- Sam Challis
Head & Senior Researcher
Rock Art Research Institute
University of the Witwatersrand
P. Bag 3. WITS 2050
Johannesburg
South Africa - 00 27 11 717 6039
- University of Michigan, Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, Department Memberadd
- Rock Art (Archaeology), Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology, African Archaeology, Creolization, Contact Period Archaeology, Cultural Conflict, Border Studies, Creolization, and 41 moreAfrican Rock Art, Contact Period Rock Art, Creolisation, History, Archaeology, Art History, South African history, South Africa (History), Lesotho, Colonialism, African History, Prehistoric Rock Art, Historical Archaeology, Frontier Studies, Archaeology of Colonialism, Rock Art, Archaeology of ethnicity, Archaeological Ethics, Saharan Archaeology, Southern Africa, South Africa, Museum and Heritage Studies, Heritage Management, Bushman, Material Culture Studies, Ethnohistory, South African Archaeology, Public Archaeology, Ethnography, Horses, South Africa (Archaeology), Ethnoarchaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Community Archaeology, Ethnogenesis (archaeology), Memory and materiality, Cross-cultural interaction (Archaeology), Postcolonial theory (Cultural Theory), Community archaeology and heritage interpretation, Thomas A dowson, and Globalizationedit
- I am the Director of the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) and a Senior Researcher in the School of Geography, Archa... moreI am the Director of the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) and a Senior Researcher in the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies. I specialise in the archaeology and history of southern Africa, with a focus on redressing the past through the lens of indigenous knowledge systems (IKS). Since 2011 I have been conducting a post-apartheid archaeology programme in rural South Africa - Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art (MARA).
I am interested in global rock art heritage and have a focus on the interaction between African hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers, as well as European colonists, and the 'reverse gaze' that rock art can offer history in terms of the Indigenous perspective. Equally, I am engaged in a New Animisms approach to Indigenous rock art and forager navigation of the landscape. Framing rock art as an Indigenous archive is central to all my work. In 2022 I was ‘Africa Fellow’ at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh, as part of the Institute Project on Decoloniality with Digital innovation in decoloniality: enhancing the images of ‘Bushman’ resistance. Growing out of this, and from the MARA programme is my new research project, entitled Digital Innovation in Post-Apartheid South Africa, (DIPASA). It is designed to recover and reveal an archive of indigenous images in southern Africa coupling digital visualisation with ethnographic evidence derived from interviews with local community members – the inheritors of the archaeological and cultural landscape.edit
Focusing on stunning paintings and engravings from around the world, Powerful Pictures interrogates the driving forces behind global rock art research. Many of the rock art motifs featured in the 16 chapters of this book were created by... more
Focusing on stunning paintings and engravings from around the world, Powerful Pictures interrogates the driving forces behind global rock art research. Many of the rock art motifs featured in the 16 chapters of this book were created by indigenous hunter-gatherer groups, and it sheds new light on non-Western rituals and worldviews, many of which are threatened or on the point of extinction. Stemming from a conference in Val Camonica in northern Italy, the book is arranged by continent, although it tackles how early research in some countries (e.g., Sweden, France, Spain, the USA, Canada, South Africa) influenced the trajectory of archaeological investigations in others (e.g., Australia, India, Mexico, Germany, Mongolia, Russia). All of the contributing authors have vast experience working with rock art and Indigenous communities, many of them holding posts in prestigious university departments around the world. The book will be of particular interest to professional historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, and indeed anyone who is interested in art, symbolism, and the past.
Research Interests:
The Maloti-Drakensberg of Lesotho and South Africa is Africa’s highest and most expansive mountain system south of Kilimanjaro (Tanzania). Its name is hyphenated because the mountain ranges it incorporates span political and modern... more
The Maloti-Drakensberg of Lesotho and South Africa is Africa’s highest and most expansive mountain system south of Kilimanjaro (Tanzania). Its name is hyphenated because the mountain ranges it incorporates span political and modern language and cultural regions and, accordingly, the mountains are seen from different perspectives. Maloti in the Sesotho language means ‘mountains’; the Africaner trekboere saw them as dragon’s (‘drakens’) mountains, today often coupled with the isiZulu term uKhahlamba, or ‘barrier of spears’. The region labelled Drakensberg’ on the KwaZulu-Natal (South African) side of the range simply refers to the escarpment (Mazel, this volume), whereas the highest peaks are inside the Kingdom of Lesotho. Although the mountains themselves were formed during uplift of the central plateau some 20 million years ago, it was the late Quaternary that saw the peopling of the area, with recurrent occupations from at least 83,000 years ago in the Lesotho Highlands (Pazan et al., 2022, this volume). This Special
Issue highlights selected topics pertaining to the varied Late Quaternary
peoples and environments of the mountains across time and space.
Issue highlights selected topics pertaining to the varied Late Quaternary
peoples and environments of the mountains across time and space.
Research Interests: African Studies, Anthropology, Mountain communities, Lesotho, South African history, and 15 moreAfrican Past (archaeology & anthropology), Quaternary Sedimentology and Geomorphology, Quaternary environments, African Archaeology, Quaternary Science, Quaternary environmental change, Montane Archaeology, Drakensberg, Quaternary Geoarchaeology, South African Archaeology, Mountain Archaeology, High Mountain Archaeology, Quaternary Archaeology In Africa, Quaternary Archaeology, and Montane Ecology
How did prehistoric peoples those living before written records think? Were their modes of thought fundamentally different from ours today? Researchers over the years have certainly believed so. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the... more
How did prehistoric peoples those living before written records think? Were their modes of thought fundamentally different from ours today? Researchers over the years have certainly believed so. Along with the Aborigines of Australia, the indigenous San people of southern Africa among the last hunter-gatherer societies on Earth became iconic representatives of all our distant ancestors, and were viewed either as irrational fantasists or childlike, highly spiritual conservationists. Since the 1960s, a new wave of research among the San and their world-famous rock art has overturned these misconceived ideas. Here, the great authority David Lewis-Williams and his colleague Sam Challis reveal how analysis of the rock paintings and engravings can be made to yield vital insights into San beliefs and ways of thought. The picture that emerges is very different from past analysis: this art is not a naïve narrative of daily life but rather is imbued with power and religious depth. As this elegantly written, enlightening book so ably demonstrates, the prehistoric mind was in fact as complex and sophisticated as that of contemporary humans.
Research Interests:
Both on and off the rocks, it is clear that many pictographs and petroglyphs are powerful cultural and social ‘tools’ as well as sacred beings. Indeed, in certain regions of many countries, cultural and socio-political identity is shaped,... more
Both on and off the rocks, it is clear that many pictographs and petroglyphs are powerful cultural and social ‘tools’ as well as sacred beings. Indeed, in certain regions of many countries, cultural and socio-political identity is shaped, manipulated, and presented through rock paintings and engravings. In this chapter, we focus on re-contextualised and appropriated Indigenous heritage and rock art motifs, in commercial settings, in sports team mascots, and as integral components of political and national symbols—there are illuminating similarities (as well as differences) that span the globe. Case studies include instances where descendants of the original artists have re-imagined and adapted the meanings and uses of motifs, and also where non-Indigenous/non-descendant groups have appropriated rock art imagery—often without consultation with or permission from Traditional Owners and heritage managers. We offer results from fieldwork and study in North America, northern Australia, and southern Africa.
Research Interests: Indigenous Studies, Intellectual Property, Cultural Heritage, Heritage Studies, Rock Art (Archaeology), and 13 moreIndigenous Knowledge, Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Cultural Heritage Management, Indigenous Peoples, Intellectual Property Rights, Commodification (Anthropology), Commodification of Cutlure, Decolonisation, Decolonization, Commodification, Traditional Knowledge and Intellectual Property Rights, Rock art research, and Cultural appropriation
Using contemporary people as proxies for ancient communities is a contentious but necessary practice in anthropology. In southern Africa, the distinction between the Cape KhoeSan and eastern KhoeSan remains unclear, as ethnicity labels... more
Using contemporary people as proxies for ancient communities is a contentious but necessary practice in anthropology. In southern Africa, the distinction between the Cape KhoeSan and eastern KhoeSan remains unclear, as ethnicity labels have been changed through time and most communities were decimated if not extirpated. The eastern KhoeSan may have had genetic distinctions from neighboring communities who speak Bantu languages and KhoeSan further away; alternatively, the identity may not have been tied to any notion of biology, instead denoting communities with a nomadic "lifeway" distinct from African agro-pastoralism. The Baphuthi of the 1800s in the Maloti-Drakensberg, southern Africa had a substantial KhoeSan constituency and a lifeway of nomadism, cattle raiding, and horticulture. Baphuthi heritage could provide insights into the history of the eastern KhoeSan. We examine genetic affinities of 23 Baphuthi to discern whether the narrative of KhoeSan descent reflects distinct genetic ancestry. Genome-wide SNP data (Illumina GSA) were merged with 52 global populations, for 160,000 SNPs. Genetic analyses show no support for a unique eastern KhoeSan ancestry distinct from other KhoeSan or southern Bantu speakers. The Baphuthi have strong affinities with early-arriving southern Bantu-speaking (Nguni) communities, as the later-arriving non-Nguni show strong evidence of recent African admixture possibly related to late-Iron Age migrations. The references to communities as "San" and "Bushman" in historic literature has often been misconstrued as notions of ethnic/biological distinctions. The terms may have reflected ambiguous references to non-sedentary polities instead, as seems to be the case for the eastern "Bushman" heritage of the Baphuthi.
Research Interests:
Investigation of Homo sapiens' palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species' adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and... more
Investigation of Homo sapiens' palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species' adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and precipitation record from the Ha Makotoko rockshelter in western Lesotho, which extends from~60,000 to 1,000 years ago. Stable carbon isotope ratios from plant wax biomarkers indicate a constant C 3-dominated ecosystem up to about 5,000 years ago, followed by C 4 grassland expansion due to increasing Holocene temperatures. Hydrogen isotope ratios indicate a drier, yet stable, Pleistocene and Early Holocene compared to a relatively wet Late Holocene. Although relatively cool and dry, the Pleistocene was ecologically reliable due to generally uniform precipitation amounts, which incentivized persistent habitation because of dependable freshwater reserves that supported rich terrestrial foods and provided prime locations for catching fish.
Research Interests:
San forager populations in nineteenth-century southern Africa were forced to adapt to greatly destructive aspects of the colonial project. Forging new societies from heterogeneous sources, they engaged in prolonged armed insurgency,... more
San forager populations in nineteenth-century southern Africa were forced to adapt to greatly destructive aspects of the colonial project. Forging new societies from heterogeneous sources, they engaged in prolonged armed insurgency, recording their exploits, presence and beliefs in the rock-art archive of the Maloti-Drakensberg. These images reference conflict and trauma, conventionally interpreted as visions of spiritual warfare. However, viewed through the lens of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), deeper dimensions emerge. PTSD is the culturally subjective experience of generalizable neuropathologies which develop following a traumatic event. Diagnosable in diverse communities worldwide, it nonetheless requires insider idioms to understand its local expressions. We explore how PTSD manifested in this historic and cultural context; how its symptomatic social dysfunctions would have been understood in forager aetiology, and how its intrusive flashbacks would have intruded on altered-state experiences induced to heal the consequences of violence. We find that the artists were not passive victims of trauma, but rather used art symbolically to reconsolidate individual and collective understandings of traumatic events.
Research Interests:
Rock art images are historical data in their own right – forming an archive that far pre-dates written texts in many regions, and far outstrips other forms of material culture in terms of potential to interpret past ontologies. Just as... more
Rock art images are historical data in their own right – forming an archive that far pre-dates written texts in many regions, and far outstrips other forms of material culture in terms of potential to interpret past ontologies. Just as one learns to read text, though, the language of rock art requires an understanding of emic – inside – knowledge (whether direct or by analogy) to be truly fathomed. Knowing when images were made, however, is crucial in application to culture contact and its ramifications. Although some direct radiometric dates are starting to appear in southern Africa, it arguably makes more sense to rely on images that demonstrate contact unequivocally – cattle, sheep, horses, guns – than to speculate on an undated corpus of wild animals and human figures that runs to many thousands of years prior. Not only this but it becomes increasingly clear that essentialist tropes of San from the ethnographic present didn’t obtain in the colonial contact era, if ever they held at all. Mixed authorship, it transpires, requires alternative readings and this offering chronicles just some of the attempts to achieve better ways of applying rock art data to the past of Indigenous southern Africans.
Research Interests:
In many regions of the world, we can learn more about past societies from their rock art than from any other archaeological source (e.g. Whitley et al. 2020). Rock art research opens up new vistas on Indigenous beliefs about ‘being in the... more
In many regions of the world, we can learn more about past societies from their rock art than from any other archaeological source (e.g. Whitley et al. 2020). Rock art research opens up new vistas on Indigenous beliefs about ‘being in the world’ (e.g. David and McNiven 2018; Goldhahn 2019; Hampson 2021; Lewis-Williams 2006; McDonald and Veth 2012). That said, histories of archaeology and anthropology (e.g. Fagan 1995; Murray and Evans 2008; Willey and Sabloff 1974), often imply that until recently there were no systematic studies of rock art. Some overviews of the history of archaeology devote a page or two to rock art studies (Schnapp 1996, cf. Bahn 1998); others do not mention rock art at all (e.g. Baudou 2004; Rowley-Conwy 2007). Implicit theoretical biases within the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology have led to the privileging of stratigraphic excavation, or in the wording of Thomas Dowson (1993: 642), ‘occupational debris’. Ironically, and echoing the famous notion that ‘archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing’ (Willey and Phillips 1958: 2), the implication in these histories is that archaeology is digging, or it is nothing.
Research Interests:
The archaeological record undergoes a dramatic shift in appearance whenever indigenous peoples encounter incoming populations—whether in the form of economy, politics, or identity. Rock art in southern Africa testifies to successive... more
The archaeological record undergoes a dramatic shift in appearance whenever indigenous peoples encounter incoming populations—whether in the form of economy, politics, or identity. Rock art in southern Africa testifies to successive interactions among hunter-gatherers, incoming African herders, African farmers, and, later, European settlers. New subject matter, however, is not simply incorporated into the preexisting tradition. Without exception, the many rock arts that depict novel motifs are made differently from the “traditional corpus,” usually rougher in appearance (in both paintings and engravings), more dynamic, or made with vivid and chalky paints. The drop in pigment quality is likely owing to the disruption and ultimate decimation of indigenous groups and the subsequent breakdown in trade and social communications—the Disconnect. The shifts in manners of depiction and the ways in which motifs are treated owe more, it seems, to the increasingly heterogeneous and creolizing membership of the art-producing people and the mixing of their cosmologies, albeit with specific cultural survivals. Precolonial contact images speak to a multitude of interactions and entanglements in ways that can inform the archaeological record, and colonial-era rock art constitutes a major component of the historical archive, an emic, agentive artifact that offers a reverse gaze from an indigenous perspective.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Anthropology, Indigenous Studies, Historical Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, and 11 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, Rock Art (Archaeology), Archaeology of Colonialisms, South Africa (History), South African history, Prehistoric Rock Art, Culture Contact, Southern African History, Rock art research, Archaeology of Colonialism, and Anthropology of Religion
In the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains of southern Africa, beliefs about snakes and their representations in rock art images are emblematic of hybrid histories of regional societies. The snake symbol initially represented an attempt at... more
In the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains of southern Africa, beliefs about snakes and their representations in rock art images are emblematic of hybrid histories of regional societies. The snake symbol initially represented an attempt at ‘reaching out’ as forager societies incorporated a prominent
figure in the mythologies of incoming societies into their own – a figure which became a symbolic reference to crosscultural symbiosis and admixture. Reflecting the long history of such contact, the ritual uses and ontological positions of snakes in contemporary knowledge systems of the
Maloti-Drakensberg are coherent with those of earlier societies. This offers fertile ground for novel forms of interpretation. Using contextual historic and modern ethnographic material, this paper presents a relational account of regional idioms. It dwells on the language of taming and domestication
that permeate these ethnographies, and the concern they show for the mitigation of ‘wild’, sometimes ‘monstrous’, consequences of spiritual power in the social world. Symbolic resolutions of these consequences are discernible in rock art images, particularly those of snakes, demonstrating the ritual brokerage of relations between human and non-human communities, with both forms of agency depicted in various states of ‘domestication’, bridging forager and farmer understandings of human–animal relations.
figure in the mythologies of incoming societies into their own – a figure which became a symbolic reference to crosscultural symbiosis and admixture. Reflecting the long history of such contact, the ritual uses and ontological positions of snakes in contemporary knowledge systems of the
Maloti-Drakensberg are coherent with those of earlier societies. This offers fertile ground for novel forms of interpretation. Using contextual historic and modern ethnographic material, this paper presents a relational account of regional idioms. It dwells on the language of taming and domestication
that permeate these ethnographies, and the concern they show for the mitigation of ‘wild’, sometimes ‘monstrous’, consequences of spiritual power in the social world. Symbolic resolutions of these consequences are discernible in rock art images, particularly those of snakes, demonstrating the ritual brokerage of relations between human and non-human communities, with both forms of agency depicted in various states of ‘domestication’, bridging forager and farmer understandings of human–animal relations.
Research Interests:
With earlier origins and a rebirth in the late 1990s, the New Animisms and the precipitate ‘ontological turn’ have now been in full swing since the mid-2000s. They make a valuable contribution to the interpretation of the rock arts of... more
With earlier origins and a rebirth in the late 1990s, the New Animisms and the precipitate ‘ontological turn’ have now been in full swing since the mid-2000s. They make a valuable contribution to the interpretation of the rock arts of numerous societies, particularly in their finding that in animist societies, there is little distinction between nature and culture, religious belief and practicality, the sacred and the profane. In the process, a problem of perspective arises: the perspectives of such societies, and the analogical sources that illuminate them, diverge in more foundational terms from Western perspectives than is often accounted for. This is why archaeologists of religion need to be anthropologists of the wider world, to recognise where animistic and shamanistic ontologies are represented, and perhaps where there is reason to look closely at how religious systems are used to imply Cartesian separations of nature and culture, religious and mundane, human/person and animal/non-person, and where these dichotomies may obscure other forms of being-in-the-world. Inspired by Bird-David, Descola, Hallowell, Ingold, Vieiros de Castro, and Willerslev, and acting through the lens of navigation in a populated, enculturated, and multinatural world, this contribution locates southern African shamanic expressions of rock art within broader contexts of shamanisms that are animist.
Research Interests: Anthropology, Ethnography, Rock Art (Archaeology), Shamanism, Anthropology of Shamanism, and 15 moreAnimism, Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, Tim Ingold, Prehistoric Rock Art, Rock Art, Philippe Descola, Anthropological Archaeology, Archaeology of shamanism, Rock art research, Landscape and Rock Art, Anthropological Theory, Ontological Turn, Alfred Irving Hallowell, Nurit Bird-David, and New Animism
One of the largest and weirdest anthropomorphic painted figures in the southern African subcontinent (re)discovered in 2015 also happens to be painted at an almost unprecedented altitude. Located in an anomalous uplifting of cave... more
One of the largest and weirdest anthropomorphic painted figures
in the southern African subcontinent (re)discovered in 2015
also happens to be painted at an almost unprecedented altitude.
Located in an anomalous uplifting of cave sandstone the
painted shelter perches at 2387m in the Highlands of Lesotho.
Extremely inhospitable in winter months when snow, wind and
altitude can take temperatures below -20°C, it is postulated that
this was a summer stopping place for the San hunter-gatherers
who followed the migrating herds of eland antelope to these
rich grazing grounds. A superabundance of meat and fat translates,
in the San idiom, into a superfluity of !gi or spiritual
potency. The place, having potency, is therefore both powerful
and dangerous. Such circumstances would call for those who
have the ability to influence and utilise the supernatural –
individuals with ‘hunting magic’ – to fulfil their social responsibility
to harness such power for the benefit of all. Both desirable
and undesirable outcomes might transpire. With bulging stomach
(evoking associations of gluttony and poor resource distribution),
tusks, and three legs with clawed toes, the figure in
question may represent just such an instance of the strong ritual
specialist struggling to control excess potency in an attempt to
broker relationships with the other-than-human.
in the southern African subcontinent (re)discovered in 2015
also happens to be painted at an almost unprecedented altitude.
Located in an anomalous uplifting of cave sandstone the
painted shelter perches at 2387m in the Highlands of Lesotho.
Extremely inhospitable in winter months when snow, wind and
altitude can take temperatures below -20°C, it is postulated that
this was a summer stopping place for the San hunter-gatherers
who followed the migrating herds of eland antelope to these
rich grazing grounds. A superabundance of meat and fat translates,
in the San idiom, into a superfluity of !gi or spiritual
potency. The place, having potency, is therefore both powerful
and dangerous. Such circumstances would call for those who
have the ability to influence and utilise the supernatural –
individuals with ‘hunting magic’ – to fulfil their social responsibility
to harness such power for the benefit of all. Both desirable
and undesirable outcomes might transpire. With bulging stomach
(evoking associations of gluttony and poor resource distribution),
tusks, and three legs with clawed toes, the figure in
question may represent just such an instance of the strong ritual
specialist struggling to control excess potency in an attempt to
broker relationships with the other-than-human.
Research Interests:
The ethnographic decipherment of the Bushman (San) rock art of southern Africa instigated a revolution in our understanding of hunter-gatherer rock arts worldwide, even in regions widely separated from the original context of the model.... more
The ethnographic decipherment of the Bushman (San) rock art of southern Africa instigated a revolution in our understanding of hunter-gatherer rock arts worldwide, even in regions widely separated from the original context of the model. Crucial to this decipherment were the narratives of the Bushman Qing, an inhabitant of the nineteenth-century Maloti-Drakensberg. This article returns to Qing's testimony to investigate why it is that a putative ‘hunter-gatherer’ of the Maloti-Drakensberg should have chosen to express the relationship between ritual specialists (‘shamans’) and non-human entities (game animals and the rain) through taming idioms. It discusses the wider context of ‘taming’ and ‘wildness’ in Southern Bushman thought, responding to calls to consider these communities and their visual arts in light of the perspectives of the ‘new animisms’. It explores how these idioms help us to understand particular visual tropes in the rock art of the Maloti-Drakensberg and highlig...
Research Interests:
The protracted colonisation of southern Africa’s Cape created conditions of extreme prejudice and violence. Slaves, the unwilling migrants to the Cape, comprised a mixed group of individuals from the Dutch and British colonies: people... more
The protracted colonisation of southern Africa’s Cape created
conditions of extreme prejudice and violence. Slaves, the
unwilling migrants to the Cape, comprised a mixed group of
individuals from the Dutch and British colonies: people with
Malay, Malagasy, East and West African heritages. They combined
to form the labour force for the colonial project, along with
indigenous Khoe-San trafficked within an illegal domestic unfree
labour economy. Escaped or ‘runaway’ slaves joined forces with
groups of ‘skelmbasters’ (mixed outlaws), who themselves were
descended from San-, Khoe- and Bantu-speaking Africans (huntergatherers,
herders and farmers). Together, they mounted a stiff
resistance that held up the colonial advance for many decades
from the late eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth
century. Engaging in guerilla-style warfare, they raided colonial
farms for livestock, horses and guns. The ethnogenesis of such
raiding bands is increasingly coming to the attention of
archaeologists encountering the images they made of themselves
in rock shelters, as well as the spiritual beliefs that they held in
connection with escape and protection. The ‘reverse’ or
‘entangled gaze’ provided by this painted record gives us the
perfect opportunity to view something of the slave and
indigenous resistance from outside the texts of the colonial
written record.
La colonisation prolongée du Cap d’Afrique australe créa des
conditions de préjugé et de violence extrêmes. Les esclaves,
immigrants contre leur gré, constituaient un groupe mixte
d’individus issus des colonies hollandaises et britanniques: ils et
elles étaient de descendance malaisienne, malgache, est-africaine
et ouest-africaine. Leur regroupement fournit la main-d’oeuvre du
projet colonial, aux côtés des indigènes Khoe-San victimes de la
traite au sein d’une économie illégale de travail domestique
forcé. Les esclaves évadés ou ‘fugitifs’ s’associèrent à des groupes
de ‘skelmbasters’ (hors-la-loi mixtes), eux-mêmes descendants
d’Africains de langue san, khoe et bantou (chasseurs-cueilleurs,
éleveurs et agriculteurs). Ensemble, ils montèrent une résistance
acharnée qui ralentit l’avancée coloniale pendant plusieurs
décennies, de la fin du dix-huitième siècle au milieu du dixneuvième
siècle. S’engageant dans une guerre de type guérilla,
ces groupes attaquèrent les fermes coloniales pour s’emparer de bétail, de chevaux et d’armes. L’ethnogenèse de ces groupes attire
de plus en plus l’attention des archéologues, qui découvrent dans
des abris sous roche les représentations que ces communautés se
firent d’elles-mêmes, ainsi que de leurs croyances spirituelles en
rapport avec l’évasion et la protection. Le regard ‘inversé’ ou
‘enchevêtré’ fourni par ces archives peintes offre une occasion
parfaite de discerner quelque chose de la résistance des esclaves
et des indigènes, hors du domaine des écrits coloniaux.
conditions of extreme prejudice and violence. Slaves, the
unwilling migrants to the Cape, comprised a mixed group of
individuals from the Dutch and British colonies: people with
Malay, Malagasy, East and West African heritages. They combined
to form the labour force for the colonial project, along with
indigenous Khoe-San trafficked within an illegal domestic unfree
labour economy. Escaped or ‘runaway’ slaves joined forces with
groups of ‘skelmbasters’ (mixed outlaws), who themselves were
descended from San-, Khoe- and Bantu-speaking Africans (huntergatherers,
herders and farmers). Together, they mounted a stiff
resistance that held up the colonial advance for many decades
from the late eighteenth century until the mid-nineteenth
century. Engaging in guerilla-style warfare, they raided colonial
farms for livestock, horses and guns. The ethnogenesis of such
raiding bands is increasingly coming to the attention of
archaeologists encountering the images they made of themselves
in rock shelters, as well as the spiritual beliefs that they held in
connection with escape and protection. The ‘reverse’ or
‘entangled gaze’ provided by this painted record gives us the
perfect opportunity to view something of the slave and
indigenous resistance from outside the texts of the colonial
written record.
La colonisation prolongée du Cap d’Afrique australe créa des
conditions de préjugé et de violence extrêmes. Les esclaves,
immigrants contre leur gré, constituaient un groupe mixte
d’individus issus des colonies hollandaises et britanniques: ils et
elles étaient de descendance malaisienne, malgache, est-africaine
et ouest-africaine. Leur regroupement fournit la main-d’oeuvre du
projet colonial, aux côtés des indigènes Khoe-San victimes de la
traite au sein d’une économie illégale de travail domestique
forcé. Les esclaves évadés ou ‘fugitifs’ s’associèrent à des groupes
de ‘skelmbasters’ (hors-la-loi mixtes), eux-mêmes descendants
d’Africains de langue san, khoe et bantou (chasseurs-cueilleurs,
éleveurs et agriculteurs). Ensemble, ils montèrent une résistance
acharnée qui ralentit l’avancée coloniale pendant plusieurs
décennies, de la fin du dix-huitième siècle au milieu du dixneuvième
siècle. S’engageant dans une guerre de type guérilla,
ces groupes attaquèrent les fermes coloniales pour s’emparer de bétail, de chevaux et d’armes. L’ethnogenèse de ces groupes attire
de plus en plus l’attention des archéologues, qui découvrent dans
des abris sous roche les représentations que ces communautés se
firent d’elles-mêmes, ainsi que de leurs croyances spirituelles en
rapport avec l’évasion et la protection. Le regard ‘inversé’ ou
‘enchevêtré’ fourni par ces archives peintes offre une occasion
parfaite de discerner quelque chose de la résistance des esclaves
et des indigènes, hors du domaine des écrits coloniaux.
Research Interests:
If the authorship of rock art by particular groups is assumed, the very object under study can unwittingly be falsely attributed. Our interpretations have largely failed to incorporate evidence, in the colonial era and before, for the... more
If the authorship of rock art by particular groups is assumed, the very object under study can unwittingly be falsely attributed. Our interpretations have largely failed to incorporate evidence, in the colonial era and before, for the integration, mixing, and métissage of new peoples from two or more previously different ethnic groups. The results are equally assumed—namely: that one essential group impacted on the other, and the consequent imagery is a record of this secular narrative. Contrary to these simplistic reflections, creolization emphasizes cultural resilience, subversive agency, and a theoretical usefulness that enables better understandings of the rock art of people on the far side of colonial frontiers and texts.
Research Interests:
Remarkable similarities across colonial encounters where Africans believed projectiles could be influenced by ritual practices (medicines, behaviours, observances) demand enquiry into their conception and trajectory. Although suggestion... more
Remarkable similarities across colonial encounters where Africans
believed projectiles could be influenced by ritual practices (medicines,
behaviours, observances) demand enquiry into their conception
and trajectory. Although suggestion of pan-subcontinental
phenomena may elicit suspicion of a generalisation, here evidence
is examined from the late-independent and colonial periods that
shows that a general belief, held cognate between groups, may
indeed have existed. The focus is on precolonial1 southern African
beliefs in the manipulation of projectiles and how these may have
affected ritual responses to firearms during colonisation. At least a
millennium of interactions between hunters, herders and farmers
appear to have resulted in commonly held beliefs, albeit with
differential emphases. From first contact, and into sustained colonisation,
it became necessary for Africans to highlight and/or
adapt indigenous beliefs as mechanisms by which to cope with
firearms and settler aggressive expansion.
believed projectiles could be influenced by ritual practices (medicines,
behaviours, observances) demand enquiry into their conception
and trajectory. Although suggestion of pan-subcontinental
phenomena may elicit suspicion of a generalisation, here evidence
is examined from the late-independent and colonial periods that
shows that a general belief, held cognate between groups, may
indeed have existed. The focus is on precolonial1 southern African
beliefs in the manipulation of projectiles and how these may have
affected ritual responses to firearms during colonisation. At least a
millennium of interactions between hunters, herders and farmers
appear to have resulted in commonly held beliefs, albeit with
differential emphases. From first contact, and into sustained colonisation,
it became necessary for Africans to highlight and/or
adapt indigenous beliefs as mechanisms by which to cope with
firearms and settler aggressive expansion.
Research Interests:
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‘Bushmen’ are often thought of as smaller in stature and paler of skin than southern African pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, yet this is a stereotype of the San partly perpetuated by the popular media and partly by the colonial... more
‘Bushmen’ are often thought of as smaller in stature and paler of skin than southern African pastoralists and agro-pastoralists, yet this is a stereotype of the San partly perpetuated by the popular media and partly by the colonial tendency to classify according to appearance. The surviving San of the Kalahari have become the model for San throughout the subcontinent. In the nineteenth century, words like Bushman, San, BaTwa, and BaRoa were used to denote economy, not just race. If one was perceived to be a hunter-gatherer then one was ‘Bushman’. Some ‘Bushman’ groups designated themselves as such, even though they practiced stock-keeping. There were advantages to being ‘Bushman’ on a destabilised frontier, which meant that peoples of differing cultural backgrounds sometimes banded together and actively created new ‘Bushman’ identities that met their needs: cohesion, subsistence and protection. In one particular instance this was done in such a way that the group survives in the paintings they made of themselves with horses, cattle, dogs and muskets, in the rock shelters from where they raided their neighbours.
Research Interests: History, Ethnohistory, Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, South African history, and 7 moreEthnogenesis (archaeology), Culture Contact, Rock art studies, Later Stone Age archaeology, Khoisan ethnography, ethnohistory, and history, and archaeological materials analysis, Southern African History, Ethnogenesis, Creolization Studies, and San Studies
This contribution aims to highlight the evidence provided by the San man //Kabbo, and others, used to piece together the cosmology of a short-lived and highly creolised people in the nineteenth century. Owing to exceptionally violent... more
This contribution aims to highlight the evidence provided by the San man //Kabbo, and others, used to piece together the cosmology of a short-lived and highly creolised people in the nineteenth century. Owing to exceptionally violent conditions on the colonial eastern Cape frontier, as well as internal African frontiers, people of diverse cultural origins sometimes banded together in order to survive, and to take advantage of, the upheaval. In one such instance the resultant cohesion was strengthened by beliefs held in common across cultures. A certain category of root medicine is found to have equivalents in San- and Bantu-speaker cosmologies, as well as perhaps in Khoe-speaker beliefs. Known as so-/oa to the /Xam San, and U-mabophe to the Nguni (Xhosa, Zulu and others), this category of medicines was (and still is) an agent of protection, and thus highly desirable in a hostile environment. The root warded off sickness, incapacitated one’s enemies in battle and rendered motionless (or oblivious) the people one targeted for horse- and cattle-raiding. Further, it was associated with the animal that also used it for protection – the baboon – arch-thief and opportunist, whose qualities could be harnessed in a nineteenth-century version of the ‘Bushman’ trance dance.
Research Interests: History, African Studies, Nineteenth Century Studies, Rock Art (Archaeology), African History, and 9 moreTraditional Medicine, Creolization, South African history, Borders and Frontiers, Baboons, Shamanic Possession, Trance, and Altered Staes of Consciousness, Horses, Bushman beliefs, and San Hunter Gatherers
This article explores the formation of mounted frontier raiding groups of diverse origins in the mountains of the south-eastern Cape Colony. It addresses concepts of creolisation, identity formation and image making (rock art) with... more
This article explores the formation of mounted frontier raiding groups of diverse origins in the mountains of the south-eastern Cape Colony. It addresses concepts of creolisation, identity formation and image making (rock art) with special reference to nineteenth-century frontier conditions, and examines the ways in which ‘contact period’ rock art has been perceived until now. Certain frontier raiding groups often referred to simply as ‘Bushmen’ are revealed to comprise members from many formerly distinct ethnicities, and include the progeny resulting from subsequent inter-marriage. Cultural and ethnic mixing, the advent of the horse and the need for identity to adapt to these changes, results in a creolisation process probably more common to South Africa than has previously been allowed.
Research Interests: History, Rock Art (Archaeology), African History, Metis Studies, Creolization, and 10 moreFrontier History, Frontier Studies, South African history, Southern African archaeology, Creolization Theory, Cultural Conflict, Border Studies, Creolization, Metis, Southern African Studies and Postcolonialism, Southern African rock art archaeology, and Creolisation
Using contemporary people as proxies for ancient communities is a contentious but necessary practice in anthropology. In Southern Africa, the distinction between the Cape KhoeSan and eastern KhoeSan remains unclear as ethnicity labels are... more
Using contemporary people as proxies for ancient communities is a contentious but necessary practice in anthropology. In Southern Africa, the distinction between the Cape KhoeSan and eastern KhoeSan remains unclear as ethnicity labels are continually changed through time and most communities were extirpated. The eastern KhoeSan may reflect an ‘essentialistic’ biological distinction from neighbouring Bantu-speaking communities or it may not be tied to ‘race’ and instead denote communities with a nomadic ‘life-way’ distinct from agro-pastoralism. The BaPhuthi of the 1800s in the Maloti-Drakensberg, Southern Africa had a substantial San constituency and a life-way of nomadism, cattle raiding, and horticulture. The BaPhuthi heritage could provide insights into the history of the eastern KhoeSan. We examine for the first time genetic affinities of 23 BaPhuthi to distinguish if KhoeSan ancestry reflects biologically distinct heritage or a shared life-way. Data were merged with 52 global p...
The rock shelter Mafusing 1 was excavated in 2011 as part of the Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA research programme initiated in the same year. This programme endeavours to redress the much-neglected history of this region of... more
The rock shelter Mafusing 1 was excavated in 2011 as part of the
Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA research programme
initiated in the same year. This programme endeavours
to redress the much-neglected history of this region of South
Africa, which until 1994 formed part of the wider ‘Transkei’
apartheid homeland. Derricourt’s 1977 Prehistoric Man in the
Ciskei and Transkei constituted the last archaeological survey in
this area. However, the coverage for the Matatiele region was
limited, and relied largely on van Riet Lowe’s site list of the
1930s. Thus far, the MARA programme has documented more
than 200 rock art sites in systematic survey and has excavated
two shelters – Mafusing 1 (MAF 1) and Gladstone 1 (forthcoming).
Here we present analyses of the excavated material from
the MAF 1 site, which illustrates the archaeological component of the wider historical and heritage-related programme focus.
Our main findings at MAF 1 to date include a continuous, well
stratified cultural sequence dating from the middle Holocene
up to 2400 cal. BP. Ages obtained from these deposits are suggestive
of hunter-gatherer occupation pulses at MAF 1, with possible
abandonment of the site over the course of two millennia
in the middle Holocene. After a major roof collapse altered the
morphology of the shelter, there was a significant change in the
character of occupation at MAF 1, reflected in both the artefact
assemblage composition and the construction of a rectilinear
structure within the shelter sometime after 2400 cal. BP. The
presence of a lithic artefact assemblage from this latter phase
of occupation at MAF 1 confirms the continued use of the site
by hunter-gatherers, while the presence of pottery and in particular
the construction of a putative rectilinear dwelling and
associated animal enclosure points to occupation of the shelter
by agropastoralists. Rock art evidence shows distinct phases,
the latter of which may point to religious practices involving
rain-serpents and rainmaking possibly performed, in part, for
an African farmer audience. This brings into focus a central aim
of the MARA programme: to research the archaeology of contact
between hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist groups.
Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA research programme
initiated in the same year. This programme endeavours
to redress the much-neglected history of this region of South
Africa, which until 1994 formed part of the wider ‘Transkei’
apartheid homeland. Derricourt’s 1977 Prehistoric Man in the
Ciskei and Transkei constituted the last archaeological survey in
this area. However, the coverage for the Matatiele region was
limited, and relied largely on van Riet Lowe’s site list of the
1930s. Thus far, the MARA programme has documented more
than 200 rock art sites in systematic survey and has excavated
two shelters – Mafusing 1 (MAF 1) and Gladstone 1 (forthcoming).
Here we present analyses of the excavated material from
the MAF 1 site, which illustrates the archaeological component of the wider historical and heritage-related programme focus.
Our main findings at MAF 1 to date include a continuous, well
stratified cultural sequence dating from the middle Holocene
up to 2400 cal. BP. Ages obtained from these deposits are suggestive
of hunter-gatherer occupation pulses at MAF 1, with possible
abandonment of the site over the course of two millennia
in the middle Holocene. After a major roof collapse altered the
morphology of the shelter, there was a significant change in the
character of occupation at MAF 1, reflected in both the artefact
assemblage composition and the construction of a rectilinear
structure within the shelter sometime after 2400 cal. BP. The
presence of a lithic artefact assemblage from this latter phase
of occupation at MAF 1 confirms the continued use of the site
by hunter-gatherers, while the presence of pottery and in particular
the construction of a putative rectilinear dwelling and
associated animal enclosure points to occupation of the shelter
by agropastoralists. Rock art evidence shows distinct phases,
the latter of which may point to religious practices involving
rain-serpents and rainmaking possibly performed, in part, for
an African farmer audience. This brings into focus a central aim
of the MARA programme: to research the archaeology of contact
between hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist groups.
Research Interests:
As an agenda for development, 'transformation' invokes the longstanding and (in South Africa) constitutionally-supported struggle for redistributive socioeconomic rights. This contribution brings experiences from two different sorts of... more
As an agenda for development, 'transformation' invokes the longstanding and (in South Africa) constitutionally-supported struggle for redistributive socioeconomic rights. This contribution brings experiences from two different sorts of heritage management programmes to bear on discussions of transformation as development: the Metolong Cultural Resource Management Project associated with Lesotho's Metolong Dam, and the Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art programme as a National Research Foundation-funded academic project, both of which included capacity building components. Tracing their paths-and the expectations for heritage that they entailed-reveals where invoking heritage as a platform for capacity building too often works against the cause of empowerment. In this chapter, we disarticulate received narratives of transformation, community engagement, and development, identifying tensions and concerns that emerge in practical examples. We highlight issues surrounding credentialing trainees, knowledge production and the creation of expert/ technician divides, and recommend policies for the southern African heritage sector to address these.
Research Interests: African Studies, Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, Archaeological Method & Theory, History of Archaeological Praxis, and 10 moreTransformation of University Systems, Archaeological Ethics, Cultural Heritage Management, Cultural Resource Management (Archaeology), Social Practice, Archaeological Methodology, Archaeological Heritage Management, African Archaeology, South African Archaeology, and Transformation in archaeology practice
Gathering digital data is a twenty-first-century research concern. Working in the previously undocumented region of t he Eastern Cape’s former 'Transkei' homeland presents several data collection opportunities and obstacles. Local... more
Gathering digital data is a twenty-first-century research concern. Working in the previously undocumented region of t he Eastern Cape’s former 'Transkei' homeland presents several data collection opportunities and obstacles. Local community collectives can vastly enhance the data collection process,aiding in administration, field walking, translation and—as trained archaeologists—excavation and rock art documentation. In the last 7 years, the Matatiele Archaeology Rock Art (MARA) team has discovered over 240 archaeological sites, the vast majority of which contain rock art. The principal investigator (PI), post-doctoral fellows, technical skills specialists and students have all engaged with, helped train and benefited from field technicians chosen by the local communities to work with us. With their help, we have undertaken excavations and taken thousands of documentary photographs. We have documented oral traditions and the indigenous knowledge of local healers, all of which research is produced, and stored, digitally and requires preservation in perpetuity. The present contribution out-lines some of the many and varied ways in which this programme has undertaken these tasks, in the endeavour to redress the imbalance in this region’s history. Please follow link: https://rdcu.be/WVW6
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This chapter is offered as a critique and, though it is much needed and we hope impactful, we recognise that in the space kindly granted us in this forum we cannot hope to cover each page of the back story (see Mazel 2012: 516–524), or... more
This chapter is offered as a critique and, though it is much needed and we hope impactful, we recognise that in the space kindly granted us in this forum we cannot hope to cover each page of the back story (see Mazel 2012: 516–524), or every perspective and reference in the discourse. We therefore limit ourselves to those articles and documents we feel most accurately convey our point, and apologise for any inadvertent omissions. We foreground the absence of marketing and place emphasis on making sustainable tourism strategies by incorporating local people and valorising heritage sites; creating better visitor experiences and raising the profile of rock art.
Research Interests:
Previously unpublished rock art in Lesotho, southern Africa, is believed to explain the words of Qing—the San (Bushman) man who gave interpretations of paintings in the vicinity. Published in 1874, his testimony, when closely read and... more
Previously unpublished rock art in Lesotho, southern Africa, is believed to explain the words of Qing—the San (Bushman) man who gave interpretations of paintings in the vicinity. Published in 1874, his testimony, when closely read and compared with other sources, has since become the single most important source for the decipherment of rock art in the sub-continent. One seemingly incomprehensible phrase, though, concerning the famous rain-making depiction at Sehonghong Shelter, Lesotho, has worried scholars for some time. Here, we make a connection that sets Qing’s words within the context of the other rock art sites, and the greater cosmology, that he knew. Far from being too young,uninitiated or unfamiliar with the mythology and religion, as this painted site—Rain Snake Shelter—shows, Qing was more than conversant with San cosmology and ritual practice. His testimony is therefore more reliable than was hitherto granted.
Research Interests: History, African Studies, Ethnography, Rock Art (Archaeology), African History, and 8 moreLesotho, South African history, Prehistoric Rock Art, Rock Art, Rock art studies, Later Stone Age archaeology, Khoisan ethnography, ethnohistory, and history, and archaeological materials analysis, African Archaeology, Qing, and JOseph Orpen
... is not until the end of the article, as Orpen "can only make [the stories] consecutive" (Orpen ... The source material for Pager's 'Ndedema' of 1971 is housed at the Rock Art Research Institute at ... has... more
... is not until the end of the article, as Orpen "can only make [the stories] consecutive" (Orpen ... The source material for Pager's 'Ndedema' of 1971 is housed at the Rock Art Research Institute at ... has proved a fount of information on rhebok and sites all over the Drakensberg and has ...
McCall (2010) uses data collected by Pager (1971) to argue for geographically controlled differences in the uses of painted rock art sites in the Didima Gorge, South Africa. We point out fundamental errors in the ascription of sites to... more
McCall (2010) uses data collected by Pager (1971) to argue for geographically controlled differences in the uses of painted rock art sites in the Didima Gorge, South Africa. We point out fundamental errors in the ascription of sites to particular categories that undermine the conclusions he reached. We conclude that there is no evidence to suggest different uses of painted rock shelters in the Didima Gorge.
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THE ROCK ART OF BONGANI MOUNTAIN LODGE AND ITS ENVIRONS, MPUMALANGA PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA: AN INTRODUCTION TO ... PROBLEMS OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN ROCK-ART REGIONS ... JAMIE HAMPSONI, WILLIAM CHALLIS1, GEOFFREY ...
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Over the last four decades archaeological and historical research has the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains as a refuge for Bushmen as the nineteenth-century colonial frontier constricted their lifeways and movements. Recent research has... more
Over the last four decades archaeological and historical research has the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains as a refuge for Bushmen as the nineteenth-century colonial frontier constricted their lifeways and movements. Recent research has expanded on this characterisation of mountains-as-refugia, focusing on ethnically heterogeneous raiding bands (including San) forging new cultural identities in this marginal context. Here, we propose another view of the Maloti-Drakensberg: a dynamic political theatre in which polities that engaged in illicit activities like raiding set the terms of colonial encounters. We employ the concept of landscape friction to re-cast the environmentally marginal Maloti-Drakensberg as a region that fostered the growth of heterodox cultural, subsistence, and political behaviours. We introduce historical, rock art, and ‘dirt’ archaeological evidence and synthesise earlier research to illustrate the significance of the Maloti-Drakensberg during the colonial period. We offer a revised southeast-African colonial landscape and directions for future research.
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Joseph Millerd Orpen’s article recounting the ethnographic data he collected from a Bushman informant (Qing) whilst searching for Langalibalele in the southern Maloti-Drakensberg is a key document for southern African archaeology, one of... more
Joseph Millerd Orpen’s article recounting the ethnographic data he collected from a Bushman informant (Qing) whilst searching for Langalibalele in the southern Maloti-Drakensberg is a key document for southern African archaeology, one of the cornerstones in the decipherment of the rock art of the region.
This article publishes a slightly edited version of Orpen’s article with paragraph breaks and headings to facilitate the reading of this crucial document, as well as selections from Bleek’s Second report concerning Bushman researches and Lloyd’s A short account of further Bushman material collected that help situate Orpen’s work within the intellectual community of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony. The article also locates this work within the substantial corpus of Qing- and Orpen-related scholarly material, outlining the major uses made of the work thus far.
KEY WORDS: Archaeology, history, Melikane, oral history, Orpen, Qing, rock art, Sehonghong.
This article publishes a slightly edited version of Orpen’s article with paragraph breaks and headings to facilitate the reading of this crucial document, as well as selections from Bleek’s Second report concerning Bushman researches and Lloyd’s A short account of further Bushman material collected that help situate Orpen’s work within the intellectual community of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony. The article also locates this work within the substantial corpus of Qing- and Orpen-related scholarly material, outlining the major uses made of the work thus far.
KEY WORDS: Archaeology, history, Melikane, oral history, Orpen, Qing, rock art, Sehonghong.
Research Interests:
Recent work on a well-known San rock art panel from South Africa shows that continued movement between, on the one hand, San beliefs and rituals and, on the other, the images themselves allows us to move from general statements about San... more
Recent work on a well-known San rock art panel from South Africa shows that continued movement between, on the one hand, San beliefs and rituals and, on the other, the images themselves allows us to move from general statements about San rock art to specific understandings. We demonstrate that continuing field research, combined with the revisiting of painted panels, is uncovering diverse ways in which San rock painters deployed and, at the same time, individually transmuted abstract ideas and experiences into material images, often in easily missed details. One of these instances, hitherto unknown, is described. By following-up the heuristic potential of this approach researchers are able to explore the ways in which San imagery played a social role at different times and in different places in San history.
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Research Interests: Religion, History, Military History, Archaeology, Medieval History, and 9 moreRock Art (Archaeology), Military Architecture, Military culture, Rock Art, Rock art studies, Later Stone Age archaeology, Khoisan ethnography, ethnohistory, and history, and archaeological materials analysis, Historical Archaelogy, Trade In Horses and Horsebreeding, Medieval Sports and Society, and Poolitical Culture
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A preliminary expedition to record new rock art sites in the Tagant region of the Mauritanian Sahara led to the (re)discovery of previously unpublished stone-walled habitation and what are thought to be rectangular funerary monuments,... more
A preliminary expedition to record new rock art sites in the Tagant region of the Mauritanian Sahara led to the (re)discovery of previously unpublished stone-walled habitation and what are thought to be rectangular funerary monuments, built substantially and in profusion along the length of the sandstone ridge, Guilemsi. Paintings in cliffs below the top of the ridge depict antelope, giraffe, cattle and mounted horses, as well as camels, handprints and Tifinagh inscriptions. This article reports the findings at this site, and looks briefly at the possible authorship of the paintings and the culture of stone-walling. Some of the horse paintings are ‘bi-triangular’, and bear a striking resemblance to those photographed by two of us (Coulson and Campbell) some 3,500 km further east in Chad.
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A preliminary expedition to record new rock art sites in the Tagant region of the Mauritanian Sahara led to the (re)discovery of previously unpublished stone-walled habitation and what are thought to be rectangular funerary monuments,... more
A preliminary expedition to record new rock art sites in the Tagant region of the Mauritanian Sahara led to the (re)discovery of previously unpublished stone-walled habitation and what are
thought to be rectangular funerary monuments, built substantially and in profusion along the length of the sandstone ridge, Guilemsi. Paintings in cliffs below the top of the ridge depict antelope, giraffe, cattle and mounted horses, as well as camels, handprints and Tifinagh inscriptions. This article reports the findings at this site, and looks briefly at the possible authorship of the paintings and the culture of stone-walling. Some of the horse paintings are ‘bi-triangular’, and bear a striking resemblance to those photographed by two of us (Coulson and Campbell) some 3,500km further east in Chad.
thought to be rectangular funerary monuments, built substantially and in profusion along the length of the sandstone ridge, Guilemsi. Paintings in cliffs below the top of the ridge depict antelope, giraffe, cattle and mounted horses, as well as camels, handprints and Tifinagh inscriptions. This article reports the findings at this site, and looks briefly at the possible authorship of the paintings and the culture of stone-walling. Some of the horse paintings are ‘bi-triangular’, and bear a striking resemblance to those photographed by two of us (Coulson and Campbell) some 3,500km further east in Chad.
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This paper focuses on a San rock painting motif in the south-eastern mountains of South Africa-a line, usually red and often fringed with white dots. Diverse strands of evidence show that previous attempts to elucidate its significance... more
This paper focuses on a San rock painting motif in the south-eastern mountains of South Africa-a line, usually red and often fringed with white dots. Diverse strands of
evidence show that previous attempts to elucidate its significance were only partially correct. To achieve further clarification, the paper intertwines ethnographic evidence
and neuropsychology. San beliefs concerning journeys to the spirit realm in the sky are examined. These beliefs embrace notions of 'threads of light' along which those who traverse the cosmos climb, walk or float. These 'threads', it is argued, derive from the 'wiring' of the human brain and may be used to explicate the various painted contexts in which the red lines are found.
evidence show that previous attempts to elucidate its significance were only partially correct. To achieve further clarification, the paper intertwines ethnographic evidence
and neuropsychology. San beliefs concerning journeys to the spirit realm in the sky are examined. These beliefs embrace notions of 'threads of light' along which those who traverse the cosmos climb, walk or float. These 'threads', it is argued, derive from the 'wiring' of the human brain and may be used to explicate the various painted contexts in which the red lines are found.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Ethnography, Rock Art (Archaeology), South Africa (Archaeology), Anthropology of Shamanism, and 12 moreSouth African history, Prehistoric Rock Art, Rock Art, South Africa, Archaeology of shamanism, San, Aboriginal, Bushman, Bushman beliefs, Rock art recording, Bleek, and Bushman Archaeology
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Horses travelled when Europeans expanded across the globe and thereafter swiftly spread among indigenous groups on those continents colonized. The way they are portrayed in rock art can potentially tell us much about the nature of the... more
Horses travelled when Europeans expanded across the globe and thereafter swiftly spread among indigenous groups on those continents colonized. The way they are portrayed in rock art can potentially tell us much about the nature of the entanglements of contact and the groups both bringing and adopting this hugely influential domestic animal. This paper draws on rock art evidence from South Africa, Australia, North and South America.Indigenous portrayals of the horse are sometimes conflated with other animals and, far from being the product of bewilderment or misunderstanding, it transpires that often the artists well understood the horse, but in terms that were familiar to them.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Ethnohistory, Native American Studies, Archaeology, and 27 morePrehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology, Art History, Indigenous or Aboriginal Studies, Historical Archaeology, Ethnoarchaeology, Ethnography, Postcolonial Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rock Art (Archaeology), Horse culture, Post-Colonialism, Rock Art management & Awareness, Postcolonial Theory, Cultural Anthropology, Prehistoric Rock Art, Rock Art, Rock art studies, Later Stone Age archaeology, Khoisan ethnography, ethnohistory, and history, and archaeological materials analysis, Horses in Prehistory, Cattle Raiding, Horses, Rock art research, Scythian and other Eurasian Nomadic Horse Warrior Cultures, Southern African rock art archaeology, History of Horse Riding, Anthropology of Religion, and Archaeology of Horse and Riders
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This paper uses original historical accounts descriptive of the location and 'ethnicity' of the inhabitants of the Maloti-Drakensberg, to interrogate what colonial writers thought was the state of affairs in the early nineteenth-century.... more
This paper uses original historical accounts descriptive of the location and 'ethnicity' of the inhabitants of the Maloti-Drakensberg, to interrogate what colonial writers thought was the state of affairs in the early nineteenth-century. It shows that one of the repercussions of the upheavals of this period was that Bantu- speaking farmers, who had lost their cattle in conflict, went to join the San who lived by hunting and gathering. This was enabled through patterns of intermarriage which had always existed between farmers and foragers, and created groups of mixed descent with, sometimes, new identities. It transpires that these identities were forged more through individual leadership than through notions of race, and reflect the colonial demand for ivory.
Horses arrived in southern Africa with Europeans. So did wide-brimmed hats and guns. That they remained, therefore, the exclusive property of Europeans is not tenable. Horses, and especially guns, were fiercely guarded – by Europeans –... more
Horses arrived in southern Africa with Europeans. So did wide-brimmed hats and guns. That they remained, therefore, the exclusive property of Europeans is not tenable. Horses, and especially guns, were fiercely guarded – by Europeans – for a long time because of the power they helped command. Fundamental to the spreading frontier these commodities made their way piecemeal from the hands of the colonists into those of the colonised. Military deserters, escaped slaves and labourers, skelms and banditti found that horses and guns enabled them to escape, and take advantage of, the frontier, creating new lifeways of mounted raiding and hunting. Groups of mixed descent became a feature of the frontier: capricious, fractious and violent. Often comprising members from shattered San communities, these groups used every resource available to them, and research shows beliefs held in common between cultures helped bind and protect them in their warlike expeditions. They wore hats, carried guns and rode horses. Some groups incorporated these features into their religious beliefs; beliefs which endure – in paint – in their mountain fastnesses.
The AmaTola were a group of creolized raiders who brought horses from the eastern Cape frontier into the Maloti-Drakensberg sometime around the 1830s. They were from multiple ethic and cultural backgrounds, but thought of themselves as,... more
The AmaTola were a group of creolized raiders who brought horses from the eastern Cape frontier into the Maloti-Drakensberg sometime around the 1830s. They were from multiple ethic and cultural backgrounds, but thought of themselves as, to a certain extent, San. They made paintings of themselves in the mountain rock shelters in which they took refuge, some of which depict women in ritual garb. Women’s role as diviners among the AmaTola ‘Bushmen’ may have been heightened as a result of the level of violence suffered during the mid nineteenth century. The ferocity of the attacks upon Bushman groups, and in their raids upon one another, might be compared with the effects of the horse wars which internally corroded the northern Plains horse cultures in North America. With the adoption of the horse, men were literally elevated to a position where they could hunt game from the saddle, yet game became increasingly scarce and the horseback hunters were also engaged in stock raiding and warfare. Hunting, stock raiding and fighting would have taken men away from their kraals and families for extended periods. The Bantu-speaking farming communities into which the AmaTola partially dissolved later showed a preponderance towards female diviners. Could this be a result of the female specialisation in ritual among the Amatola ‘Bushmen’?
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The MARA programme (Matatiele Archaeology Rock Art) was initiated in 2011 in order to redress the history of the Matatiele region of the former Transkei. The programme received very prestigious funding from the NRF African Origins... more
The MARA programme (Matatiele Archaeology Rock Art) was initiated in 2011 in order to redress the history of the Matatiele region of the former Transkei. The programme received very prestigious funding from the NRF African Origins Platform (AOP) in the interim years of 2011 and 2012, and then received a full three-year grant in 2013 onwards to 2015.
The MARA programme seeks to research four key areas of the region’s heritage resources: the historical archives, oral traditions, rock art (paintings) and archaeology.
Our team have undertaken the first systematic survey for rock art in the Matatiele area of the Drakensberg, and the first archaeological excavations in the area since the
very small amount attempted in the 1970s.
Part of the heritage management work we are undertaking in Matatiele is in the Digital recording of images. Paintings close to settlements in rural areas are particularly
prone to damage. We have so far made complete enhanced digital records of fifteen sites - the results of which are to be published with the photographer Kevin Crause.
Importantly, The MARA programme is run in collaboration with the Mehloding Community Tourism Trust. All decisions regarding employment, and all permissions for
survey and excavation permits are made through, and with, the board of trustees at Mehloding. For further information on this, and other, collaborations please go to
www.marasurvey.com
The MARA programme seeks to research four key areas of the region’s heritage resources: the historical archives, oral traditions, rock art (paintings) and archaeology.
Our team have undertaken the first systematic survey for rock art in the Matatiele area of the Drakensberg, and the first archaeological excavations in the area since the
very small amount attempted in the 1970s.
Part of the heritage management work we are undertaking in Matatiele is in the Digital recording of images. Paintings close to settlements in rural areas are particularly
prone to damage. We have so far made complete enhanced digital records of fifteen sites - the results of which are to be published with the photographer Kevin Crause.
Importantly, The MARA programme is run in collaboration with the Mehloding Community Tourism Trust. All decisions regarding employment, and all permissions for
survey and excavation permits are made through, and with, the board of trustees at Mehloding. For further information on this, and other, collaborations please go to
www.marasurvey.com
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The Rock Art Scotland South Africa (RASSA) project. Enabling community Field Technicians to record rock paintings with tough smartphones and the DStretch app. See also https://rassarockart.co.uk/
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Rock art images are historical data in their own right – forming an archive that far pre-dates written texts in many regions, and far outstrips other forms of material culture in terms of potential to interpret past ontologies. Just as... more
Rock art images are historical data in their own right – forming an archive that far pre-dates written texts in many regions, and far outstrips other forms of material culture in terms of potential to interpret past ontologies. Just as one learns to read text, though, the language of rock art requires an understanding of emic – inside – knowledge (whether direct or by analogy) to be truly fathomed. Knowing when images were made, however, is crucial in application to culture contact and its ramifications. Although some direct radiometric dates are starting to appear in southern Africa, it arguably makes more sense to rely on images that demonstrate contact unequivocally – cattle, sheep, horses, guns – than to speculate on an undated corpus of wild animals and human figures that runs to many thousands of years prior. Not only this but it becomes increasingly clear that essentialist tropes of San from the ethnographic present didn’t obtain in the colonial contact era, if ever they held at all. Mixed authorship, it transpires, requires alternative readings and this offering chronicles just some of the attempts to achieve better ways of applying rock art data to the past of indigenous southern Africans.
Research Interests: History, Archaeology, Art History, Historical Archaeology, Rock Art (Archaeology), and 8 moreArchaeological Method & Theory, Archaeological Theory, Rock Art, Culture Contact, Inter-civilization contact and conflict, Archaeology of Colonialism, History of rock art research in southern Africa, and History of Rock Art Research
The archaeological record undergoes a dramatic shift in appearance whenever indigenous peoples encounter incoming populations-whether in the form of economy, politics or identity. Rock art in southern Africa testifies to successive... more
The archaeological record undergoes a dramatic shift in appearance whenever indigenous peoples encounter incoming populations-whether in the form of economy, politics or identity. Rock art in southern Africa testifies to successive interactions between hunter-gatherers, incoming African herders, African farmers and, later, European settlers. New subject matter, however, is not simply incorporated into the preexisting tradition. Without exception, the many rock arts that depict novel motifs, are made differently from the 'traditional corpus', usually rougher in appearance (in both paintings and engravings) more dynamic, or with vivid and chalky paints. The drop in pigment quality is likely owing to the disruption and, ultimate decimation of indigenous groups, and the subsequent breakdown in trade and social communications-The Disconnect. The shifts in manner of depiction and the ways in which motifs are treated owes more, it seems, to the increasingly heterogeneous and creolizing membership of the art-producing people and the mixing of their cosmologies, albeit with specific cultural survivals. Precolonial contact images speak to a multitude of interactions and entanglements in ways that can inform the archaeological record, and colonial-era rock art constitutes a major component of the historical archive, an emic, agentive artefact that offers a reverse gaze from an indigenous perspective.
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The rock shelter MAF 1 was excavated in 2011 as part of a research programme initiated in the same year, namely, Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA. This programme endeavours to redress the much-neglected history of this region of... more
The rock shelter MAF 1 was excavated in 2011 as part of a research programme initiated in the same year, namely, Matatiele Archaeology and Rock Art or MARA. This programme endeavours to redress the much-neglected history of this region of South Africa, which until 1994 formed part of the wider 'Transkei' apartheid homeland. Derricourt's 1977 Prehistoric man in the Ciskei & Transkei perhaps constituted the last archaeological survey in this expanse. However the coverage for the Matatiele region was limited, and relied largely on van Riet Lowe's site list of the 1930s. Thus far this programme has documented more than 200 rock art sites in systematic survey and has excavated two shelters — MAF 1 and GLAD 1 (forthcoming). A range of other sites have been prioritized for ongoing excavation. Here we present analyses of the excavated material from the MAF 1 site, which comprises the archaeological component of the wider historical and heritage-related programme focus. Our main findings at MAF 1 to date include a continuous, well stratified cultural sequence dating from the early Holocene up to 2400 cal. BP. Ages obtained from these deposits are suggestive of hunter-gatherer occupation pulses at MAF 1, with possible abandonment of the site over the course of two millennia in the middle Holocene. After a major roof collapse altered the morphology of the shelter, there was a significant change in the character of occupation at MAF 1, reflected in both the artefact assemblage composition and the construction of a rectilinear structure within the shelter sometime after 2400 cal. BP. The presence of a lithic artefact assemblage from this latter phase of occupation at MAF 1 indicates the continued use of the site by hunter-gatherers, with the presence of pottery and in particular the construction of a putative rectilinear dwelling and associated animal enclosure pointing to occupation of the shelter by agropastoralists. Rock art evidence shows distinct phases, the latter of which may point to beliefs in serpents and rainmaking possibly performed, in part, for an African farmer audience. This brings into focus a central aim of the MARA programme: to research the archaeology of contact between hunter-gatherer and agropastoralist groups. Use of the shelter continues to the present day as a traditional initiation school for boys held annually at the site, which has led to disturbance of, and burning in, the upper layers owing to modern initiation practices. Regrettably this has resulted in the mixing of the upper layers representing this later occupation phase at MAF 1, spanning in date from at least 1800 cal. BP, though potentially earlier, up to the present day.
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At the time of writing, sixteen years have passed since the inscription of the World Heritage Site (WHS) in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (uDP), South Africa. How has its cultural heritage been managed, and what lessons can be learned... more
At the time of writing, sixteen years have passed since the inscription of the World Heritage Site (WHS) in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg Park (uDP), South Africa. How has its cultural heritage been managed, and what lessons can be learned in order to inform its extension into the Kingdom of Lesotho? In 2013 UNESCO approved the inclusion of Lesotho's Sehlabathebe National Park (SNP) to create a trans-boundary World Heritage Site known as the Maloti-Drakensberg Park, Lesotho/South Africa (MDP). This contribution is a critique for those planning and implementing site management strategies at rock art World Heritage sites. It draws specifically from experiences and outcomes on both sides of the international border (uDP and SNP). In this short essay we touch on the underlying management frameworks and how these are affected by the relationships between cultural heritage practitioners, cultural heritage agencies, and site managers. We outline the concerns of sustainability, tourism and marketing and whether these have hampered the park's integrity. We further indicate how, perhaps, some of the pitfalls hitherto encountered, may be overcome. This is especially relevant to those heritage practitioners currently engaged in the planning of the new visitor centre at the SNP. This chapter is offered as a critique and, though it is much needed and we hope, impactful, we recognise that in the space kindly granted us in this forum, we cannot hope to cover each page of the backstory (see Mazel 2012: 516-524), or every perspective and reference in the discourse. We therefore limit ourselves to those articles and documents we feel most accurately convey our point, and apologise for any inadvertent omissions. We foreground the absence of marketing and place emphasis on making sustainable tourism strategies by incorporating local people and valorizing heritage sites; creating better visitor experiences and raising the profile of rock art. The breath-taking Maloti mountain range extends over an area of 5000 km 2, including most of the Kingdom of Lesotho where the highest peaks lie (over 3000m), and the adjacent sides of these mountains which, from the South African side can look like a sheer wall. The South African 'Drakensberg' (or in Nguni languages 'uKhahlamba') is the name of the same mountains as they fall away from the Maloti – hence 'Maloti-Drakensberg'. The South African province of KwaZulu-Natal shares a border with Lesotho at the top of the escarpment. To the southwest , the escarpment continues where Lesotho then shares a border with the province of the Eastern Cape. On the KwaZulu side, most of this border region lies within the uKhahlamba Drakensberg Park (uDP) World Heritage Site-the preserve of indigenous wild plants and animals. On the Eastern Cape Side the border region comprises the districts of Barkly East and Maclear, as well as the districts of the former 'Transkei' around Mount Fletcher and Matatiele-an area teeming with people of many diverse cultures. On the Lesotho side, the densely-populated Mountain Kingdom gives over only a very small proportion of its scarce land resources to wildlife in the form of the
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THE ROCK ART OF BONGANI MOUNTAIN LODGE AND ITS ENVIRONS, MPUMALANGA PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA: AN INTRODUCTION TO ... PROBLEMS OF SOUTHERN AFRICAN ROCK-ART REGIONS ... JAMIE HAMPSONI, WILLIAM CHALLIS1, GEOFFREY ...
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Investigation of Homo sapiens’ palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species’ adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and... more
Investigation of Homo sapiens’ palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species’ adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and precipitation record from the Ha Makotoko rockshelter in western Lesotho, which extends from ~60,000 to 1,000 years ago. Stable carbon isotope ratios from plant wax biomarkers indicate a constant C3-dominated ecosystem up to about 5,000 years ago, followed by C4 grassland expansion due to increasing Holocene temperatures. Hydrogen isotope ratios indicate a drier, yet stable, Pleistocene and Early Holocene compared to a relatively wet Late Holocene. Although relatively cool and dry, the Pleistocene was ecologically reliable due to generally uniform precipitation amounts, which incentivized persistent habitation because of dependable freshwater reserves that supported rich terrestrial foods and provided prime locations for catching fish.
Research Interests: Paleoanthropology, Stable isotope ecology, Paleoclimatology, Ecology, Stable isotope paleoclimatology, and 10 moreArchaeology of Hunting, Pleistocene, Hunter-Gatherers (Anthropology), Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene, Holocene, Habitat, Archaeology of fishing, Hunter gatherer Ecology, Hunter Gatherer Archaeology, and History of Human Habitation
Investigation of Homo sapiens' palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species' adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and... more
Investigation of Homo sapiens' palaeogeographic expansion into African mountain environments are changing the understanding of our species' adaptions to various extreme Pleistocene climates and habitats. Here, we present a vegetation and precipitation record from the Ha Makotoko rockshelter in western Lesotho, which extends from~60,000 to 1,000 years ago. Stable carbon isotope ratios from plant wax biomarkers indicate a constant C 3-dominated ecosystem up to about 5,000 years ago, followed by C 4 grassland expansion due to increasing Holocene temperatures. Hydrogen isotope ratios indicate a drier, yet stable, Pleistocene and Early Holocene compared to a relatively wet Late Holocene. Although relatively cool and dry, the Pleistocene was ecologically reliable due to generally uniform precipitation amounts, which incentivized persistent habitation because of dependable freshwater reserves that supported rich terrestrial foods and provided prime locations for catching fish.
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Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains of southern Africa, beliefs about snakes and their representations in rock art images are emblematic of hybrid histories of regional societies. The snake symbol initially represented an attempt at... more
In the Maloti-Drakensberg mountains of southern Africa, beliefs about snakes and their representations in rock art images are emblematic of hybrid histories of regional societies. The snake symbol initially represented an attempt at ‘reaching out’ as forager societies incorporated a prominent figure in the mythologies of incoming societies into their own – a figure which became a symbolic reference to crosscultural symbiosis and admixture. Reflecting the long history of such contact, the ritual uses and ontological positions of snakes in contemporary knowledge systems of the Maloti-Drakensberg are coherent with those of earlier societies. This offers fertile ground for novel forms of interpretation. Using contextual historic and modern ethnographic material, this paper presents a relational account of regional idioms. It dwells on the language of taming and domestication that permeate these ethnographies, and the concern they show for the mitigation of ‘wild’, sometimes ‘monstrous’, consequences of spiritual power in the social world. Symbolic resolutions of these consequences are discernible in rock art images, particularly those of snakes, demonstrating the ritual brokerage of relations between human and non-human communities, with both forms of agency depicted in various states of ‘domestication’, bridging forager and farmer understandings of human–animal relations.
Research Interests: Archaeology, Anthropology, Ontology, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rock Art (Archaeology), and 10 moreHunter-Gatherers (Anthropology), Prehistoric Rock Art, Rock Art, Culture Contact, African Archaeology, Landscape and Rock Art, Anthropology of Religion, Ontological Turn, Hunter Gatherer Archaeology, and New Animism
... As Muzzolini states, 'All schools of Saharan rock art, including the earliest, show images of domestic cattle'.33 Cattle paintings were performed by hunter-gatherers, nomadic pastoralists, agro-pastoralists,... more
... As Muzzolini states, 'All schools of Saharan rock art, including the earliest, show images of domestic cattle'.33 Cattle paintings were performed by hunter-gatherers, nomadic pastoralists, agro-pastoralists, through the Berber migrations, right up until the consolidation of Arab ...
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With new direct dates from rock paintings comes an unprecedented opportunity to relate excavated archaeological data to the parietal record in southern Africa's Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains. Anchoring dated art to recovered... more
With new direct dates from rock paintings comes an unprecedented opportunity to relate excavated archaeological data to the parietal record in southern Africa's Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains. Anchoring dated art to recovered palaeoenvironmental, faunal and technological data enables the incorporation into socioecological models of ideational inferences, affording insights into how huntergatherers perceived their mountain habitats. Of particular interest is the late Holocene Neoglacial (∼3.5-2 kcal BP), during which skilled paintings were being made just as the region experienced dynamic changes owing in part to climate change. Responses of local foragers are evident across a range of cultural spheres, including dramatic subsistence transformations. With the Maloti-Drakensberg's well-known "traditional corpus" of fine-line art now known to extend back to at least 3 kcal BP, here we explore how such changes may have precipitatedand in turn been influenced by ontological shifts in relation to the food quest. As desirable game declined and hunting windows narrowed, we suggest that Neoglacial foragers sought to manage scheduling and social conflicts through enhanced spiritual negotiation with non-human entities in the landscape. Facilitated by the supernaturally charged nature of their elevated cosmos, this intensified spiritual labour may have found material expression in an elaborate new style of painting.