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The deep past in the virtual present: developing an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the psychological foundations of palaeolithic cave art (2023)
Journal Article
Wisher, I., Pettitt, P., & Kentridge, R. (2023). The deep past in the virtual present: developing an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the psychological foundations of palaeolithic cave art. Scientific Reports, 13(1), Article 19009. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-46320-8

Virtual Reality (VR) has vast potential for developing systematic, interdisciplinary studies to understand ephemeral behaviours in the archaeological record, such as the emergence and development of visual culture. Upper Palaeolithic cave art forms t... Read More about The deep past in the virtual present: developing an interdisciplinary approach towards understanding the psychological foundations of palaeolithic cave art.

Conversations with Caves: The Role of Pareidolia in the Upper Palaeolithic Figurative Art of Las Monedas and La Pasiega (Cantabria, Spain) (2023)
Journal Article
Wisher, I., Pettitt, P., & Kentridge, R. (2023). Conversations with Caves: The Role of Pareidolia in the Upper Palaeolithic Figurative Art of Las Monedas and La Pasiega (Cantabria, Spain). Cambridge Archaeological Journal, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774323000288

The influence of pareidolia has often been anecdotally observed in examples of Upper Palaeolithic cave art, where topographic features of cave walls were incorporated into images. As part of a wider investigation into the visual psychology of the ear... Read More about Conversations with Caves: The Role of Pareidolia in the Upper Palaeolithic Figurative Art of Las Monedas and La Pasiega (Cantabria, Spain).

An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar (2023)
Journal Article
Bacon, B., Khatiri, A., Palmer, J., Freeth, T., Pettitt, P., & Kentridge, R. (2023). An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 33(3), https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774322000415

In at least 400 European caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens groups drew, painted and engraved non-figurative signs from at least ~42,000 BP and figurative images (notably animals) from at least 37,000 BP. Sin... Read More about An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar.

Issues of theory and method in the analysis of Paleolithic mortuary behavior: A view from Shanidar Cave (2020)
Journal Article
Pomeroy, E., Hunt, C. O., Reynolds, T., Abdulmutalb, D., Asouti, E., Bennett, P., …Barker, G. (2020). Issues of theory and method in the analysis of Paleolithic mortuary behavior: A view from Shanidar Cave. Evolutionary Anthropology, 29(5), 263-279. https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21854

Mortuary behavior (activities concerning dead conspecifics) is one of many traits that were previously widely considered to have been uniquely human, but on which perspectives have changed markedly in recent years. Theoretical approaches to hominin m... Read More about Issues of theory and method in the analysis of Paleolithic mortuary behavior: A view from Shanidar Cave.

Response to White et al.’s reply: ‘Still no archaeological evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art’ [J. Hum. Evol. (2020) 102640] (2020)
Journal Article
Hoffmann, D. L., Standish, C. D., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P. B., Milton, J. A., Zilhão, J., …Pike, A. W. (in press). Response to White et al.’s reply: ‘Still no archaeological evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art’ [J. Hum. Evol. (2020) 102640]. Journal of Human Evolution, 144, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102810

Gravettian Figurative Art in the Western Pyrenees: Stratigraphy, Cultural Context, and Chronology (2018)
Journal Article
Ochoa, B., García-Diez, M., Maíllo-Fernández, J., Arrizabalaga, Á., & Pettitt, P. (2019). Gravettian Figurative Art in the Western Pyrenees: Stratigraphy, Cultural Context, and Chronology. European Journal of Archaeology, 22(2), 168-184. https://doi.org/10.1017/eaa.2018.31

The timing and nature of the emergence of art in human evolution has been one of the more debated subjects in palaeoanthropology in the last few years, and one of the areas where archaeology has made impressive advances. Here, we discuss the first ev... Read More about Gravettian Figurative Art in the Western Pyrenees: Stratigraphy, Cultural Context, and Chronology.

Hominin evolutionary thanatology from the mortuary to funerary realm. The palaeoanthropological bridge between chemistry and culture (2018)
Journal Article
Pettitt, P. (2018). Hominin evolutionary thanatology from the mortuary to funerary realm. The palaeoanthropological bridge between chemistry and culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 373(1754), Article 20180212. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0212

Palaeoanthropology, or more precisely Palaeolithic archaeology, offers the possibility of bridging the gap between mortuary activities that can be observed in the wider animal community and which relate to chemistry and emotion; to the often-elaborat... Read More about Hominin evolutionary thanatology from the mortuary to funerary realm. The palaeoanthropological bridge between chemistry and culture.

The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art (2018)
Journal Article
Hodgson, D., & Pettitt, P. (2018). The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 28(4), 591-612. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0959774318000227

Archaeologists have struggled for more than a century to explain why the first representational art of the Upper Palaeolithic arose and the reason for its precocious naturalism. Thanks to new data from various sites across Europe and further afield,... Read More about The Origins of Iconic Depictions: A Falsifiable Model Derived from the Visual Science of Palaeolithic Cave Art and World Rock Art.

U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art (2018)
Journal Article
Hoffmann, D., Standish, C., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P., Milton, J., Zilhão, J., …Pike, A. (2018). U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. Science, 359(6378), 912-915. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7778

he extent and nature of symbolic behavior among Neandertals are obscure. Although evidence for Neandertal body ornamentation has been proposed, all cave painting has been attributed to modern humans. Here we present dating results for three sites in... Read More about U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art.

Is Palaeolithic cave art consistent with costly signalling theory? Lascaux as a test case (2017)
Journal Article
Gittins, R., & Pettitt, P. (2017). Is Palaeolithic cave art consistent with costly signalling theory? Lascaux as a test case. World Archaeology, 49(4), 466-490. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2017.1386590

Several proponents of costly signalling theory (CST) have noted its potential for understanding prehistoric art. We use the Late Upper Palaeolithic art of Lascaux Cave (Dordogne, France) as a test case as to whether we may be able to identify an asse... Read More about Is Palaeolithic cave art consistent with costly signalling theory? Lascaux as a test case.