ABSTRACT
Peter Ucko taught me two basic things about figurines: first, to study the evidence of their use before deposition and second to scrutinize the context in which the figurines were found. His thorough analyses showed me that in order to understand the creation, use and functions of figurines we have to make explicit use of social anthropology, ethnography and history in our archaeological analyses. It was due to his work that I began testing my method of contextual attribute analysis on figurines from ethnographic sources (Biehl 1999) in order to better understand their meaningfulness as symbolic material culture. In my study, I discovered patterns in the ethnographic record and began to look for similar patterns in the archaeological record. One such pattern is fragmentation. In this chapter, I will use fragmentation as a means of putting ‘figurines in action’ – that is, explaining how they may have functioned as communication conduits. I will also demonstrate how Ucko’s major thesis, that ‘Old World prehistoric figurines may not be homogeneous’ (Ucko 1968: 443) and may have functioned in many ways, is still modern.
