Más allá de la técnica: símbolo y lenguaje del arte paleolítico

Abstract

The title of this congress, “Reason, Utopia and Society” alludes also to the three main analytical perspectives in the study of Palaeolithic art over the century of history of this discipline. Reason first guided prehistorians towards chronological typologies based on stylistic and technical criteria. Utopians arose against this trend, seeking to use archaeo-ethnographical studies in order to explain these first graphic manifestations of humanity. The study of archaic cultures has provided useful theoretical knowledge, but it is also asource of inconsistent anachronisms. This article carries out a critical historiographical review of this ways of Reason and Utopia in order to approach the Society behind Paleolithic art, a communicated and communicative society with its own language, codified by the community and structured by its users.