ABSTRACT
Time, place, and identity are some of the main issues archaeologists try to confront through the empirical and analytical study of visual arts. Archaeological evidence is usually debris of human activities, often scattered fragments resulting from abandonment or destruction. The chapters in this book reflect this openness in attitudes to art and of its relationship to time, place, and identity within an archaeological framework. Archaeology can contribute considerably more to the study of art than picture books and pseudoscience. Plurality is one of the main notions this book embraces, and connotations of this are invoked by each of the concepts tackled in this volume. The ethnoarchaeological studies in this book provide the framework to observe through informed methods how artists negotiate and construct their individual or group identities through the creation, display, and consumption of rock, portable, and body art.
