This book offers an overview of iconographic methods and their application to archaeological analysis. It offers a truly interdisciplinary approach that draws equally from art history and anthropology. Vernon James Knight, Jr begins with an historiographical overview, addressing the methodologies and theories that underpin both archaeology and art history. He then demonstrates how iconographic methods can be integrated with the scientific methods that are at the core of much archaeological inquiry. Focusing on artifacts from the pre-Columbian civilizations of North and Meso-American sites, Knight shows how the use of iconographic analysis yields new insights into these objects and civilizations.
• First book to synthesize methods for prehistoric iconographic research • Offers a truly interdisciplinary approach that draws equally from art history and anthropology • Provides an important contribution to the growing literature on cognitive archaeology
Contents
1. Preliminaries: an iconography of prehistoric images; 2. Style; 3. Form and referent; 4. Configurational analysis; 5. Ethnographic analogy; 6. The logic of iconographic method in prehistory.
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