Collection

Ancestral Stones: Reimagining human relationships with stone from the Palaeolithic to the Present

Submission status
Closed
Stone is one of the most durable and oldest materials present in human history and as such provides us with the extraordinary opportunity to potentially discern human perceptions of their place in the world from the time of our earliest beginnings to the present. Common knowledge suggests that any changes in stone artifacts are in direct response to human activity and directed through human intention. This thought-provoking collection of papers advocates a paradigm shift that includes widening our ontological perspectives in the study of past and present stones. We will explore other ways of knowing and understanding stone-human interactions based in real world experiences and perceptions of archaeological, historical, and present-day societies for whom stone is significant in their daily lives. We submit that by including a wide range of intellectual contributions to understanding our pasts, we open new possibilities and engage in practicing good science. Rather than limiting ourselves to Western theories, we advocate a paradigm shift which forwards profound respect and appreciation for stone and other earthly materials. We propose that such worldviews may express long histories of accumulated and changing ecological knowledge that reassure and provide future solutions for the co-existence of humans and the elements of the world we are depended upon.

Editors

Articles (12 in this collection)