Colouring the past : the significance of colour in archaeological research / edited by Andrew Jones and Gavin MacGregor.

The contributions by Cooney, Jones, Keates, Owoc, and MacGregor "originated from a conference session ... at the European Archaeological Association (EAA) meeting held in Bournemouth, September 1999"--P. vii.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction : Wonderful things : colour studies in archaeology from Munsell to materiality / Andrew Jones and Gavin MacGregor -- 1. Apotropaism and the temporality of colours : colourful mesolithic-neolithic seasons in the Danube gorges / Dusan Boric -- 2. Colourful prehistories : The problem with the Berlin and Kay colour paradigm / John Chapman -- 3. White on blonde : quartz pebbles and the use of quartz at neolithic monuments in the Isle of Man and beyond / Timothy Darvill -- 4. So many shades of rock : colour symbolism and Irish stone axeheads / Gabriel Cooney -- 5. The flashing blade : copper, colour and luminosity in north Italian copper age society / Stephen Keates -- 6. Munselling the mound : the use of soil colour as metaphor in British bronze age funerary ritual / Mary Ann Owoc -- 7. Making monuments out of mountains : the role of colour and texture in the constitution of meaning and identity at recumbent stone circles / Gavin Macgregor -- 8. A biography of colour : colour, material histories and personhood in the early bronze age of Britain and Ireland / Andrew Jones -- 9. The composition, function and significance of the mineral paints from the Kurgan burial mounds of the south Urals and north Kazakhstan / Alexander Tairov and Anatoli Filippovich Bushmakin -- 10. Colour and light in a Pompeian house : modern impressions or ancient perceptions / Penelope M. Allison -- 11. The colours of light : materiality and chromatic cultures of the Americas / Nicholas J. Saunders -- 12. Epilogue : colour and materiality in prehistoric society / Chris Scarre.

Colour shapes our world in profound, if sometimes subtle ways. It helps us to classify, form opinions, and make aesthetic and emotional judgements. Colour operates in every culture as a symbol, a metaphor, and as part of an aesthetic system. Yet archaeologists have traditionally subordinated the study of colour to the form and material value of the objects they find and thereby overlook its impact on conceptual systems throughout human history. This book explores the means by which colour-based cultural understandings are formed, and how they are used to sustain or alter social relations. From colour systems in the Mesolithic, to Aztec symbolism and the use of colour in Roman Pompeii, this book paints a new picture of the past. Through their close observation of monuments and material culture, authors uncover the subtle role colour has played in the construction of past social identities and the expression of ancient beliefs.