Citizen Science and Palaeolithic Art: Investigating the Visual Psychological Background to 15,800-year-old Engravings Online

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

We present findings from our Citizen Science-focused project that combines Pleistocene Archaeology, traceology, and visual psychology experimentation to offer new perspectives on Ice Age art. Our project visually explores the content and wider context of the 15,800-year-old German Gönnersdorf/Andernach Upper Palaeolithic engraved plaquettes (portable schist) which feature depictions such as female-like anthropomorphs, mammoths, and woolly rhinoceros. Here, we will showcase our Citizen Science project website, which engages the wider public in visual psychological experiments, including webcam eye-tracking when inspecting Upper Palaeolithic art. One of our experiments tests participants’ susceptibility to pareidolia, a phenomenon that makes our eyes (brains) see things that are not physically there. Another lets people place art onto a blank plaquette canvas at a place of their choosing, which is then compared against the corresponding archaeological record. Our overall data from these studies reveals how participants with different sets of backgrounds, such as total novices (no experience with UP art) and those that consider themselves Ice Age Art “experts,” perceive and engage with artistic markings of the past. Collectively, they enable us to shed new light onto our perception and the holistic function of Ice Age art.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38737.0