Knowledge and Power in Prehistoric Societies

Auteur

Lynne Kelly is an Honorary Research Associate in the Department of Arts, Communication and Critical Enquiry at La Trobe University, Melbourne. She is the author of ten books on education, one novel and three popular science titles. Kelly is interested in the question of how non-literate cultures memorise so much about their environment in the absence of writing, which has led her to research the mnemonic technologies of oral cultures.

Texte du rabat

This book explores the role of formal knowledge systems in small-scale oral cultures in both historic and archaeological contexts.

Résumé
This book offers new insights into the purpose of ancient monuments through an analysis of the methods by which oral cultures maintain a vast store of pragmatic knowledge. Lynne Kelly considers how the Australian Aboriginal, Native American, African, Pacific, and European cultures stored and transmitted knowledge in the absence of writing.

Contenu

1. Primary orality in the archaeological context; 2. Knowledge and power in oral cultures; 3. Primary orality and oral mnemonic technologies; 4. Material mnemonic technologies; 5. Animal and plant knowledge in oral tradition; 6. Time and space; 7. Case study: the Yolngu system of knowledge; 8. Case study: the Pueblo system of knowledge; 9. Chaco Canyon in the ancestral Puebloan context; 10. Poverty Point in the American Archaic context; 11. Stonehenge in the British and Irish Neolithic context; 12. Conclusions.