Rock Art and Sacred Landscapes

Rock Art and Sacred Landscapes
ISBN-10
1461484065
ISBN-13
9781461484066
Category
Social Science
Pages
284
Language
English
Published
2013-10-16
Publisher
Springer Science & Business Media
Authors
William Breen Murray, Donna L. Gillette, Mavis Greer

Description

Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation. Contributors to this global view detail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplays of religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock art engages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions and reflects religious organization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems.

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