Francesco d'Errico - Böcker

Body modification practices express identity, conform to social norms, and convey cultural values that express cultural, social, and individual meanings. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Body Modification provides a comprehensive understanding of these practices, addressing evolving cultures and identities, while also revealing the universal human desire to transcend the ordinary and connect with something greater. By exploring practices such as cranial shaping, teeth filing, tattooing, body piercing, and other modifications, this comprehensive volume sheds light on the evolution and diversification of body modification across time and space. The Handbook's opening chapters synthesize the origins of body modification, examining the chronological emergence of clothing, body painting, and adornments across continents to introduce the deep connections between body modifications and social identity, focusing on rituals, gender, and symbolism in historical and archaeological contexts. Later chapters delve into cranial and dental modifications, tattooing, and body piercing, examining the cultural significance of these practices and the methods used to perform them. The final sections of the Handbook address other body alterations, including genital modifications and finger amputation. Museum collections are also examined, presenting a wide array of artifacts and visual media, including human remains, showing how they can be studied to understand past cultural contexts in a novel way. Throughout the Handbook, Indigenous perspectives and methodologies are highlighted, offering insight into the amuletic function of tattoos and the relational practice of body modifications. It is important to note that colonization has stopped the cultural transmission of many of these practices, the value and dignity of which the Handbook attempts to restore. Taken together, the chapters in The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Body Modification represent a unique and groundbreaking synthesis of scholarship on this widespread yet often misunderstood aspect of human culture.

This richly illustrated book documents indigenous knowledge and uses of San material culture and artifacts collected a century ago, as described by KhoiSan elders to the authorsSan material culture has been a subject of study for many researchers and archaeologists but rarely has the documented material been seen through the eyes of the people themselves. San Elders Speak: Ancestral Knowledge of the Kalahari San is the first attempt to document indigenous knowledge through the voices of four San elders from the Kalahari. Over a period of seven days, the authors presented the four San elders, leaders in their community and custodians of ancient knowledge, with of the largest collection of KhoiSan ethnographica collected by Dr Louis Fourie at the beginning of the 19th century.The San elders rediscovered objects last seen in their childhood and shared stories inspired by their handling of the objects. They provide the correct traditional names and explain how items were made, from what material, who used them, why and when. In a number of instances the elders changed the identification given by Louis Fourie. The knowledge they shared over those several days at Museum Africa in Johannesburg provide an enriching account that links the past and present in San life in illuminating ways. The text is accompanied by a rich visual record of the artifacts and how the San elders portray their use.Aimed at scholars and students of archaeology, human evolution, anthropology, material culture studies, conservation, museology, and African studies, San Elders Speak is a captivating record into all aspects of this ancient and vanishing world of indigenous knowledge, and represents a unique heritage for the people of descendant San communities.