This volume examines the role of gestures in past societies, exploring both how meaning was communicated through bodily actions, and how archaeologists can trace the significance of ancient gestures through the material remnants of past human groups. Each contribution exhibits a critical and reflexive approach to bodily communication and to re-tracing bodies through the archaeological record (in art, the treatment of the body and material culture). Together they demonstrate the diversity of global research on gestures in archaeology and related disciplines, with contributions from leading researchers in Aegean, Mediterranean, Mesoamerican, Japanese and Near Eastern archaeology. By bringing case studies from each of these different cultures and regions together and drawing on interdisciplinary insights from anthropology, sociology, psychology, linguistics, design, art history and the performing arts, the volume reveals the similarities and differences in gestures as expressed in cultures around the world, and offers new and valuable perspectives on the nature of bodily communication across both space and time.

Tracing Gestures: The Art and Archaeology of Bodily Communication PDF

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