Bones and Ochre
Subtitle: The Curious Afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: February 15, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 416
ISBN-13: 9780674024991
Subjects: Celtic, Saxon, Germanic & Nordic archaeology; Social Science; Sociology; Anthropology - Physical; History; Paleontology; Social Science / Anthropology / Physical; Development - Economic Development; Ethnic Studies - General; General; Antiquities, Prehistoric; Cro-Magnons; Excavations (Archaeology); Wales
Description: "Marianne Sommer unravels a tale about a set of ancient human bones and their curious afterlife as a scientific object." "When the ochre-stained bones were unearthed in a Welsh cave in 1823, they inspired unsettling questions regarding their origin. Their discoverer, William Buckland, declared the remains to be Post-Diluvian, possibly those of a tax-man murdered by smugglers. Shortly thereafter he reinterpreted the bones as those of a female fortune-teller in Roman Britain - and so began the casting and recasting of the Red Lady. Geologist William Sollas re-excavated Paviland Cave, applying methods and theories not available to Buckland some ninety years earlier, and concluded that the skeleton was male and Cro-Magnon. Recently, an interdisciplinary team excavated the cave and reinterpreted its contents. Despite their "definitive report" in 2000, Sommer suggests this latest project still hasn't solved the mystery of the Red Lady. Rather, the Red Lady, now a shaman and icon of Welsh ancient history, continues to be implicated in questions of scientific and political authority." "The biography of the Red Lady reflects the personal, professional, and national ambitions of those who studied her and echoes the era in which the research was conducted. In Bones and Ochre. Sommer reveals how paleoanthropology has emerged as an international, interdisciplinary, modern science."--Jacket.