Douglass W. Bailey. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic.

Douglass W. Bailey. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic. DOUGLASS W. BAILEY. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation andCorporeality cor��po��re��al?adj.1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of the body. See Synonyms at bodily.2. Of a material nature; tangible. in the Neolithic. xx+244 pages, 69 illustrations. 2005.Abingdon & 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 : Routledge; 0-415-33151-X hardback;0-415-33152-8 paperback 25.99 [pounds sterling]. Whatever you know about prehistoric figurines, this book will openyour eyes and make you think. It can be judged with reference to its twocore aims. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The first is to cut loose from conventional archaeological debateabout the interpretation of figurines and the people who used them, byunderstanding figurines as dynamic elements of visual and sensualculture. Figurines, Bailey argues, would have been looked at, held andthought through, particularly as potent, miniature andthree-dimensional, representations of the human body (and of otherfigurines) that evoked strong emotional responses in both theprehistoric past and the present: stimulating and empowering, but alsoseducing and overwhelming, the senses and thoughts of the people whoexperienced them, and with sociopolitical so��ci��o��po��li��ti��cal?adj.Involving both social and political factors.sociopoliticalAdjectiveof or involving political and social factors consequences for their senseof identity. Bailey achieves this goal impressively as a result of sometruly exhaustive thinking about figurines and the significance of visualrepresentations of the human body. In particular, he explores a widerange of concepts and examples derived from visual culture studies,studies which characteristically emphasise the complex politics ofvisual representation and spectatorship. But Bailey's achievementhere is not so much in introducing and developing a variety oftheoretical concepts, about miniaturism and dimensionality for example,but in demonstrating their relevance to archaeologists through a seriesof stimulating questions and discussions that provoke us to think abouthow we understand and shape our own bodies, and how people did so in theBalkan Neolithic by using anthropomorphic Having the characteristics of a human being. For example, an anthropomorphic robot has a head, arms and legs. figurines. And Bailey helpsthe reader all the way, with a meticulously constructed text, written inan absorbing style; it combines some closely observed descriptions ofthe forms of figurines with comprehensive syntheses of theirarchaeological contexts, critical reviews of previous studies andinterpretations, accessible explanations of complex ideas about humanrepresentation, and a selection of photographs and line drawings thatwork actively alongside the text (but also lead one to expect more). Ifonly Bailey's style were not marred by denouncements of the work ofmost of his colleagues, which appear to serve no other purpose than toaggrandise Verb 1. aggrandise - add details toaggrandize, embellish, pad, embroider, lard, dramatise, dramatize, blow upglorify - cause to seem more splendid; "You are glorifying a rather mediocre building" his own approach. The other central aim of the book is to do justice to thearchaeological material: the figurines of Neolithic South-East Europe.Bailey also makes significant progress here, particularly in seeking tounderstand what Neolithic people might have thought about the figurinesand themselves. He steadfastly and persuasively, if ratherfrustratingly, refuses to offer specific interpretations of thefigurines' representations or functions, arguing that these areinaccessible, due to the limitations of all archaeological data, andalso irrelevant, since figurines have no exact meaning or function.Instead, he offers the more general, but useful, conclusion thatfigurines, as 'tools for thinking', contributed to a processin the Balkan Neolithic in which people asked questions about theirbodies and identities and about those of others. However, Bailey can beaccused of over-politicising this process, as a result of adhering soclosely to the party-line of contemporary visual culture studies, and,despite acknowledging the fantastic and other-worldly dimensions of thefigurines, by dismissing previous interpretations that have emphasisedtheir spiritual potency and religious significance. Bailey also falterson the question of why the proliferate figurine phenomenon is so tightlyrestricted to the Neolithic period Neolithic periodor New Stone Age.The term neolithic is used, especially in archaeology and anthropology, to designate a stage of cultural evolution or technological development characterized by the use of stone tools, the existence of in South-East Europe. He argues thatfigurines played a key role in a particular politics of corporeality,identity, community and individuality that was the Balkan Neolithic:saturating communities with shared 'material explanations of how itwas to be different and how it was to be the same' (p. 200), andthus contributing to a significant degree of coherence In optics, correlation functions are used to characterize the statistical and coherence properties of an electromagnetic field. The degree of coherence is the normalized correlation of electric fields. In its simplest form, termed across BalkanNeolithic communities. This answer seems both incomplete and inevitable,given Bailey's assertion that 'there is more similarity thanthere is variation across groups of figurines' (p. 199), combinedwith his outspoken refusal to engage in 'discourse onculture-historical similarities among figurines from neighbouring ordistant sites' (p. 2); this impression is reinforced by hisconsideration of only three regional figurine traditions, his limitedtreatment of zoomorphic zo��o��mor��phism?n.1. Attribution of animal characteristics or qualities to a god.2. Use of animal forms in symbolism, literature, or graphic representation. figurines, his rejection of quantitativeanalysis Quantitative AnalysisA security analysis that uses financial information derived from company annual reports and income statements to evaluate an investment decision.Notes: , his ultimate dismissal of detailed contextual analysis, andhis focus on the consumption of the figurines as finished products atthe expense of a full consideration, or physical analysis, of theirmanufacturing sequences, wear traces, post-breakage biographies andregular replacement. As a consequence, Bailey concludes byover-generalising, homogenising and de-contextualising the figurines inthe present, and, by extension, in their past. Nevertheless, this is an outstanding book, because it poses so manythought-provoking questions about the complex qualities of visualrepresentations of human bodies in the past and their significancetoday. ROBIN SKEATES Department of Archaeology, Durham University, UK (Email: Robin.Skeates@durham.ac.uk)