Art or Scribbles? In the Eye of the Beholder: The Evolutionary Emergence of Visual Communication

Iain Davidson is Emeritus Professor of the Department of Archaeology, Classics and History at the University of New England (Australia). He began his research work in Eastern Spain in 1970, studying and excavating art sites more than 12 thousand years old. He went on to a series of positions in Australia from Lecturer (1974) to Professor (1997) and retired in 2008 to take up the Chair of Australian Studies in Harvard (2008-9), teaching a course on rock art. He has worked in Cultural Heritage, including a visiting position at the Universidad de Magallanes in Punta Arenas in 2015. He has written 5 books (including this one), edited 8 others, and published more than 180 articles. He has published on animal bones, prehistoric economy, language, art, stone tools, collaboration with Aboriginal people, archaeological comparisons across the world, and culture. He has worked with several Indigenous groups in Australia since 1981, often in making recommendations about their heritage to mining companies. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Humanities and won the Rhys Jones Medal of the Australian Archaeological Association.

• Chapter 1: Art or Scribbles.- Chapter 2: Art is too important to be left to those who are interested in art.- Chapter 3: Art, rock art or not art.- Chapter 4: Art and communication.- Chapter 5: Graphic elements in communication.- Chapter 6: Meaning, expectations, agents and scenes.- Chapter 7: Painting by numbers. Seven Types of Ambiguity in Art.- Chapter 8: But is it Art—let me count the ways.- Chapter 9: Art and archeohistory of Sahul (the continent of greater Australia and New Guinea).- Chapter 10: a thousand words.