the third major part of the book he identifies atleast seven different realisms that he can recognize and document in thedepictions: anatomical, physiological, sexual, kinaesthetic Kin`aes`thet´ica. 1. Of, pertaining to, or involving, kinaesthesia.Adj. 1. kinaesthetic - of or relating to kinesthesiskinesthetic , biological,sociological and pathological realisms. This follows from anintroductory chapter that reviews various physiological attributes (e.g.obesity) along with a summary of female physiological modifications overthe life-span, and from a 120-page catalogue description, along withmany line drawings (no photographs) of the selected images.Much authority has been granted to Duhard's analysis becauseDuhard is a gynaecologist and thus 'knows perfectly the femalebody, from the anatomical and physiological point of view'(Delporte, in Preface to Duhard 1993, p. 9). While not denying thathaving been a practising gynaecologist involves an expertise and a kindof knowledge that has very relevant potential applications to theseparticular depictions of humans, there is no recognition in theenthusiasm for Duhard's vocation that western gynaecology is itselfa historically derived field of inquiry, with its own cultural andperceptual constructions. An abundant literature exists that exposes thehistories and constructed parameters of sex, sexuality, 'thebody' and even of the skeleton (e.g. Laqueur 1990, among many!). A20th-century French male gynaecologist-now-prehistorian does not bringto his study of these figurines some pure, objective trans-historicalset of reference points for a 'true' reading of the femalebody.More problematic even is that Duhard is often selective in thosefeatures that can be 'read' in some direct manner asrealistic, when often, on the very same figurine, other features (e.g.lack of hands or feet or face, or of pubic hair pubic hair,n hair in the pubic region; secondary sexual characteristic that develops during puberty. ) are patently notrealistic. Thus, while much is made of the figurines as 'figurativeart', that they are representations is often not fully recognizedin the face of Duhard's conviction that this is a realistic art.Even Delporte, in his otherwise generous Preface, notes that Duhard hasquite clearly minimized - I would say misunderstood - the symbolicdimensions of the representation of humans, especially when taken, asthey must be, in the wider contexts of the full range of Palaeolithicdepiction and representation. Any theoretical consideration of the veryphenomena and processes by which images are produced, as social andcultural practices, is not apparent in Duhard's work.Rather, he argues that there was representative choice as to whichrealistic features were selected for depiction and that the story beingtold by the depictions is to make it clear what the image is: it is ahuman, of specified sexual identity, from which we can thus 'readtheir physiological history' (p. 212). The choices made are theresult of a function, not style, for the figurines: that ofreproduction. We see in these figures a respect for 'unchangingbiological laws', which is his (tautological tau��tol��o��gy?n. pl. tau��tol��o��gies1. a. Needless repetition of the same sense in different words; redundancy.b. An instance of such repetition.2. ) proof of the realismof the figures and of the careful conscientiousness with which themakers represented the female body in 'its clinical andphsyiological diversity' (p. 212). Duhard's treatise is a richmine for those seeking some authentication of the biological destiny of/for 'la femme', via an interpretation of archaeologicalmaterials that is buttressed by what is claimed to be an authoritativevocational expertise: the gynaecological adj. 1. Of or pertaining to gynecology; same as gynecological.Adj. 1. gynaecological - of or relating to or practicing gynecology; "gynecological examination"gynecologic, gynecological . Many a trusting gynaecologicalpatient might be dismayed to find themselves portrayed as part of an'iconographic experimental base-line' (p. 212) against whichDuhard can compare the female (and human) depictions of Palaeolithicimage-makers.Although there is considerable merit in the detailed attributeanalysis that Duhard presents in his review of some 200 images - itselfan important gallery of human images that are otherwise usuallymarginalized in the celebration of most Palaeolithic art as an animalart - this is not likely to be consulted except by specialists. And, inthe wake of several decades of some very thoughtful and incisivescholarship on the complexities, dynamics and histories of understandingsex/gender in human societies, Duhard's other conclusions will beshockingly problematic and often not convincingly substantiated: thatmales were active and females peaceful and gentle, or that we are thedirect descendants of these Palaeolithic makers and their societies whohave an identical determination [to ours] to control their environment(p. 215).And so, when one turns to Stoczkowski, who is explictly andintentionally sceptical about how our ideas about human origins andearly human culture have come to be, a reader enmeshed in the previousvolume on the depictions of humans in a prehistoric art might well bestopped short in their tracks. As Stoczkowski notes, 'if certaintheories seduce us, it is [often] because they confirm our private naiveconvictions, legitimized by means of some appearances of a scientificnature' (p. 246). Although this quote is in reference to one of the20 illustrative plates at the very end of the book that are mostly 19th-and early 20th-century drawings of prehistoric life Prehistoric life are the diverse organisms that have inhabited Earth from the origin of life about 3.8 billion years ago (b.y.a.) to the Historic period (about 3500 BC) when humans began to keep written records. , it is here - in hiscaptions - that many of his more philosophical points are made in a moststraightforward way, while making a short but significant contributionto the emergent concern with visualization in archaeology.Stoczkowski's book, soon to appear in an English translationpublished by Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press (known colloquially as CUP) is a publisher given a Royal Charter by Henry VIII in 1534, and one of the two privileged presses (the other being Oxford University Press). , will be well worth the wait byEnglish readers. His first ('Prehistory and the ConditionedImagination') and last ('The Two-sided Game') chaptersare of significant interest to anyone who thinks that we can understand'the past'. He does not merely make the case that there isthis irrepressible inclination to explain new phenomena according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. preexisting pre��ex��istor pre-ex��ist ?v. pre��ex��ist��ed, pre��ex��ist��ing, pre��ex��istsv.tr.To exist before (something); precede: Dinosaurs preexisted humans.v.intr. categories, nor that the emergent scientific attempts toaccount for human origins and the development of human culture could notthemselves have unfolded within a conceptual vacuum, but that even thescientific imagination has been subject to certain pre-conditionings. Onthe one hand, he wants to identify what some of these pre-conditioningshave been, and simultaneously, while tracing the ways in which our(western) imaginations have become conditioned, he inquires into thefact that the ways in which these have been so conditioned havethemselves been so unquestioned that, he argues, this has obscured -more than illuminated - the knowledgeable thought of today. To doubtwhat we know is, he insists, productive. His intervening three chapterstake up some of the specifics of these processes, including aconsideration of anthropogenic an��thro��po��gen��ic?adj.1. Of or relating to anthropogenesis.2. Caused by humans: anthropogenic degradation of the environment. and scientific notions of human origins,a long (50+ pages) overview of the various causal scenarios for humanorigins (the varying roles of tool use, brain size, division of labour,etc.), and a consideration of the mechanisms of evolution (e.g.darwinian, lamarckian).In linking the arguments of Stoczkowski to the treatises on thefemale depictions of the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic, only a few pointscan be made here. First, they immediately implicate im��pli��cate?tr.v. im��pli��cat��ed, im��pli��cat��ing, im��pli��cates1. To involve or connect intimately or incriminatingly: evidence that implicates others in the plot.2. the interpretivenaivete na��ive��t��or na��?ve��t�� ?n.1. The state or quality of being inexperienced or unsophisticated, especially in being artless, credulous, or uncritical.2. An artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act. that pervades much of prehistoric art research. One must nowre-read the Delporte and especially the Duhard with the concept of'the conditioned imagination' in hand, to scrutinize notmerely these authors of the late 20th century, but the entireaccumulated common sensibilities of a century's worth of interestsin 'explaining' the Palaeolithic imagery. As Bynum has pointedout, 'the only past we can know is one shaped by the questions weask; yet these questions are also shaped by the context we come from,and our context includes the past' (1995: 30). Where does the veryassumption, that the category (of our construction) 'femaledepictions' has historical value or has meaning to us other thanclassificatory meaning, come from and on what basis can it be justified?Second, as Henrietta Moore has explicated, in what surely makes aprovocative companion piece to the Stoczkowski, our intellectual models(in this case, of the human past) 'depend for their impetus onimaginative possibilities they themselves cannot provide. Whatmasquerades as the academic is very often the popular in disguise, andwe would do well to remember that this sophisticated veiling mechanismis merely one of the more commonplace methods for covering over what wedo not wish to have revealed' (1994: 149-50).ReferencesBYNUM, C. 1995. Why all the fuss about the body? A medievalist'sperspective, Critical Inquiry 22: 1-33.DELPORTE, H. 1990. L'image des animaux dans l'artprehistorique. Paris: Picard.KELLER, E.F. 1985. Reflections on gender and science. New Haven New Haven,city (1990 pop. 130,474), New Haven co., S Conn., a port of entry where the Quinnipiac and other small rivers enter Long Island Sound; inc. 1784. Firearms and ammunition, clocks and watches, tools, rubber and paper products, and textiles are among the many (CT):Yale University Yale University,at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was Press.LAQUEUR, T. 1990. Making sex: body and gender from the Greeks toFreud. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press The Harvard University Press is a publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in academic publishing. It was established on January 13, 1913. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. .MACK, R. 1996. Ordering the body and embodying order: the kouros kourosArchaic Greek statue representing a standing male youth. These large stone figures began to appear in Greece c. 700 BC and closely followed the Egyptian style of geometrical, rigid figures. inArchaic Greek society. Ph.D dissertation, Department of History of Art,University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal (CA).MERCHANT, C. 1980. The death of nature: women, ecology and thescientific revolution. New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of (NY): Harper & Row.MOORE, H. 1994. The feminist anthropologist and the passion(s) of NewEve, in H. Moore, A passion for difference: 12850. Oxford: Polity Press.STRATHERN, M. 1980. No nature, no culture: the Hagen case, in C.MacCormack & M. Strathern (ed.), Nature, culture, gender. 174-222.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.