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Professor of Anthropology
Ph.D. 1980, Toronto, B.A. 1976, Alberta.
Email:
Research Interests: Paleolithic Europe; prehistoric art; archaeological approaches to reconstructing technologies of ancient hunter-gatherers; France.
Affiliations: Member of the Center for the Study of Human Origins.
Selected Works:
Prehistoric Art: The Symbolic Journey of Humankind. New York: Harry Abrams. 2003
"Résumé de ma vie: une note autobiographique de Denis Peyrony". Bulletin de la Société Historique et Archéologique du Périgord. 125 : 34-49 (with Alain Roussot). 2003
"Une nouvelle statuette phallo-féminine paléolithique : la Vénus des Milandes" (commune de Castelnaud-la-Chapelle), Dordogne Paléo. 14 : 187-219. 2003
"Observations technologiques sur les objets de parure in B. Schmider" (ed.) L'Aurignacien de la grotte de Renne: Les fouilles d'André Leroi-Gourhan à Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne). XXXIVe Supplément à Gallia Préhistoire, 257-266. 2002
"The historic and legal context of foreign acquisitions of Paleolithic artifacts from the Périgord: 1900-1941". In L. Straus (ed.) The Role of American Archaeologists in the Study of the European Upper Paleolithic. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, pp. 71-83. 2002
"Personal ornaments from the grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure". Athena Review 2(4):41-46 (special issue on the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition). 2001
"L'Imagerie feminine du paléolithique: Étude des figurines de Grimaldi." Culture 16:5-64. 1996.
"Substantial Acts: From Materials to Meaning in Upper Paleolithic Representation." In Beyond Art: Upper Paleolithic Symbolism, ed. D. Stratmann, M. Conkey, and O. Soffer. SanFrancisco: California Academy of Sciences. 1996.
"Beyond Art: Toward an Understanding of the Origins of Material Representation in Europe." Annual Review of Anthropology 21. 537-64. 1992
I am writing this piece from Les Eyzies-de-Tayac in the Dordogne region of France where an international team under my direction is in the midst of a very successful tenth season of excavation at abri Castanet, an ornament-rich, 33,000-year-old Aurignacian site. This research project, funded by the National Science Foundation since 1998, focuses on the meticulous recovery and dating of some of the oldest remains of symbolic behavior in Europe. After the discovery in 2007 of a large portion of the collapsed shelter ceiling bearing engraved and painted imagery, the focus in 2009 is on the excavation of a rich and well-preserved fireplace.
In parallel, I have in press a major article on 13 years of work on the 33,000-year-old Aurignacian personal ornaments from the French site of Brassempouy. This excavation is at a very mature stage and we are beginning to be able to make some clear observations on the spatial organization of bead/ornament production and use. A remarkable feature of the ornaments from Brassempouy is the presence of several pierced human teeth.
My long-term study of the 37-33,000 year-old personal ornaments from the site of Isturitz in French Basque country continues, as do the excavations there. These ornaments, most of which are contemporary to or older than those from Brassempouy and Castanet, indicate striking social boundaries between these two sites, just 60 km apart. Personal ornamentation seems one of the key means by which Aurignacian regional groups constructed and communicated intra-group and regional identities. Among the most interesting finds at Isturitz is the on-site production of sensational amber ornaments in the form of lustrous beads and pendants. The source of the amber is Cretaceous fossil-bearing deposits in the Pyrenean foothills.
Photo R. White
37,000 year-old anthropomorphic pendant in talc ; grotte d’Isturitz, Pyrénées-atlantiques region
Longstanding research on Paleolithic female figurines continues to occupy much of my time. In 2008 I was commissioned by the French government to analyze a remarkable new 25,000-year-old statuette from Brassempouy, recovered from the backdirt of clandestine excavations at the site in 1977 and hidden from view until 2005. The resulting 60-page report was submitted last week and a published version will appear in the near future.
A long-term project on the early twentieth-century history of French archaeology continues. I have had the good fortune to discover several entirely unknown archives related to the “Hauser Affair.” Otto Hauser was a very ambitious German-Swiss archaeologist who was forced to flee France at the outset of World War I under a cloud of accusations of espionage and artifact selling. He has traditionally been represented by French prehistorians as the single most destructive force in the history of French archaeology.
Far from being of mere local interest, the “affaire Hauser” took place against a backdrop of European history, politics, and administrative entanglements. For example, Hauser was allied with members of the anti-clerical movement at a time when considerable power in archaeology was held by Catholic lay priests.
Contrary to received wisdom, Hauser is revealed by archival sources and photographs to have been a remarkably careful excavator, well ahead of his time. I recently published an autobiography of Hauser’s adversary, the French prehistorian Denis Peyrony, which I discovered in the course of my archival work. A first book on this subject, L’Affaire de l’abri du Poisson : Patrie et préhistoire (Périgueux: Fanlac), appeared in late 2006 and, thanks to an NYU University Research Challenge Fund grant, I am currently pursuing work on a second book on this complex and controversial subject.
Overall, this has been a busy and exciting year of teaching, research, writing and professional growth. Several of my students finished theses of various kinds, which is always gratifying for anyone committed to university teaching. I am on sabbatical in France during the 2009-10 academic year and I look forward to returning to the department in the fall of 2010 in order to share with students and colleagues the fruits of these various activities.
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