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WHY do we refer to ourselves as part of the animal kingdom, yet also use
“animal” to refer to all that is inhuman or anti-human? The rich, diverse and
often contradictory relations between human and animal are explored in two
wideranging books in the One World Archaeology series, now in paperback: What
is an Animal? edited by Tim Ingold of the University of Manchester (pp 208,
£15.99) and Signifying Animals (pp 288, £16.99), edited by Roy
Willis of the University of Edinburgh, both published by Routledge. These
volumes chart the extraordinary ways that we humans have turned to snakes,
beavers, bees and pangolins in a desperate bid to understand our own humanity.
Meanwhile, the animals themselves continue to elude our anthropocentric
eye.