Arqueología e historia de la cienciahacia una historia crítica de la arqueología

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation constitutes a critical reflection on the way in which Palaeolithic images were conceptualized from the end of the 19th century to the last decades of the 20th century. From the standpoint of the history of ideas and the history of mentalities, I examine two different periods in the history of the conceptualization of Paleolithic images. In the first place, I study the origins of the concept of Paleolithic art as this idea was formulated at the end of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century (1864-1958). In the second place, I analyze the moment in which the so-called ‘structuralists’ archaeologists established a new paradigm that oriented the interpretation of Paleolithic images from 1960s to 1980s. In short, my work seeks to explore how a number of Western conceptions on ‘art’ and ‘primitive’ people established a theoretical framework that oriented research on Paleolithic art from 1864 to 1985.