Style: Its Role in the Archaeology of Art

Abstract

Style has been and still is a core concept in the field of the archaeology of art for several reasons, including the fact that it is a twofold term: on the one hand, it refers to a quality of past human actions which is perceptible in material culture, and on the other hand, it is also an analytical tool that allows archaeologists to find continuities and discontinuities in the archaeological record which are relevant to answering questions about the spatial and temporal distribution and qualities of cultural practices. The concept of style is particularly relevant to the archaeology of art because, among other material culture products, the creation of artworks (be them artifacts or structures) entails the manipulation of form, color, size, texture, volume, etc. in the creation process, which often show recurrent patterns that evidence the underlying operation of stylistic rules and habits. Thus, style studies tackle numerous aspects of image making and display, including the trends underneath the design of visual motifs, their combinations and layout, the techniques used in their production, as well as the types of objects and contexts in which such images were created and displayed, the functions that they had for their creators, and the effects they generated over their users-viewers (Conkey & Hastorf 1990)...