Early Body Ornaments and the Origins of our Semiotic Mind

Antonis Iliopoulos is a postdoctoral researcher for the ERC HANDMADE project at the University of Oxford, UK, which explores creative gesture in pottery-making.

• List of Figures List of Tables PrefaceAcknowledgements1. Introducing the Case of Early Body Ornaments 2. Searching for a Theory to Describe the Nature of Past Material Signs 3. Presenting the Semiotic Theory of Charles Sanders Peirce 4. Applying Peircean Semiotics to the Case of Early Body Ornaments 5. Searching for a Theory to Trace the Emergence of Past Material Signs6. Composing a Pragmatic and Enactive Theory of Cognitive Semiotics 7. Applying Cognitive Semiotics to the Case of Early Body Ornaments 8. Concluding Thoughts on the Origins of our Semiotic Mind Appendix: An Unorthodox Phenomenology of Round Shells References Index

How did Mark Making and Meaning morph into Signs, Symbols and Syntax through Shells-- the S and M of the semiotic emergence of modern human cognition? Iliopoulos, in highly persuasive argument, shows how the semiotics of archaeological ornaments allowed complex processes, not states, to transform material signs of meaning.