Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

Iranian Journal Of Antheropology

Importance of Style and Stylistic Analysis of Rock Art for Archaeological Perception of Identity-Regional Territories in Iranian Plateau

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Hamid Reza Ghorbani
assistant Prof. of Archeology, Isfahan art university, Isfahan, Iran
Abstract
Iran plateau is one of the largest regions with the most number and various archeological sites of rock art in southwestern Asia. Rock arts are works of art with a variety of applications. They are among the topics of importance in archaeology and anthropology of art. Both of them emphasis on painted and engraved rock arts as a means for recognizing and percepting traditional lifestyles, cosmology, ideology, and iconography of groups or communities from prehistoric times to recent times. This visual expression, as a representation of the drawing characteristics of the generally non-literate societies in different time periods and locations, was one of the main tools for communication and interchanging informations. The studies which have been carried out on rock art have always encountered two challenges: 1- the discovery and perception of cultural identity based evidences via analytical approaches, and 2- perception of continuity and discontinuity of characteristics from temporal and spatial perspective. Most often, archaeology uses style and its related approaches for identification and analysis of regional styles of rock art as a means for perception of social structure, border and territorialism, human-environmental interactions, and understanding of temporal sequences. In this research, the concept of style, stylistic analysis and its methodology have been studied within the framework of archaeology of art, and its function has been presented based on the case study of rock art. The results shows that rock art creation has been prevalent in Iranian plateau since the late of prehistoric until recent times as a tradition and in addition to representation of countless common stylistic characteristics, have maintained regional stylistic features and different changing processes. Thus, rock art can be considered as a network of cultural and artistic territories, while their temporal and spatial features have emphasized on regional identities.
Keywords
style and stylistic analysis
archaeology of art
rock art
cultural territory
regional identity
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