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This paper examines the Yungang Grottoes (Datong, Shanxi province, China), particularly the earliest Five Caves of Tan Yao (dated to 460–465 CE), outside the much-studied Buddhist narrative. Proponents of the iconographic scheme have decoded the five larger than life-sized stone Buddha sculptures carved out of a low mountain range as embodying the family cult of the Northern Wei (386–534 CE) Tuoba ruling household in its design. Advancing on the notion proposed by the Northern Wei clergy of venerating the emperor as 'the coming Buddha Maitreya', I aim to explore how the visual scheme of the Five Caves of Tan Yao created a 'presence' of the emperor at the Wuzhou Mountain to elicit different types of perceptual response from its contemporary audience. The materiality of the stone sculptures was meant to awe the viewer into submission, as the 'presence' of the emperor, instead of his words, demanded obeisance from all his subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on the study of four late to middle to late Tang Dynasty (781–907 CE) and one Song Dynasty (907–1279 CE) Buddhist sites which are set within a kilometre of one another to the south of the ancient centre of Rongxian (荣县), Zigong, Sichuan. The question addressed is whether these five religious sites could have existed as distinct entities, or if over time they became part of a unified whole. Traditionally such sites are considered as independent works of art divorced from their landscape and social context. Since the connections demonstrated in this paper indicate a unity of purpose we suggest that a more holistic approach to the study of such monuments is worthwhile. This paper proposes that although these sites were originally distinct entities during the Tang, they came to be connected by a pilgrimage route defined by the construction of a pagoda in the Song Dynasty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the development of very specific lithic tools and the use of flat and covering retouch, the Solutrean has traditionally been envisioned as a unified cultural complex, representing a clear break from the preceding Gravettian technologies. As a consequence, migratory episodes have been proposed to explain the appearance of the particular characteristics of Solutrean lithic points. Here we present an assemblage with Vale Comprido points discovered at Marseillon in south-western France. The lithic industry is consistent with the definition of the Protosolutrean in Portugal, an industry in an intermediate stratigraphic position between the Late Gravettian and the Solutrean. Its description is followed by a discussion on the formation of the Solutrean and on the articulation between the Protosolutrean with Vale Comprido points and the classic Lower Solutrean with pointes à face plane. According to this evidence, the Solutrean would have emerged from industries having strong typological and technological analogies over its entire zone of distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stone tools emerged at least 2.5 mya in Africa and were manufactured continuously by early Homo species through the emergence of cognitively modern Homo sapiens. Aspects of hominin cognitive evolution, reflected in hominin intentions, may therefore be preserved in this durable aspect of the archaeological record. Stoneworking design space is cellular in structure and two levels of hominin intentions are apparent in modifying stone: the intention to remove a single flake and the higher-order intentions reflected in the ways that flakes are combined to produce effects. Archaeologists have traditionally interpreted early hominin intentions using the higher-order skills and experiences of modern knappers as analogues, an approach that is epistemologically flawed. Further, the tightly constrained structure of design space could have led early hominins inadvertently to produce what appear to be highly-designed tools or tool attributes in the absence of an intention to do so. Controlled experimental research is necessary to provide an empirical baseline for identifying higher-order intentions in the archaeological record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recognizable throughout the world, the stone statues (moai) of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) represent the largest monolithic architecture produced in Polynesia. The exquisitely carved and finished head and torso of each statue testifies to a skill in stone carving and dressing unmatched throughout the Pacific. Yet, approximately one thousand 'classic' statues were produced at the quarries within a few hundred years. What was the ritual status of the quarry and the labour necessary to produce the numbers of statues that allowed Heyerdahl to declare that the 'whole mountain massif has been reshaped, the volcano has been greedily cut up' (1958: 83)? What was it like to go to work at Rano Raraku? By drawing on a range of evidence we argue that walking to and labouring at Rano Raraku represented a spatial and temporal journey to a place of highly dangerous forces, a cosmogonic centre where prehistoric Rapa Nui people came face to face with their ancestors and the Polynesian gods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes two decorated stones excavated from the open air site of Zemono in southwestern Slovenia. The first stone is a piece of slate with geometric patterns delicately incised on both sides. The patterns are eight zigzag lines on one side and a ladder motif and a long line with smaller perpendicular ones on the other side. A much simpler pattern, composed of parallel and perpendicular lines, can be found on the second stone.

The vibrant artistic traditions of America's Pacific Northwest Coast peoples are well documented in the ethnographic literature. Far less numerous, but equally fascinating, are the artworks which survive from a prehistoric period lasting at least 10,000 years. One little known collection of 136 stone artefacts from this area was brought together for exhibition in 1975. The striking and often explicit sexual imagery of these artefacts prompted anthropologist Wilson Duff to offer an unconventional, and therefore also controversial reading of their meaning in his book images stone b.c. In reading images stone b.c. through the lens of queer theory this paper suggests that the radical potential of Wilson Duff's ideas, and his vision of these artefacts in particular, was far greater than he was able to realize before his untimely death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the significance of a carved stone ball (CSB) in interpreting material culture in Scotland. Cultural biography and history of CSB; Debate on the functional uses of CSB; Importance of the sensory study on CSB; Significance of CSB in recognizing role of artefacts.