Getting power from old bones: Two Mediterranean museums and their importance

Abstract

In this lecture Iain Davidson talks about his introduction to archaeological analysis in the Stratigraphic Museum at Knossos, Crete and his later work based in the Museum of the Servicio de Prehistória de Valencia, Spain. The bones from Knossos allow comparison between the myths about animals at Knossos, the Linear B texts about animals and the reality of animals in everyday life. The bones from Parpalló allowed Iain to investigate the emergence of hunting by Ice Age people of Spain; but, in combination with the study of the art from the same cave, he also studied the emergence of socially defined power, and symbolic construction of identity earlier than the introduction of agriculture to Western Europe.