Iain Davidson
Biographic Data
| ID | 3616941 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Iain Davidson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Iain |
| FAMILY NAME | Davidson |
| SIGNATURE | DAVIDSON I |
| AFFILIATIONS | Department of Archaeology and Paleoanthropology |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 394 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 29 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Harry’s Wall
Harry’s Wall is a site in rural Cheshire where thousands of colourful messages dedicated to the singer and actor Harry Styles are inscribed on the ageing bricks of a nineteenth-century railway viaduct. What initially began as a research project for the MA Contemporary Art & Archaeology at UHI Orkney (Thomas 2024) has since developed into a deep engagement with the site through time, as I have followed the changes both in the messages and in the m…
Art or Scribbles? In the Eye of the Beholder
Six Paintings from Papunya
Making Scenes
El Niño Cave (Aýna, Albacete, Spain)
El Niño cave, located on the south-eastern border of the Spanish Meseta, hosts a discontinuous sequence including Middle Palaeolithic and Neolithic levels, along with Upper Palaeolithic and Levantine style paintings. It is a key site for understanding human occupations of inland Iberia during the Palaeolithic and early prehistory. This paper summarises the main results of a multidisciplinary project aimed at defining the prehistoric human occupat…
Burrup Peninsula
Cognitive Evolution and Origins of Language and Speech
Beads and boundaries
The aims of this paper are quite simple — to provide information about the different classes of ethnographically-known beads and pendants and their distribution across Australia in relation to the natural boundaries of drainage basins. In the explosion of interest in beads and pendants dated to the Late Pleistocene, much of the work has been concentrated on methodological issues (White 2007), or finds from individual sites (e.g., Blombos: d’Erric…
The Roth Family, Anthropology, and Colonial Administration
No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as gover…
Symbolisme et devenir un chasseur-cueilleur
L’art, c’est le façonnage et marquage de surfaces. En 1997, j’ai suggéré que certains indices dénoteraient un processus commun à l’émergence de la peinture et de la gravure au Pléistocène récent, mais que les résultats divergent d’une région à une autre : marquage des individus à travers les perles, ... ; marquage de segments de la société dans les réseaux sociaux ouverts ; marquage des réseaux sociaux fermés à travers l’identification en un lieu…
Symbolism and Becoming a Hunter-Gatherer
Art is the making and marking of surfaces. In 1997, I suggested that there were some hints of a common process in the late Pleistocene emergence of painting and engraving, but that the outcomes were different in different regions: marking of individuals through beads...; marking of segments of society in open social networks; marking of closed social networks through identification in a central place; marking of the manner of corporate ownership.…
Art mobilier et changements de signification symbolique
Ce qui a motivé cet article est la publication habituelle de cartes de répartition pour l’art européen du Paléolithique supérieur qui omettent le gisement du Parpalló. La question se pose alors : pourquoi l’importance du Parpalló n’est‐elle pas reconnue ? Cet article cherche à montrer les principes majeurs concernant l’étude de l’art préhistorique, en particulier du Pléistocène, qui sont illustrés par El Parpalló. El Parpalló est généralement abs…
Setting the scene for the peopling of the Australian New World
What a Carry On? Portable Art and Changes of Symbolic Meaning
The motivation for this paper is the continuing publication of maps of European Upper Palaeolithic art sites that omit the site of Parpallo (e.g. Bahn & Vertut 1988; Clottes 2008; Guthrie 2005; Klein 1989; Ucko & Rosenfeld 1967). It asks the question: Why don t people see the importance of Parpallo? It seeks to show the important principles about the study of prehistoric paintings and engravings, particularly of the Pleistocene, that are illustra…
Variation in Early Paintings and Engravings
This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Approaches to Meaning in Pleistocene Paintings and Engravings Ritual Painting and Engraving in the West Mediterranean Region1 Pleistocene Painting, Engraving, and Ritual in the East Mediterranean Conclusion Acknowledgments Note References
The Politics of Suffering
The Colonization of Australia and Its Adjacent Islands and the Evolution of Modern Cognition
The first colonization of the Greater Australian continent, known as Sahul, indicated that humans had modern cognitive ability. Such modern human abilities probably emerged earlier in Africa. I will argue that the only way we can identify what constitutes modern human behavior is to look at the record in Australia-the first place colonized only by modern humans. I place this argument within recent theorizing about cognitive evolution
Stone Tools and the Uniqueness of Human Culture
There is growing evidence that some species other than the human have behaviour that should be called cultural. Questions arise, then, of how human (and, perhaps, ape) cultures are different from those of other animals and how they have become so different. Human cultures are creative, generating new patterns of behaviour from those learned from others. Stone tool making provided a niche for the recruitment of tools and tool-making processes from…
Symbols by Nature
It is well understood that rock art involves symbols, and that the meaning of symbols is not straightforward. In this paper, I show that symbolic values in the iconic depictions in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe vary across regions. I then show that for one site symbolic values within a constant iconic tradition vary across time. In the final section of the paper, I show that it is easy to be seduced from a modern perspective into a belief that…
Human Evolution, Language and Mind
Paintings, Power, and the Past
Archeology
On the Evolution of Language
There's no Art-To Find the Mind's Construction-In Offence
The editor invited a comment on this ‘attack’ on Davidson and Noble (1989), but asked me ‘not merely toattack points of detail’. Any careful reading of Bednarik's article and comparison with the works it attacks would show that in almost every detail it lays itself open to such attack. Nevertheless I am grateful to the editor for the opportunity to set out some of the argument that Noble and I have been trying to develop, and that so clearly Bedn…
Why the first colonisation of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour
The Archaeology of Perception
Why the first colonisation of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour
The Evolutionary Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour
Stone Tools and the Uniqueness of Human Culture
There is growing evidence that some species other than the human have behaviour that should be called cultural. Questions arise, then, of how human (and, perhaps, ape) cultures are different from those of other animals and how they have become so different. Human cultures are creative, generating new patterns of behaviour from those learned from others. Stone tool making provided a niche for the recruitment of tools and tool-making processes from…
The Colonization of Australia and Its Adjacent Islands and the Evolution of Modern Cognition
The first colonization of the Greater Australian continent, known as Sahul, indicated that humans had modern cognitive ability. Such modern human abilities probably emerged earlier in Africa. I will argue that the only way we can identify what constitutes modern human behavior is to look at the record in Australia-the first place colonized only by modern humans. I place this argument within recent theorizing about cognitive evolution
Paleoecology at La Riera (Asturias, Spain) [and Comments and Reply]
Excavations were conducted at La Riera to test hypotheses concerning variability among Upper Paleolithic/Mesolithic artifact assemblages and to define and begin to explain changing hunter-gatherer adaptations to the coastal region at the end of the Wurm and the beginning of the Holocene. The 36 strata contain assemblages that can be assigned to Aurignacian(?), Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, and Asturian culture-stratigraphic units. However, the…
The archaeology of language origins–a review
Language is a feature to distinguish the ‘human’ from the ‘animal’ that has seemed a more enduring diagnostic character than some. But how is the breath of words to be made visible in the stony traces of the Pleistocene
The Roth Family, Anthropology, and Colonial Administration
No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as gover…
Is intensification a condition of the fisher‐hunter‐gatherer way of life
On Depiction and Language
Symbols by Nature
It is well understood that rock art involves symbols, and that the meaning of symbols is not straightforward. In this paper, I show that symbolic values in the iconic depictions in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe vary across regions. I then show that for one site symbolic values within a constant iconic tradition vary across time. In the final section of the paper, I show that it is easy to be seduced from a modern perspective into a belief that…
Paintings, Power, and the Past
On the Evolution of Language
Archeology
There's no Art-To Find the Mind's Construction-In Offence
The editor invited a comment on this ‘attack’ on Davidson and Noble (1989), but asked me ‘not merely toattack points of detail’. Any careful reading of Bednarik's article and comparison with the works it attacks would show that in almost every detail it lays itself open to such attack. Nevertheless I am grateful to the editor for the opportunity to set out some of the argument that Noble and I have been trying to develop, and that so clearly Bedn…
What a Carry On? Portable Art and Changes of Symbolic Meaning
The motivation for this paper is the continuing publication of maps of European Upper Palaeolithic art sites that omit the site of Parpallo (e.g. Bahn & Vertut 1988; Clottes 2008; Guthrie 2005; Klein 1989; Ucko & Rosenfeld 1967). It asks the question: Why don t people see the importance of Parpallo? It seeks to show the important principles about the study of prehistoric paintings and engravings, particularly of the Pleistocene, that are illustra…
Paleoecology at La Riera (Asturias, Spain) [and Comments and Reply]
Excavations were conducted at La Riera to test hypotheses concerning variability among Upper Paleolithic/Mesolithic artifact assemblages and to define and begin to explain changing hunter-gatherer adaptations to the coastal region at the end of the Wurm and the beginning of the Holocene. The 36 strata contain assemblages that can be assigned to Aurignacian(?), Solutrean, Magdalenian, Azilian, and Asturian culture-stratigraphic units. However, the…
The Archaeology of Perception
Is intensification a condition of the fisher‐hunter‐gatherer way of life
On Depiction and Language
The archaeology of language origins–a review
Language is a feature to distinguish the ‘human’ from the ‘animal’ that has seemed a more enduring diagnostic character than some. But how is the breath of words to be made visible in the stony traces of the Pleistocene
The Evolutionary Emergence of Modern Human Behaviour
There's no Art-To Find the Mind's Construction-In Offence
The editor invited a comment on this ‘attack’ on Davidson and Noble (1989), but asked me ‘not merely toattack points of detail’. Any careful reading of Bednarik's article and comparison with the works it attacks would show that in almost every detail it lays itself open to such attack. Nevertheless I am grateful to the editor for the opportunity to set out some of the argument that Noble and I have been trying to develop, and that so clearly Bedn…
Why the first colonisation of the Australian region is the earliest evidence of modern human behaviour
Archeology
On the Evolution of Language
Paintings, Power, and the Past
Human Evolution, Language and Mind
Symbols by Nature
It is well understood that rock art involves symbols, and that the meaning of symbols is not straightforward. In this paper, I show that symbolic values in the iconic depictions in the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe vary across regions. I then show that for one site symbolic values within a constant iconic tradition vary across time. In the final section of the paper, I show that it is easy to be seduced from a modern perspective into a belief that…
Stone Tools and the Uniqueness of Human Culture
There is growing evidence that some species other than the human have behaviour that should be called cultural. Questions arise, then, of how human (and, perhaps, ape) cultures are different from those of other animals and how they have become so different. Human cultures are creative, generating new patterns of behaviour from those learned from others. Stone tool making provided a niche for the recruitment of tools and tool-making processes from…
The Colonization of Australia and Its Adjacent Islands and the Evolution of Modern Cognition
The first colonization of the Greater Australian continent, known as Sahul, indicated that humans had modern cognitive ability. Such modern human abilities probably emerged earlier in Africa. I will argue that the only way we can identify what constitutes modern human behavior is to look at the record in Australia-the first place colonized only by modern humans. I place this argument within recent theorizing about cognitive evolution
The Politics of Suffering
Variation in Early Paintings and Engravings
This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Approaches to Meaning in Pleistocene Paintings and Engravings Ritual Painting and Engraving in the West Mediterranean Region1 Pleistocene Painting, Engraving, and Ritual in the East Mediterranean Conclusion Acknowledgments Note References
Symbolisme et devenir un chasseur-cueilleur
L’art, c’est le façonnage et marquage de surfaces. En 1997, j’ai suggéré que certains indices dénoteraient un processus commun à l’émergence de la peinture et de la gravure au Pléistocène récent, mais que les résultats divergent d’une région à une autre : marquage des individus à travers les perles, ... ; marquage de segments de la société dans les réseaux sociaux ouverts ; marquage des réseaux sociaux fermés à travers l’identification en un lieu…
Symbolism and Becoming a Hunter-Gatherer
Art is the making and marking of surfaces. In 1997, I suggested that there were some hints of a common process in the late Pleistocene emergence of painting and engraving, but that the outcomes were different in different regions: marking of individuals through beads...; marking of segments of society in open social networks; marking of closed social networks through identification in a central place; marking of the manner of corporate ownership.…
Art mobilier et changements de signification symbolique
Ce qui a motivé cet article est la publication habituelle de cartes de répartition pour l’art européen du Paléolithique supérieur qui omettent le gisement du Parpalló. La question se pose alors : pourquoi l’importance du Parpalló n’est‐elle pas reconnue ? Cet article cherche à montrer les principes majeurs concernant l’étude de l’art préhistorique, en particulier du Pléistocène, qui sont illustrés par El Parpalló. El Parpalló est généralement abs…
Setting the scene for the peopling of the Australian New World
What a Carry On? Portable Art and Changes of Symbolic Meaning
The motivation for this paper is the continuing publication of maps of European Upper Palaeolithic art sites that omit the site of Parpallo (e.g. Bahn & Vertut 1988; Clottes 2008; Guthrie 2005; Klein 1989; Ucko & Rosenfeld 1967). It asks the question: Why don t people see the importance of Parpallo? It seeks to show the important principles about the study of prehistoric paintings and engravings, particularly of the Pleistocene, that are illustra…
The Roth Family, Anthropology, and Colonial Administration
No family better represents the overlapping roles of administrator and scientist in the British empire than the Roths. Descended from a Hungarian emigrant to Australia, two generations of Roths served the empire on four continents and, at the same time, produced ethnographic, archaeological, and linguistic studies that form the basis for much modern research. This volume assesses the often-conflicting roles and contributions of the Roths as gover…
Beads and boundaries
The aims of this paper are quite simple — to provide information about the different classes of ethnographically-known beads and pendants and their distribution across Australia in relation to the natural boundaries of drainage basins. In the explosion of interest in beads and pendants dated to the Late Pleistocene, much of the work has been concentrated on methodological issues (White 2007), or finds from individual sites (e.g., Blombos: d’Erric…
Burrup Peninsula
Archaeology (17 works) · History (17 works) · History (13 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (11 works) · Art (9 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (8 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (8 works)