The Upper Paleolithic Rock Art of Iberia

Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both geographically and temporally in recent years, in close coincidence with the growth of contemporaneous archeological evidence: cave art loci in Aragón and Levante attributable to the Solutrean and Magdalenian, many cave art sites and a few open-air ones in Andalucía and Extremadura that are mostly Solutrean (in line with evidence of a major Last Glacial Maximum human refugium in southern Spain), the spectacular Côa Valley open-air complex in northern Portugal (together with a growing number of other such loci and one cave) that was probably created during the Gravettian-Magdalenian periods, and a modest, but important increase in proven cave and open-air sites in the high, north-central interior of Spain that are probably Solutrean and/or Magdalenian. Despite regional variations in decorated surfaces, themes, techniques and styles, there are broad (and sometimes very specific) pan-Iberian similarities (as well as ones with the Upper Paleolithic art of southern France) that are indicative of widespread human contacts and shared systems of symbols and beliefs during the late Last Glacial. As this Ice Age world and the forms of social relationships and ideologies that helped human groups survive in it came to an end, so too did the decoration of caves, rockshelters and outcrops, although in some regions other styles of rock art would return under very different conditions of human existence.     

Establishment Radical: Assessing the Legacy of Reinhold Niebuhr's Reflections on the End of an Era

This article argues that Reinhold Niebuhr's most politically radical work, Reflections at the End of an Era (1934) is more determinative of his subsequent political theology than Niebuhr scholarship has acknowledged. In particular, the doctrine of grace and view of history that Niebuhr here developed continued to shape his mature thought, infusing his work with a politically unsettling quality that Niebuhr scholarship routinely overlooks in favor of depicting him as the “establishment theologian.” This article maintains that reclaiming the legacy of Reflections will enable future reception of Niebuhr to recover the radical dimension to his thought.     

Pornoprecariedad: crisis biopolítica,trabajo y régimen visual en Hermosa juventud (Jaime Rosales, 2014)

ABSTRACT

Entendiendo por “pornoprecariedad” el entramado visual que explota y consume como forma de entretenimiento la exhibición de las nuevas formas de miseria en las que se sostiene y que reproduce el neoliberalismo, en este artículo se analiza cómo el largometraje de ficción Hermosa juventud (2014), de Jaime Rosales, cuestiona constructos sobre los que se asienta dicho acercamiento mediático dominante a la precariedad. Relacionar críticamente precariedad con pornografía hace emerger problemáticas relacionadas con la representación visual, la recepción de esta y la dimensión ética de ambas, planteando interrogantes acerca de la responsabilidad, el mirar o las relaciones de género y poder. El film de Rosales dialoga con tradiciones artísticas y reflexivas que trabajan con desarrollos socioeconómicos de largo alcance que la crisis biopolítica patente especialmente desde 2008 en la Europa meridional ha sacado a la luz.     

Isotopic evidence for the reconstruction of diet and mobility during village formation in the Early Middle Ages: Las Gobas (Burgos,northern Spain)

Strontium, carbon, and nitrogen isotopes of human bone and tooth remains have been used to reconstruct residential mobility and diet of early medieval populations at Las Gobas from the sixth to eleventh centuries. Most non-local individuals correspond to the tenth to eleventh centuries and were mostly women and infants. This residential mobility coincided with the formation of Laño village and the abandonment of artificial cave settlement. Carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of bone collagen indicate an omnivorous homogenous diet based on terrestrial plant resources, with few animal-derived proteins from livestock. Millet consumption was restricted to an earlier period of time (seventh to ninth centuries); and in later periods (tenth to eleventh centuries), mainly C₃ plants such as wheat and barley were consumed. In general, there were no dietary differences between individuals according to sex or age. Sex-related dietary differences have only been observed in the tenth to eleventh centuries, when females consumed a more vegetarian diet and less animal protein. The higher δ ¹⁵N values in infants reflect the weaning effect, while the differences in δ ¹⁵N values between young adult men and young adult women can be explained as a physiological factor related to pregnancy or different origins. In a comparison with contemporaneous medieval populations in the northern Iberian Peninsula, both δ ¹³C and δ ¹⁵N values suggest similar foodstuff resources and diet among Christian and Muslim populations.     

Macusani obsidian from southern Peru: A characterization of its elemental composition with a demonstration of its ancient use

Transparent obsidian artifacts have been reported for the northern Lake Titicaca Basin. Based on instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of these artifacts a distinct chemical group was identified. Yet, the location of the source of transparent obsidian in the southern Andes remained unreported in the archaeological literature. This paper reports on the chemical composition and geographic location of a source of transparent obsidian from the Macusani region of Peru. Through the use of INAA and portable X-ray fluorescence (PXRF) we demonstrate that Macusani obsidian or macusanite comprises (at least) two chemical groups. One of these groups was used for making artifacts during the Archaic Period. Artifacts made of this obsidian were found more than 120 km from the source and yet, one-third of the obsidian artifacts encountered at Macusani were from the non-local source of Chivay which is 215 km to the southwest.     

Terrestrial laser scanning and close range photogrammetry for 3D archaeological documentation: the Upper Palaeolithic Cave of Parpalló as a case study

Graphic and metric archaeological documentation is an activity that requires the capture of information from different sources, accurate processing and comprehensive analysis. If monitoring of the state of conservation is required, this task has to be performed before intervention, during and after the completion of the works in a repetitive way.This paper presents the use of terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) in order to effectively produce, prior to intervention, accurate and high-resolution 3D models of a cave with engravings dating back to the Upper Palaeolithic era. The processing of the TLS data is discussed in detail in order to create digital surface models. The complexity of the cave required the integration of two techniques, TLS and close range photogrammetry to yield not only traditional drawings such as sections and elevations, but also photo-realistic perspective views and visual navigation worlds fully operational in 3D environments. This paper demonstrates the potential of integrating TLS and close range photogrammetry to provide both accurate digital surface models and photo-realistic outputs. This processed data can be used to systematically improve archaeological understanding of complex caves and relief panels of prehistoric art with tiny engravings.     

The afterlives of Hugo Chávez as political symbol

In January 2016, the first publicized decision made by the president of the newly installed Venezuelan parliament, Henry Ramos Allup, was the removal of pictures from the legislative premises. In what transpired as a calculated performance, this member of the old political guard was captured on video dismissively instructing removal workers to send pictures of Chávez away to Sabaneta (Chávez's birthplace), or into the rubbish bin. He also commanded the removal of recent representations of Simón Bolívar, disqualifying them as ‘an invention of that mister [Chávez], a crazy thing’. This episode signalled the intensification of an ongoing struggle over political symbols in Venezuela. This article discusses the background and implications of such a struggle, focusing in particular on the figure of Chávez as the epitome of a contested national symbol. The fate of Chávez's corpse, currently located in a mausoleum, is at stake, but also the configuration of the institutionally sanctioned symbolic order with which political actors aim to condition political manoeuvring in years to come.     

Prehistoric Bird Watching in Southern Iberia? The Rock Art of Tajo de las Figuras Reconsidered

ABSTRACT

This paper studies the relationship between humans and birds in the recent prehistory of the Southern Iberian Peninsula. With its high number of bird, mammal, and anthropomorphic paintings, a small rock shelter –Tajo de las Figuras– provides an excellent case study to address this topic. The cave is situated in an ecosystem that, as we will argue, favoured human-bird interactions and enabled prehistoric groups to engage with a diverse and rich bird community at particular times of the year. Even though the recorded depictions can generally be integrated into the wider ‘Schematic’ style regime characterising the recent prehistory of the region, they exhibit some outstanding features including a highly distinct naturalism. This naturalism enables us to identify the represented birds, not only at the family but also at the species level. Our contribution describes these pictorial data and contextualises them with the ecology, archaeology, and archaeozoology of the area. We intend to show that the singularity of the image-corpus registered at Tajo de las Figuras mirrors the unique conditions of human-bird interactions at the time. We suggest that the significance of the images derives from the special location of the cave in the wider landscape encouraging early practices of bird watching.