Image and Audience Rethinking Prehistoric Art

Prehistoric art has too often been treated as a self-contained field of study, cut off from other studies of the past. Researchers have been more concerned with meanings, aesthetics, and craft production than with the contexts in which ancient 'artworks' were used, and the audiences who encountered them. Richard Bradley seeks to redress the balance by considering how the category of 'prehistoric art' first developed during the nineteenth century and the ways in which it is reflected in publications and museum displays. Bradley discusses the approaches to this subject taken by prehistorians and anthropologists and proposes a new investigation which emphasizes the relationship between images and their audiences in the past. His text is extensively illustrated with specially chosen drawings and photographs.

Richard Bradley is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Reading.