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Norwegian Archaeological Review

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Defusing Dualism: Mind, Materiality and Prehistoric Art

Vesa-Pekka Herva; Janne Ikäheimo

Online publication date: 05 November 2010

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Defusing Dualism: Mind, Materiality and

Prehistoric Art

V

ESA-

P

EKKA

H

ERVA AND

J

ANNE

I

KA¨HEIMO

How do archaeologists assign meanings to prehistoric art objects? Ancient art
is often understood in terms of communication and expression, whereas other
than purely visual meanings of art are seldom promulgated. Art is often
associated with survival, religion and identity — the ‘big issues’ of social life
— but some art objects may have been specimens of everyday material
culture. In this article it is shown that the rejection of the dualistic mode of
thinking — dichotomies between medium/message and symbolic/practical —
opens up an alternative perspective on the meaning of prehistoric art.

INTRODUCTION

Prehistoric art is consistently understood in
terms of expression, as a re ection of the
world understanding of ancient people.
Therefore, the decoding of visual images
embodied by art objects is often the focus of
archaeology. The purpose of this paper,
however, is to highlight the importance of
art objects as material things instead of
treating them as references to something else.
With this perspective on art, we do not seek to
replace the more familiar ‘images as mes-
sages in society’ approach (Nordbladh 1978),
but to demonstrate that the aforementioned
approach does not adequately cover the
multitude of roles material culture may play
in society.

It is being recognized that the dualistic

mode of thinking prevents us from properly
understanding non-Western societies (e.g.
Descola & Pa´lsson 1996, Bru¨ck 1999, Ingold
2000a). As to the interpretation of prehistoric
art, dualistic notions — the medium/message
and symbolic/practical dichotomies in par-
ticular — are equally relevant. As an indirect

result of dualism, prehistoric art is more often
than not related to the ‘big issues’ of social
life in the past, particularly to religious beliefs
and ritual practices (cf. Coles 1995). It will be
argued here, however, that the dualistic mode
of thinking may result in misconceptions
about life in ancient societies.

In the following discussion, the need for a

shift from the expressive paradigm of art to a
material-culture perspective is explained.
Then, the relevance of this approach is
demonstrated through the interpretation of a
small elk-head Ž gurine recovered from a
Bronze Age dwelling site of Hangaskangas,
located in Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland.
However, the present paper is more of an
exercise in developing an alternative perspec-
tive on prehistoric art than a painstaking
attempt to assign a meaning to a single object.

MODERN AND PREHISTORIC ART

In archaeology, it is readily acceptable that
prehistoric ‘art objects’, i.e. artefacts incor-
porating visual images, differ from the
modern works of ‘Ž ne art’. Attempts have

Vesa-Pekka Herva and Janne Ika¨heimo, Department of Archaeology, University of Oulu, Finland.
E-mail: [e-mail] ; janne.ikaheimo@oulu.f i

Norwegian Archaeological Review, Vol. 35, No. 2, 2002

ARTICLE

# 2002 Taylor & Francis

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been made to deŽ ne the idea of art (Gell
1996:15–17, Carroll 1999:206–266), but re-
gardless of the preferred deŽ nition, there still
seems to be a stark contrast between the post-
Renaissance, or rather post-18th century art
and prehistoric art. In general, art is asso-
ciated with aesthetic value and individual
ingenuity — art pursues novelty. But as this
conception of art emerged only in the 18th
century (Shiner 2001), prehistoric art objects
evidently operated within another frame of
reference. Although this is widely acknow-
ledged today (e.g. Conkey 1987:413, Hays
1993:89, Renfrew 1994:265–266), the rela-
tion between modern and prehistoric art is far
from being a clear one.

The modern conception of prehistoric art is

built largely on straightforward notions of
cultural evolution. The customary thought in
archaeology and art history is that all art
before the Renaissance was functional, as
opposed to aesthetic, and that prehistoric art,
in particular, served ritual and religious
purposes (e.g. Hall 1983:3, Salo 1984:177,
Barasch 1985:45–46, Crowley 1989:2–3,
Huurre 1998:278). Hence, the current under-
standing of prehistoric art is heavily over-
shadowed by the modern idea of art. To put it
simply, prehistoric art is polarized to modern
art. Because ‘aestheticity’ and ‘secularity’ are
the values assigned to modern art, prehistoric
art is designated as ‘functional’ and ‘religi-
ous’. From today’s perspective, the develop-
ment of artistic expression appears to have
been linear and seemingly predictable —
from ‘craft’ to ‘Art’ — all the way from the
Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition (cf.
Taylor 1994:251–252, Danto 1997, Ingold
2000b: 130–131). However, Art with a capital
A was invented in the 18th century, and craft
is also a value-laden Western construction.
Hence, the conceptual polarization between
the two is a product of modernity (Shiner
2001).

None the less, prehistoric art is commonly

described as ‘functional’ and ‘religious’, but
are these designations of any analytical
value? Interpretations of Palaeolithic cave

art, for instance, tend to stress its functionality
by connecting the images with complex
religious/metaphysical,

i.e.

‘symbolically

practical’ purposes. The logic of strictly
functional interpretations of cave art seems
to be the following: if art was not beneŽ cial in
terms of survival, it would not have been done
in the Ž rst place, not at least to any
remarkable extent. But the reason for reject-
ing the ‘art for art’s sake’ hypothesis may be
the scholarly desire to link cave art to the ‘big
issues’ of Palaeolithic life, the desire to
illuminate the key issues of the distant past
through art. The ‘art for art’s sake’ inter-
pretation of Palaeolithic art, on the other
hand, neither implies that Palaeolithic art
should be viewed similarly as Ž ne art nor that
art was utterly non-functional, but it chal-
lenges the nature of functionality. The making
of cave art could have been a kind of play that
was related to the development of cognitive
abilities (Halverson 1987).

Ultimately, both ‘functionality’ and ‘re-

ligiousness’ fail adequately to characterize
prehistoric art. First, all art, modern or pre-
modern, serves a myriad of purposes; func-
tionality is a matter of deŽ nition. Second, all
objects and activities are ‘religious’ or
‘cosmological’ in the sense that they neces-
sarily preserve one’s conceptions of efŽ cient
action, re ecting/reproducing the world-view
in general. But to accept this is quite different
from claiming that ‘religious beliefs’ primar-
ily promoted the manufacture and use of
prehistoric art objects.

THE EXPRESSIVE PARADIGM OF ART

The dominant tradition in art history and
aesthetic philosophy has conceptualized art
objects

as vehicles of communication and

expression (Preziosi 1998:15) and privileges
the ‘message’ conveyed by art. This concep-
tion also prevails in archaeology, and thus the
interpretation of prehistoric art tends to be
iconocentric. The archaeology of art focuses
on the decipherment of the visual code that
images are presumed to embody. One might

96 Vesa-Pekka Herva and Janne Ika¨heimo

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expect archaeologists, who usually operate
with material remains, to treat a prehistoric art
object primarily as a thing in itself, not as a
reference to something else. This is seldom
the case (Taylor 1994:252) and the conse-
quences are far from being insigniŽ cant.

The linguistic paradigm of art operates at

two levels. While images are thought to
constitute a visual language, the ‘linguistic
turn’ in the social sciences made it possible to
treat material culture in general as a system
of signs. The latter idea has been heavily
in uenced by the development of semiotics
(Miller 1987:95–96). Within this linguistic
paradigm, expression is considered to be the
primary function of both modern and pre-
historic art. The only difference is in the type
of conveyed messages. Modern art is thought
to express the ideas, values, emotions, etc., of
an individual artist, whereas prehistoric art is
assumed to manifest the values and ideas
collectively shared by all members of
society.

But art is not solely about symbolic

communication, as it has also a practical
mediatory role in social interaction (Gell
1998). Still, art can be thought in terms of
expression or communication because, ob-
viously, people often attach meanings to
artefacts. Objects do have sign-values, but
they are differently signiŽ ed from words and
sentences. In principle, words have Ž xed
meanings, whereas objects and images can
be seen either as signs or concrete things. The
spectator chooses the aspect that is relevant in
a given situation (Barasch 1997:83–86).

Objects can also combine several, even

mutually contradictory, meanings in a so-
cially accepted fashion. An artefact may be a
status object to some and a source of ridicule
to others (Miller 1987:107–108). In brief, the
Peircean theory of the sign that emphasizes
the role of the interpreter appears to model the
signifying process of material culture better
than the Saussurean theory, which eliminates
the signiŽ cance of the individual (cf. Potts
1996, Preucel & Bauer 2001). As to the
interpretation of visual images, the usefulness

of linguistic analogy is limited by the fact that
images cannot be divided into units in the
same way as a text can be split up into words
and phrases. In all known systems of visual
representation the relation between visual
designs and their meanings does not match
with the close relation of words and their
meanings (Potts 1996:22).

An unfortunate consequence of the me-

dium/message dualism is the decontextual-
ization of prehistoric art (Last 1998). Images
are conceptually detached from objects and
objects are violently detached from their
archaeological contexts. The dominant ap-
proach to prehistoric art, iconographic analy-
sis, operates with detached images and thus
tends to neglect archaeological context and
sequence (Whitley 1991:18–19). Because
images are considered to re ect collective
ideas and values, no special signiŽ cance is
attributed to the fact that images embodied by
different types of artefacts may be recovered
from a variety of archaeological contexts.

The problem with the Western iconocen-

trism is that sometimes images lack an
expressive dimension. The ZaŽ maniry of
Madagascar, for example, carve the wooden
parts of their houses in geometrical patterns
(Bloch 1995). These carvings, which were at
Ž rst thought to express indigenous mythologi-
cal narratives, did not comprise a system of
iconographic meanings at all. The purpose of
the carvings is to make the wood beautiful.
They do not refer to or signify anything as
such; rather, ‘the carvings are a celebration of
the material, and the building and of a
successful life which continues to expand
and reproduce’ (Bloch 1995:215). Rather than
representing a social process, the carvings
formed an essential part of it. Only the
making of carvings gave them meaning.

The richly carved Trobriand canoe prow-

boards serve as another example. Although
these decorated boards are not intended to
represent or refer to anything, they are still
powerful social agents (Gell 1992). The
boards constitute a psychological weapon in
Kula exchanges, as they are the Ž rst things the

Mind, Materiality and Prehistoric Art

97

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Trobriand’s trading partners see of the com-
ing  otilla. The purpose of the impressive
carvings is to demoralize the potential
opposition through powerful magical associa-
tions and to gain better bargains. ‘A prow-
board is an index of superior artistic agency,
and it demoralizes the opposition because
they cannot mentally encompass the process
of its origination’ (Gell 1998:70–71). As
demonstrated by these examples, the meaning
of art objects is not always obvious.

BEYOND EXPRESSION AND THE
SYMBOLIC

Prehistoric art objects are often treated as
inherently religious artefacts. Animal-headed
objects, for instance, have atmospherically
been described as

the most human pieces of evidence reflecting both
the skilful hands and plastic forming, but besides
aesthetic aims very probably also the rites of
society, worship and pantheon, that is, such
mental dimensions we cannot observe from blades
or potsherds. These sacred objects reflect the
cosmology of the hunter, which remained the
same for several millennia (Salo 1984:177, our
translation).

The success of this idea depends, again, on

the dualistic mode of thinking. Pots and axes
are thought of in terms of practical engage-
ment in the world, whereas art objects are
seen to operate in the domain of the symbolic.
There is a tendency to assume that function-
ality is, at least in most cases, obvious: we see
tools like a knife and instantly know what it is
for (Graves-Brown 1995:10). A ‘symbolic’ or
‘expressive’ function is assigned to art objects
because — unlike scrapers, adzes, axes, etc.
— they appear to lack a ‘practical’ function.
Necessarily, then, the activities clustering
around art objects are also designated as
‘symbolic’ and ‘expressive’ of nature. Such
practices are usually associated with ‘ritual’,
but there are two important objections to this
conception.

First, the function of art objects is not self-

evident, as the cases of ZaŽ maniry houses and
Trobriand canoes indicate. Notions of func-
tionality regulate the actions employing
artefacts; give a modern gadget to ancient
Joe Average and he would probably conceive
it as a non-utilitarian object. Similarly, most
non-Americans would not Ž gure out what a
chip clip (a clip used to re-seal an opened bag
of chips) was actually designed for because
the thing only makes sense in a speciŽ c social
context. It is less obvious, however, that the
functions of all objects are historically or
socially speciŽ c despite the fact that familiar
forms persuade us to assign familiar functions
to them (see Graves-Brown 1995:14). In a
sense, prehistoric art objects deceive us by
virtue of their iconicity:

In sum, because optically illusionistic pictures
stand as paradigmatic exemplars of all ‘Art’ for
us, and those exemplars have an iconic content,
iconicity assumes and overlarge place in the
unconscious assumptions we make when looking
at other humans’ artefacts we have designated
‘Art’. (It is also true, I am sure, that when we
survey the artefacts produced by other human
cultures, we tend to select those with an iconic
content over and above those without it to
designate as ‘art’). Once selected, we tend to read
them as though their iconic content were their
main mode of meaning in the world. Hence
iconocentrism works overtime to inhibit our
understandings of the other ways that humans’
artefacts may mean (Errington 1991:270) .

Thus, it is misleading to assume a priori that
the understanding of prehistoric art objects is
achieved through the decoding of iconic
content. One tends to assume that art objects
gain meaning because they are looked at
rather than, say, touched.

The second objection concerns the overall

meaningfulness of the symbolic/practical and
ritual/secular dichotomies. Anthropologists
and archaeologists tend to cast non-Western
societies in a Western mould by taking these
divisions for granted. In many societies,
symbolic and expressive social practices, as
we understand them, are considered as
perfectly logical and practical ways of affect-

98 Vesa-Pekka Herva and Janne Ika¨heimo

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ing on the world. Only in modern Western
society, which privileges mechanical causal-
ity, is ritual separated from rationality and
effective from expressive action (Bru¨ck
1999). In the context of secularized academia,
beliefs seems to constitute the essence of
religion, but when religion does not form a
separate discourse of life, people are con-
cerned with practice rather than beliefs and
the symbolic (Miller & Slater 2000:174–175).
Religion in non-Western societies is best
understood as a form of technology (Gell
1988), and ‘ritual’ practices should not be
categorically separated from other activities.
This does not imply homogeneity of all social
practices, but emphasizes the need to strive
for the indigenous categories of activities
(Bru¨ck 1999).

HUMAN/ANIMAL RELATIONS IN
PREHISTORIC FENNOSCANDIA

The interpretations of Fennoscandian prehis-
toric animal representations, most notably
rock imagery, are mainly built on the
expressive paradigm of art. Rock art is often
comprehended as an expression of prehis-
toric religion and social organization, while
osteological data are treated in terms of
rational economy (e.g. Higgs & Jarman
1975, Siiria¨inen 1981). For example, in Fin-
land, the bone remains of Mesolithic sites are
predominantly those of elk, beaver and seal
(Huurre 1998:154–156), while in the Neo-
lithic period (cal. 5100 BC–1900 BC) —
marked by the introduction of pottery rather
than agriculture — the percentage of elk bones
becomes greatly decreased in coastal sites as
the seal begins to dominate the osteological
record (Matiskainen 1989:49). Although this
change may imply that the elk population had
been exploited almost to extinction (Siiria¨i-
nen 1981), coastal societies may also have
specialized in sealing because of its high
productivity (Huurre 1998:154–156). It is
equally possible, however, that the ways of
treating killed elk changed to some extent.

In Finnish rock art, which at present

consists exclusively of paintings, the elk and
the human are the most frequently repre-
sented motifs (Fig. 1). Human representations
comprise approximately 40%, elk about 25%
of the total number of motifs (Miettinen
2000:49–56). All other motifs appear far
more infrequently, the proportion of the third
common motif, the so-called boat, is approxi-
mately 10%. The dominance of human/elk
imagery has usually been seen as a document
of hunting magic and the central position of
this animal in the Stone Age cosmology (e.g.
Taavitsainen 1978). For example, the use of
rock art panels as targets of ritual shooting
offers a convenient explanation for the two
prehistoric arrowheads found under water in
front of the Astuvansalmi rock painting at
Ristiina, Eastern Finland (see Gro¨nhagen
1994). Still, the idea of sympathetic magic
is not greatly favoured today.

In addition to hunting magic, totemism

and shamanism are the other two broad
frames of reference in the interpretation of
prehistoric art. The totemic interpretation, in
turn, has recently gained support in Scandi-
navia (e.g. Hesjedal 1994, Sognnes 1994),
and the relation between totemism and rock
art has been discussed also in Finland (e.g.
Siiria¨inen 1981:26–27, Autio 1995). None
the less, hunting magic hypothesis and
shamanistic interpretation of rock art (e.g.
Siikala 1980, Nu´n˜ez 1995, Lahelma 2000)
seem to prevail. Apart from few exceptions
(e.g. Lahelma 2000), prehistoric art has so
far been studied rather unsystematically in
Finland, where, more often than not, differ-
ent frames of reference are merged. Yet
human/animal relations in totemic societies
differ fundamentally from human/animal
relations in animistic societies. The contrast
is also re ected in the meaning of animal
representations (Ingold 2000b). For exam-
ple, the activity of making depictions is
important to totemic Australian Aboriginal
societies and the ‘Ž nished artifact’ is under-
stood as a static locus of power. By contrast,
the making of animal depictions is a quick
process in Alaskan animistic societies and art

Mind, Materiality and Prehistoric Art

99

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objects come to life only when ‘Ž nished
artifacts’ are used in ceremonies (Ingold
2000b:127–130).

Conventional iconocentric approaches to

prehistoric art certainly have some merits, but
unfortunately they clearly reduce art objects
to mere re ections of world-understanding
and social order. Art is seen to mirror the ‘big
issues’ of prehistoric life, and to some degree

this is what art does. The expressive paradigm
of art, however, is essentially reductive in
neglecting situated practice for the sake of
social superstructure. Although the elk un-
doubtedly had a position in Fennoscandian
prehistoric cosmologies, it makes little sense
to claim that all elk representations aimed to
reproduce some normative conceptions re-
lated to this animal.

Fig. 1. A detail of the Astuvansalmi rock painting showing the three most characteristic motifs in
Finnish rock art: an elk, an anthropomorphi c figure and a ‘boat-motif’. This painting, which is dated to
the Neolithic/Bronze Age, is among the largest in Finland (15 £ 3 m) and contains approximately 65

figures. Scale ca. 1:10. Drawing: V.-P. Herva (after Kivika¨s 1995:56)

.

100 Vesa-Pekka Herva and Janne Ika¨heimo

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UNDERSTANDING THE
HANGASKANGAS ELK

The object used as an example to illustrate the
multifaceted nature of prehistoric art in this
study comes from Muhos Hangaskangas, an
Early Bronze Age site, some 20 km SE of the
city of Oulu (Fig. 2). The site was Ž rst
discovered in 1926, when the constructors of
the Oulu–Kajaani railroad found a stone adze.
Cooperation between the Museum of North-
ern Ostrobothnia and the Department of
History at Oulu University led to archae-
ological excavations being set up at the site in
1968. The result of a nine-day campaign was
a rich collection of artefacts including several

fragments of a clay crucible and four
fragmentary straight-based arrowheads, while
the majority of Ž nds represented lithic debris.
A piece of chewing resin (National Museum
of Finland 17646:163) found in the 1968
excavations has recently been dated using the
AMS-method to the Early Bronze Age (Hela–
154, BP 3420 § 105, cal. 1860–1580 BC).

In 1998–1999 and 2002, the site was

chosen as the focus of the Archaeological
Test Excavation Group formed under the
supervision of the Department of Art Studies
and Anthropology, University of Oulu. The
total extent of these three small-scale cam-
paigns was just 35 m

2

, as opposed to some

140 m

2

excavated in 1968. Still, despite

Fig. 2. The location of Muhos Hangaskangas and other dwelling-sites in the lower Oulujoki River valley
at the end of the Bronze Age, ca. 500 BC, when the sea level was at a 20-m altitude above the present.
Drawing: J. Ika¨heimo

.

Mind, Materiality and Prehistoric Art

101

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improved archaeological research methods,
no evidence of actual dwellings was discov-
ered at the site. Furthermore, the livelihood of
the inhabitants remains somewhat obscure, as
the osteological data are limited to a few
severely deteriorated lumps of bone. In all,
the some 2500 Ž nds made during the recent
campaigns are practically identical to the
material recovered in the 1968 excavations,
with one exception: a miniature elk-head
carved from a piece of talc (Fig. 3). The
Ž gurine seems to be fairly complete; there is
no indication that it formed a part of an elk-
headed knife or other utilitarian object.

Dozens of plastic animal representations —

which often decorate axes, knives, spoons or
other ‘utilitarian’ objects (Fig. 4) — have
been found in the geographical area extending
from Fennoscandia to the Urals (e.g. Mei-
nander 1964, Carpelan 1974, 1977), usually
interpreted as ‘status symbols’ or ‘parapher-
nalia’ (e.g. Huurre 1998:293). These repre-
sentations are usually carved in stone, but
wood, antler, clay, bronze and amber have
also been used. The majority are random

Ž nds, but some have been recovered from the
excavations of dwelling sites (Carpelan
1974:32–34). The earliest examples date to
the Mesolithic, but most pieces are probably
Neolithic/Early Bronze Age (Carpelan 1974).

Despite the relative abundance of plastic

animal representations, there are no proper
parallels to the Hangaskangas elk in the
Finnish archaeological record. In principle,
the Hangaskangas elk could have been a part
of an (unŽ nished) animal-headed stone-knife
(cf. Meinander 1964), but the shape (and raw
material) of the item does not support this
hypothesis. Hence, the elk-head must be
treated as a complete artefact in itself. In
comparison to anthropomorphic Ž gurines,
animal Ž gurines are remarkably rare in Fin-
land (Fig. 5). The elk is represented in one
clay Ž gurine only. A snake, a bear and a few
unidentiŽ ed clay Ž gurines are also known
(Huurre 1998:294–295). In addition, an
amber Ž gurine, possibly depicting a bear,
was found during the underwater excavations
at the Astuvansalmi rock art site (Gro¨nhagen
1994). Finally, there are some schematic

Fig. 3. The modest dimensions (41 £ 31 £ 16 mm) of the Muhos Hangaskangas elk-head, certainly

qualifies it as a miniature object. Talc is very soft and easy to carve, and a suitable raw material for
figurines of this kind. Its style is somewhat impressionistic—an incorrect but illuminative metaphor —
because the object has been executed with a few rapid strokes and lacks polished surfaces. As the object
is flat, the depiction of the elk takes shape only when viewed from the side. Drawing: V.-P. Herva

.

102 Vesa-Pekka Herva and Janne Ika¨heimo

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animal-heads carved in stone (Edgren 1984:
61–62).

The rough appearance is the only formal

feature connecting these artefacts to the
Hangaskangas elk, but, on the other hand,
the sketchy form may actually be the key to

understanding the artefact. It is interesting to
note that the other schematic animal repre-
sentations are believed to have been deposited
as a result of ritual action (Edgren 1984:61–
62). This interpretation is based on the idea
that ‘symbolic’ objects did not need to be
embellished, but the ritual deposition of an
animal-head object cannot be accepted unless
it is supported by the archaeological context
(Fig. 6). The question arises, then, whether or
not the Hangaskangas elk should be consid-
ered as a religious or ritual object.

It is possible, of course, that the deposition

of the Hangaskangas elk was an occasion of
some special signiŽ cance, but the context
actually implies that the object was either lost
or casually discarded. As one does not readily
lose one’s valuables, these possibilities sug-
gest that the artefact as a ‘Ž nished object’ was
of little value. Moreover, the rough appear-
ance of the artefact suggests that little energy
was invested in its making. The Hangaskan-
gas elk may have served, for example, as a
toy, which is the function suggested for some
Ž gurines by many scholars (e.g. Meskell
1995:82, Huurre 1998:294). Another and
perhaps somewhat more appealing possibility
is that the meaning of the Hangaskangas elk
derived from the making-process itself, and
the resulting object was a mere ‘by-product’.
The making of the Ž gurine could have been a
kind of ‘meditative’ act, which was important
because of personal, psychological reasons.
Following Le´vi-Strauss (1962), we would
assert — without any deeper implications —
that ‘animals are good to think’. Rather than
referring to the ‘external’ world, reproducing
it in a ‘symbolic’ fashion, the making of the
elk Ž gurine may best be understood as a
means of pursuing a deeper knowledge of the
world in which the prehistoric ‘artist’ lived
(also cf. Ingold 2000b). Thus, the Hangas-
kangas elk can be seen to document an
essentially practical engagement in the world.

The Hangaskangas elk can be understood

in terms of everyday material culture, which
is ordinary and invisible, not actively calling
attention to itself (AttŽ eld 2000:1–20). While

Fig. 4. A Late Neolithic slate knife from Tervola
To¨rma¨vaara, SW Lapland. The artefact is deco-
rated with a schematic elk-head, but contrary to
the Hangaskangas elk, all of its surfaces have
been polished. Scale ca. 4:5. Drawing: V.-P.
Herva (after Edgren 1984:62)

.

Mind, Materiality and Prehistoric Art

103

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‘residually’ re ecting them, the Hangaskan-
gas elk — its making, use and deposition —
did not primarily articulate the matters of

survival, identity or power. This idea is
strengthened by the notion that artefacts that
play a marginal role in social interaction may

Fig. 5. A bear (?) figurine from Luopioinen (SW Finland) is one of the few clay animal figurines dated
to the Neolithic/Bronze Age. Scale ca. 2:1. Drawing: V.-P. Herva (after Huurre 1998:295)

.

Fig. 6. The Hangaskangas elk is associated with quartz flakes and potsherds, the typical debris at
Finnish Stone Age/Bronze Age dwelling sites. Drawing: J. Ika¨heimo.

104 Vesa-Pekka Herva and Janne Ika¨heimo

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be less elaborated than those contributing to
the formation of self-image (Wiessner 1989,
1990). In our view, the artefact was not
important as a sign in a system of symbols. In
prehistoric Fennoscandia, cosmological con-
ceptions were certainly associated with the
elk, but it is simplistic to assume that all elk
representations were simply aimed at repro-
ducing some normative cultural ideas. Ob-
jects that are similar in form may have
different functions and meanings in any
society, as studies on prehistoric anthropo-
morphic Ž gurines clearly indicate (e.g. Ucko
1968, Talaley 1993, Meskell 1995).

The case of the Hangaskangas elk serves

to illustrate that all art objects do not
primarily document the ‘big issues’ of social
life, even though the standard interpretations
of prehistoric art tend to emphasize the
opposite (see Coles 1995). Despite the
necessary cosmological allusions, neither
the Ž gurine in itself nor the actions clustering
around it were of a ‘ritual’ or ‘religious’
nature. The contextual data and the formal
properties of the Hangaskangas elk propose
that the artefact was marginal to large-scale
social concerns. We suggest that the iconic
content was not the object’s main mode of
meaning, that is, the Hangaskangas elk was
not a characteristically expressive artefact,
whose ‘message’ was decoded through the
visual/intellectual act. Rather, the object
served the needs of the phenomenological
lived body in a speciŽ c environmental/
cultural setting.

CONCLUSION

Our principal aim has been to challenge the
notion that prehistoric art primarily operates
in the domain of the symbolic. By presuming
that the encounters with art objects in
prehistory were characteristically visual/in-
tellectual acts of transferring messages that
the modern analyst is expected to decipher,
one probably misrepresents the meanings of
ancient art objects. We have argued that the
signiŽ cance of the visual aspect of prehistoric

art may have been overly emphasized at the
expense of other modes of meaning.

In the study of rock art, the shift from a

purely visual and iconocentric interpretation
to wider geographic and non-visual issues has
been an important development (e.g. Chippin-
dale & Tac¸on 1998, Bradley 2000, Ouzman
2001, Goldhahn 2002, Nash & Chippindale
2002), and this swing would be welcome in
the study of prehistoric art in general. In
particular, Ouzman’s (2001) work on San
rock art emphasizes the importance of non-
visual aspects of rock art, indicating that
touching images and hammering them to
produce sounds were signiŽ cant, if not very
obvious, activities. Iconocentric approaches
to prehistoric art may have more to say about
modern preconceptions than indigenous
meanings of art objects. While there is no
need to deny the communicative aspect of
prehistoric art, it is of paramount importance
to recognize that the expressive paradigm of
art is a modern construction, which only
partially illuminates the central question of
the meaning of prehistoric art.

A fuller understanding of prehistoric art

objects requires that the role of situated
practice is acknowledged, and this is what
the expressive paradigm of art fails to do.
Textual interpretations of art tend to assume
that culture is a static collection of values and
symbols, exaggerating the local consensus of
meanings (MacClancy 1997:3; also see Saler
2000:41). Moreover, there is little to say about
artefacts like the Hangaskangas elk from the
perspective of the expressive paradigm; one
may quite freely use them to illustrate any
‘grand narrative’. But our interpretation of the
Hangaskangas elk does not deny the impor-
tance of the collectives. The archaeological
record can, and should, be interpreted on
various scales (Meskell 1999:50).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We salute Anu Hartta, Mikko Hietala, and
Tab Surlaw for invaluable assistance in the
preparation of this article.

Mind, Materiality and Prehistoric Art

105

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