job:LAY00 17-9-1998 page:3 colour:1 black–text

Edited by Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. C. Taçon

The Archaeology of
Rock-Art
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PUB LIS HE D BY THE P RE SS S YND ICA TE OF TH E U N IV ER SI TY OF

CA MB RI DGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge
CB2 1RP, United Kingdom

CA MB RI DGE U NI VE RS IT Y P R ES S
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge, CB2 2RU,
United Kingdom http://www.cup.cam.ac.uk
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
http://www.cup.org
10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia

© Christopher Chippindale and Paul S. C. Taçon 1998

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to

the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no
reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 1998

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press,

Cambridge

Typeset in Columbus 10/12.5pt [VN]

A catalogue record for this book is available from the

British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data applied for

ISBN 0 521 57256 8 hardback

ISBN 0 521 57619 9 paperback
job:LAY00 17-9-1998 page:7 colour:1 black–text

Contents

List of Wgures page xi Finding rain in the desert 23

List of tables xv Rock-art, landscape symbolism and the
List of contributors xvi supernatural 25
Note on dates xvii
Acknowledgements xviii
The speared bighorn sheep xviii 3 Towards a mindscape of landscape:
rock-art as expression of
world-understanding 30
1 An archaeology of rock-art through Sven Ouzman
informed methods and formal
Rock-art, visual imagery and signiWcation 30
methods 1
Forager cognitive systems 31
Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher
Shamanism 33
Chippindale
Forager landscape perception 34
Rock-art 1 Rock-art and the forager landscape 39
The archaeology of rock-art 1
Dating 6
Informed methods 6
4 Icon and narrative in transition:
Formal methods 7
contact-period rock-art at
Analogy 8
Writing-On-Stone, southern
The studies in this book, and the book’s
Alberta, Canada 42
structure 8
Michael A. Klassen
Celebrating rock-art, learning from rock-art 9 Writing-On-Stone and its rock-art 42
Icon and narrative 44
Continuity in iconic depiction 46
2 Finding rain in the desert: landscape, The rise of narrativity in the post-contact era 54
gender and far western North Narrativity and history 65
American rock-art 11 Rock-art in a sacred landscape 68
David S. Whitley
Art on the natural landscape 11
5 Rain in Bushman belief, politics
Far western North American rock-art 11
and history: the rock-art of
Chronology of Californian and Great
rain-making in the south-eastern
Basin Traditions rock-art 13
mountains, southern Africa 73
Symbolism and meaning in the art 14
Thomas A. Dowson
Symbolism of the rock-art site 16
Gender and rock-art sites 18 Southern African rock-art: approaches and
Landscape, gender and rock-art site locations 21 expectations 73

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Contents

Antiquity of rain-making in southern The Côa valley petroglyphs 122

Africa 74 Learning from the ‘Three Cs’ 125
Rain-making and rain-creatures 75
Paintings of rain-creatures 77
Paintings of rain-snakes 79 8 Daggers drawn: depictions of
Idiosyncrasy as a resource 80 Bronze Age weapons in Atlantic
Rain-creatures as a political resource 85 Europe 130
Richard Bradley
6 The many ways of dating Arnhem Atlantic Europe and its rock-art 130
Land rock-art, north Australia 90 Rock-art of north-west Spain: chronology
Christopher Chippindale and and cultural context 130
Paul S. C. Taçon The contexts of the weapon carvings 132
Methods of analysing the weapon
Arnhem Land and its rock-art 90 carvings of Galicia 134
Approaches to Arnhem Land art 92 Object, subject, context and the Galician
‘Chains’ and ‘cables’ in the dating of petroglyphs 143
Arnhem Land art 92
Approaches to the dating of Arnhem
Land rock-art 93 9 Symbols in a changing world:
Aboriginal knowledge of the antiquity rock-art and the transition from
of Arnhem Land paintings 94 hunting to farming in mid
Dating by reference to historical knowledge 94 Norway 146
Dating by reference to lack of Kalle Sognnes
historical knowledge 98
Stratigraphic sequences on the Mid Norway and its archaeology 146
painted surfaces 99 Rock-art in mid Norway 147
Bridging to dated palaeoecological Rock-art in time: approaches to dating 149
and archaeological evidence 100 Pictures of boats and their attributes: a
Principles of continuity 102 chronology for the Southern Tradition 149
Direct dating by radiocarbon 102 Stylistic dating and sea-level: a
Weathering 103 chronology for the Northern Tradition 152
Direct dating of skins and other Rock-art in place: approaches to location 154
natural features in stratigraphic Northern and Southern in mid Norway 160
relation to art 104
Diversity in dating Arnhem Land
10 PaciWc rock-art and cultural
rock-art 104
genesis: a multivariate exploration 163
Meredith Wilson
7 The ‘Three Cs’: fresh avenues
PaciWc rock-art and its study 163
towards European Palaeolithic art 112
Models and issues in the archaeology of
Jean Clottes
PaciWc colonisation 164
Dating Palaeolithic art 112 The multivariate analysis 166
The ‘Three Cs’: Cosquer, Chauvet, Côa 113 Correspondence analysis for
La Grotte Cosquer 114 anthropomorphs 169
La Grotte Chauvet 117 Correspondence analysis for geometrics 173

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Contents

Patterns in PaciWc rock-art 174 A formal analysis of Pecos River Style art 232
PaciWc rock-art and PaciWc prehistory 181 Ethnographic analogy and Pecos River
Style art 233
Botany of peyote 234
11 Spatial behaviour and learning in the
Origins of peyotism 234
prehistoric environment of the
Huichol peyotism 236
Colorado River drainage
The ‘White Shaman’ site: an interpretation
(south-eastern Utah), western
by analogy 237
North America 185
Patterns in art and ethnography 239
Ralph Hartley and Anne M. Wolley Vawser
Environmental explanations and
Symbols, rock-art and location in landscape 185 archaeological evidence 240
The study area 185 Interpretation by analogy in relation to
The placing of rock-art and human use archaeological and environmental
of the landscape 189 evidence 244
Assumptions and approach of the study 190
Spatial orientation 190
14 Modelling change in the contact
Spatial friction and the positioning of
art of the south-eastern San,
storage facilities 192
southern Africa 247
Methods of analysis 195
Pieter Jolly
Measuring information in the rock-art
assemblage 195 San painters and black farmers 247
GIS measures of human mobility, Black farmers in the art 247
accessibility and visibility in the Domestic ungulates in the art 250
landscape 197 Dating of the rock-art 250
Site location and site association 199 Methods in southern African rock-art
Rock-art, resources and signals in the research 251
landscape 206 Change in San religious ideology and
ritual practice 252
The distribution patterns of cattle and
12 The tale of the chameleon and the
snake rock-paintings 263
platypus: limited and likely
Meaning and form 264
choices in making pictures 212
Benjamin Smith
15 Ethnography and method in
The making of a picture 213
southern African rock-art research 268
Normalisms 215
Anne Solomon
Conventionalities 217
The normal and the conventional 220 San rock-art and its context 268
San rock-art and the creation of the
shamanistic model 270
13 Pictographic evidence of peyotism
The ethnographic method 1: relationships
in the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic 229
between words and images 272
Carolyn E. Boyd
The ethnographic method 2: what is a
The Lower Pecos region and its rock-art 229 trance metaphor? 273
Approaches to the rock-art 231 Formal analysis: the motif of the ‘mythic
Pictographs and peyotism 232 woman’ 276

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Contents

Ethnography and beyond in San rock-art 18 Shelter rock-art in the Sydney

studies 281 Basin – a space–time continuum:
exploring diVerent inXuences on
16 Changing art in a changing society: stylistic change 319
the hunters’ rock-art of western Jo McDonald
Norway 285 Rock-art of the Sydney region 319
Eva M. Walderhaug Age of Sydney rock-art 319
Informed methods 319
Rock-carvings in western Norway:
Formal methods 321
material and approaches 285
Motif 321
The rock-art sites of Hordaland and
Ethnohistory 323
Sogn og Fjordane 286
Archaeological context 324
Chronology of archaeology and of
How far back into prehistory did the
rock-art in western Norway 288
patterns observed in Sydney at contact
Archaeological context of the rock-art 291
extend? 326
The Ausevik rock-art site 292
Contemporaneity of art and deposit 326
The place of Ausevik rock-art in society 298
Diachronic change 327
Archaeology, art and society in the
17 Central Asian petroglyphs: between Sydney region 330
Indo-Iranian and shamanistic
interpretations 302
Henri-Paul Francfort 19 Making sense of obscure pictures
from our own history: exotic
The petroglyphs and their cultural images from Callan Park,
contexts 302 Australia 336
Studying the petroglyphs 304 John Clegg
A choice in research approaches to the
Notice of the Callan Park engravings,
petroglyphs: Indo-European or
and a historical record 336
shamanistic? 305
Common subjects 337
The Indo-Iranian theory 305
Other pictures 342
The shamanistic theory 311
Writing: words? 344
Choosing between the theories 313
Deducing from the rock-art towards the
rock-artist 345

Index 347

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Figures

1.1 Roger Yilarama, Mardayin Dreaming: Water 4.8 Painted Shield Figures 48
Dreamings of My Father’s Country (Mardayin 4.9 Incised and juxtaposed Shield Figures 48
Djang), bark-painting, 1993 page 2 4.10 Incised and juxtaposed Shield Figures 48
1.2 George Chaloupka, Spirits in the Land, oil on 4.11 Incised and juxtaposed Shield Figures 48
canvas, 1972 3 4.12 Incised and isolated Shield Figure 48
1.3 Eric Gill, Crocodile, engraving into brick 4.13 Post-contact Shield Figure and associated
wall, 1930–1 4 gun 50
1.4 Artist unknown, graYti piece, c. 1995 5 4.14 Painted gun and associated image 50
2.1 Far western North America 12 4.15 Incised gun and horse 51
2.2 Californian Tradition painted panel 12 4.16 Incised and scratched depictions of horses 51
2.3 Great Basin Tradition engraved panel 13 4.17 Three isolated incised horses 53
2.4 Southwest Painted Variant panel 16 4.18 Incised and scratched Mounted Horses 53
2.5 Rattlesnake shaman emerging from a 4.19 Mounted Horse motifs with ‘War Bridle’
crack in a panel 17 bundle 54
2.6 The Painted Rock site as a feature on the 4.20 Incised Mounted Horse motifs 54
landscape 20 4.21 Two Shield Figures in combat 55
2.7 Painted panel at the apex of Painted Rock 20 4.22 Two Shield Figures, with decorated shields,
2.8 Rain-shaman human Wgure from the Coso in combat 55
Range 24 4.23 Shield Figures and associated human Wgures
3.1 Rock-painting of a hand print, Western Cape in a battle scene 55
Province 32 4.24 Post-contact combat scenes 57
3.2 Locations of Sites 1 and 2, South Africa 35 4.25 Two possible horse raid scenes 57
3.3 Site 1, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa 35 4.26 A juxtaposed scene 58
3.4 Two rain-animals apparently emerging from 4.27 Possible horse raid 58
water-pool, Site 1 36 4.28 Horse raid 59
3.5 View of the main hill site, Site 2 37 4.29 Combat scenes between mounted and
3.6 Non-representational hammer marks, Site 2 38 pedestrian Wgures 60
4.1 Location of Writing-On-Stone on the 4.30 Counting coup on an enemy 61
Northwestern Plains 43 4.31 Battle scene, with multiple perspective 62
4.2 View of Writing-On-Stone area 43 4.32 Battle scene, with pictographic
4.3 Sandstone cliVs at Writing-on-Stone 43 conventions 63
4.4 Location of sites in the Writing-On-Stone 4.33 Complex battle scene 64
area 43 5.1 South-eastern mountains, southern Africa 73
4.5 ‘Medicine Robe’ hide-painting with primarily 5.2 ‘Bleeding’ rain-creature 77
iconic imagery 45 5.3 Rain-creature 78
4.6 ‘War Record’ or ‘Biographic’ hide-painting 5.4 Rain-snake 79
with primarily narrative imagery 46 5.5 Serpent with antelope head 79
4.7 Shield Figures 48 5.6 Rain-creatures 83

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List of Wgures

5.7 Human Wgures 84 10.7 New Zealand outlier: engraving from the
5.8 Rain-creature 86 North Island 171
5.9 Rain-creature 86 10.8 Easter Island: engraved depictions of moai
6.1 Western Arnhem Land 91 statues 171
6.2 Later Arnhem Land rock-art 96 10.9 Easter Island and Tabar, New Ireland:
6.3 Later Arnhem Land rock-art 97 engravings 171
6.4 Earlier Arnhem Land rock-art: Dynamic 10.10 Stick Wgures 171
Figure group 98 10.11 Location of Hawaiian anthropomorphs with
7.1 Location of the ‘Three Cs’ 113 inverted triangular torsos 172
7.2 Cosquer Cave: black hand stencils 115 10.12 Hawaiian anthropomorphs with inverted
7.3 Cosquer Cave: bison 116 triangular torsos 173
7.4 Cosquer Cave: bison 116 10.13 Anthropomorphs with solid or outlined
7.5 Chauvet Cave: aurochs, horses and rhinos 117 torsos 173
7.6 Chauvet Cave: lion and three horses 118 10.14 Anthropomorphs with facial features 173
7.7 Chauvet Cave: rhinos 118 10.15 Correspondence between circles 175
7.8 Chauvet Cave: rhino with its ears in the 10.16 Correspondence between circles 175
typical Chauvet fashion 120 10.17 Circle motifs from Polynesia 176
7.9 Foz Côa: pecked and engraved animals 123 10.18 Correspondence between all geometrics 177
8.1 Regions of Atlantic Europe 131 10.19 Phenetic relationships 177
8.2 Open-air rock-carving and decorated cist 10.20 Regional phenetic relationships for
slabs 133 anthropomorphs 178
8.3 Liro, Galicia: open-air rock-carving and 10.21 Regional phenetic relationships for
metal hoard 136 geometrics 178
8.4 Open-air carvings and decorated stones 137 10.22 ‘Flexed leg’ and ‘buttressed junction’
8.5 Weapon and other carvings 138 anthropomorphs from New Zealand and
8.6 Distribution of weapon carvings in Galicia 142 elsewhere 179
9.1 Rock-art distribution in mid Norway 148 11.1 The canyon bottoms, south-eastern Utah 186
9.2 The Brandskog ship from Uppland, Sweden, 11.2 Colorado River drainage and surrounding
and ways of drawing this boat type 150 mountain areas 187
9.3 Proposed phase seqences for Northern 11.3 Above-ground storage structure 193
and Southern rock-art 151 11.4 Cached pot 193
9.4 Heights of rock-art localities in the Stjørdal 11.5 Anthropomorphic Wgures in shelter 194
area 152 11.6 TwentyWve Mile Canyon: slope, friction
9.5 Heights of rock-art localities in the Stjørdal surface and Wnal cumulative cost surface 198
area and land uplift 153 11.7 TwentyWve Mile Canyon friction surface
9.6 The Tønsåsen ridge in Stjørdal 155 and Wnal cumulative cost surface 200
9.7 Distribution of ST rock-art sites in 11.8 TwentyWve Mile Canyon: rock-art sites,
Stjørdal 158 storage structures and residential sites 200
9.8 Hegre VI 159 11.9 Cow Canyon: rock-art sites, storage
10.1 PaciWc islands 164 structures and residential sites 202
10.2 Sequence of PaciWc island settlement as 11.10 TwentyWve Mile Canyon LCPs from the
described by Kirch 165 hiking function calculation 202
10.3 Structural systems used to explore variation 11.11 Bowns Canyon: rock-art sites, storage
in geometrics 168 structures and residential sites 203
10.4 Geometric primary shapes 169 11.12 TwentyWve Mile Canyon: storage facilities
10.5 Correspondence between anthropomorphs 170 within the viewshed of residential sites 204
10.6 Anthropomorphs: correspondence between 11.13 Head of Cow Canyon: viewsheds for the
variables 170 Watchtower site 205

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List of Wgures

11.14 Rock-art at Five Shield site 206 15.6 Panel, Hippo Shelter, Lesotho
12.1 Daubings at Kampika, Malaŵi 218 Drakensberg 280
12.2 Tracing of !chameleon from Mphunzi Hill, 15.7 Panel, Magaditseng, Eastern Cape
Malaŵi 221 Drakensberg 281
12.3 Photograph of !chameleon 221 15.8 Figure, Gxalingenwa Rock 1, KwaZulu-
12.4 Tracing of !platypus from Ubirr, Australia 224 Natal Drakensberg 282
12.5 Photograph of !platypus 224 16.1 Western Norway and the hunters’ rock-art
13.1 Lower Pecos River region of south- sites 287
west Texas 230 16.2 Upper and lower parts of rock-art site from
13.2 Panther Cave (41VV83): anthropomorphic Vangdal 288
Wgures 231 16.3 Panel from Ausevik 289
13.3 ‘White Shaman’ (41VV124) rock-art panel 233 16.4 Agrarian rock-art 289
13.4 Peyote (Lophophora williamsii ) 235 16.5 Small panel from Ausevik 293
13.5 Peyote in North America 235 16.6 Animal Wgures from Ausevik 294
13.6 Peyote buttons from a rock-shelter in the 16.7 Stylistic development of deer Wgures from
Lower Pecos River region 236 Vingen 295
13.7 Figure from ‘White Shaman’ 239 16.8 Panel from Ausevik 297
13.8 Huichol yarn painting: the birth of peyote 239 17.1 Central Asian region 303
13.9 Fate Bell Shelter (41VV74): winged 17.2 Ustı́-Tuba-III: bovids and ‘birth-giving’ 307
antlered anthropomorph 241 17.3 Tamgaly-III: complex surface with three
13.10 Panther Cave (41VV83): impaled deer and ‘horned horses’ with riders 308
impaled dots 241 17.4 Radiating ‘solar’-headed anthropomorphs
13.11 Black Cave (41VV76): rock-art panel 242 of Sajmaly-Tash 309
13.12 Black Cave (41VV76): rock-art panel 242 17.5 Tamgaly-IV: surface with ‘solar’-headed
13.13 Cedar Springs Shelter (41VV696): and dancing personages 309
rock-art panel 243 17.6 Sajmaly-Tash: chariots with
14.1 Main study area, south-eastern South Africa 248 pairs of various animals and drivers plus
14.2 ConXict between Sotho and San 249 other animals and signs 309
14.3 Ox and herder, Ngcengane Cave 249 17.7 Elangash-III: chariot with head-radiating
14.4 Sheep 250 driver 309
14.5 Horse 251 17.8 Ustı́-Tuba-III: moose in the Angara style 311
14.6 Ox 251 17.9 Mugur-Sargol: masks, ‘maskoids’, masked
14.7 Trance bull/ox, bleeding from nose 254 anthropomorph 312
14.8 Painting from Upper Mangolong Cave 255 17.10 Ustı́-Tuba-II: bears, bovid and moose in a
14.9 Galleon 256 large complex surface 314
14.10 Cattle 257 17.11 Tamgaly-III: horned horse 315
14.11 Possible initiation scene 258 18.1 Sydney Basin 320
14.12 Painting from Sand Spruit 259 18.2 Motif preferences 322
14.13 Elands 262 18.3 Subject preferences 322
14.14 Rain-bull 262 18.4 Language areas 325
14.15 Serpent 263 18.5 Four shelter art sites excavated 328
15.1 Southern Africa 269 18.6 Dated shelter art sites 329
15.2 Panel, Murehwa Cave, Zimbabwe 278 18.7 Territorial organisation and interaction 332
15.3 ‘Mythic woman’ Wgure, Willcox’s Shelter, 19.1 Figures at north end of Callan Park site 338
KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg 279 19.2 Steamboat 339
15.4 Upturned eland, Willcox’s Shelter, 19.3 Compass rose and ship with anchor 339
KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg 279 19.4 Three-master on Mushroom Rock 339
15.5 Panel, KnoVelspruit, Orange Free State 280 19.5 Compass rose with Japanese Xag 339

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List of Wgures

19.6 Compass roses 340 19.11 ‘Queen Victoria’ 342

19.7 Taking a bearing 340 19.12 Fish 343
19.8 Globe on stand 341 19.13 Aboriginal engraving: Wsh 343
19.9 Head with hat 342 19.14 Horse 343
19.10 Woman 342 19.15 Engraved letters 344

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Tables

6.1 Chronology of western Arnhem Land

rock-art page 107
10.1 Rock-art regions 167
10.2 Multiple-choice data 169
10.3 Distribution of anthropomorphs 169
10.4 Frequency distribution of geometrics 173
11.1 Rock-art classiWcation 196
11.2 Rock-art sites 196
16.1 Body outline and internal marking 294
16.2 Seriation of animals 295
18.1 Excavated shelters from Mangrove Creek 330
18.2 AMS dates from shelters in the Sydney
Basin 331

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Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale

1. An archaeology of rock-art through informed methods

and formal methods

As the millennium draws to a close, the world is series (but see Sherratt 1997). Evidence of those
undergoing unparalleled change, aVecting virtually earlier revolutions may be scant in most places, and
every living creature on Earth. Human beings, the for some aspects – like the prehistory of song and
primary agents of change, also are intensely aVected music – we have scarcely no evidence. One record is
by it. In particular, over the past few hundred years enduring. The accumulations of ancient rock-paint-
indigenous peoples of every continent have under- ings and engravings are testament to visual art as a
gone radical transformations to their ways of life. But medium of mediating, recording, recounting and a
with the dawning of the computer and space age so new means of more fully experiencing those
too have individuals from the more dominant cul- profound human events and changes which have
tures. One global response to this intense social, shaped our histories. Through what we now collec-
environmental and technological change has been a tively refer to as ‘rock-art’, we see how diVerent
creative explosion, not only in technology but also in peoples, at various times of the past, represented or
the arts, as contemporary artists draw on cultures the interpreted change for themselves. What is remarkable
world over for inspiration. The result is an unrivalled is not so much the particular images of certain re-
fusion of form, aesthetics and subject-matter. Along- gions but rather the widespread and truly global
side this wondrous burst of creativity, and the em- nature of this phenomenon. For at least 40,000 years
bracing of all that is new, has been an increased (Chase and Dibble 1987; Davidson and Noble
interest in the past, the remote, the exotic, the ‘other’. 1989; Lindly and Clark 1990; Mellars 1989, 1991;
The western disciplines of archaeology and anthro- Taçon 1994), and perhaps for much longer
pology were born to chart, to describe and to tabu- (Bednarik 1994; Lorblanchet 1993; Fullagar et al.
late the ‘old’ and ‘new’ peoples encountered through 1996; Taçon et al. 1997), human beings have in-
this exploration and conquering of ‘other’ lands; creasingly marked landscapes in symbolic ways. A
museums were established to assemble, curate and characteristically human trait, this is one of the ways
display the material culture and products of the we socialise landscapes. The result is a great and a
peoples that populated those lands. scattered array of visually striking imagery as time
and chance have let it survive to us at sites or within
Rock-art regions over vast periods of time.
Nevertheless, there have been many periods of in-
tense change in human history (see, for instance, The archaeology of rock-art
Allen and O’Connell 1995) and many ‘creative ex- In this volume we explore some of that imagery. This
plosions’ (PfeiVer 1982). The post-glacial transform- exploration is not a complete one – there is too much
ation of most of the globe – beginning 10,000 years to explore, too many ways to explore it. We do not
ago – from the lands of mobile gatherer-hunters into here explore the inspiration these ancient images give
the territories of farmers and kings is another in a to contemporary artists (Fig. 1.2), or the aesthetics of

1
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Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale

the ancient pictures – if those can be discerned from

them (see Scarre 1994).
The sole subject of this book – which could have
been much larger – is the archaeology of rock-art,
where archaeology is the systematic study of past
human lives as they can be discerned through a
knowledge of their material traces. The special merit,
and the special attraction, of rock-art as the subject of
archaeological enquiry is its directness. These are
images from ancient worlds as ancient human minds
envisioned them; these are neither stray fragments of
ancient garbage nor chance stumps of perished
buildings. They are all direct material expressions of
human concepts, of human thought. The directness
carries a matching special obstacle. While one hopes
speedily to deduce from the grubby old stones and
bones reasonably secure facts about these ancient
objects, the rock-art is a more immediate record,
both easier to see and harder to make sense of. So
interpretations of its nature and meaning have been
famously eccentric: some still are.
A scholarly interest in rock-art is not new. It is
often said that Europeans began their fascination
with rock-art in 1879, after a young girl and her
father investigated a large cave at Altamira, Spain,
and were awed by the sight of majestic bulls on the
ceiling above them (Grant 1967: 3), but serious
study is now recognised to have begun at least by
the 1860s (Bahn and Vertut 1988: 19). The study of
rock-art in Central Asia, remarks Henri-Paul
Fig. 1.1. Roger Yilarama, Mardayin Dreaming: Water Dreamings of Francfort in Chapter 17, Central Asian petroglyphs:
My Father’s Country (Mardayin Djang), ochres and clay on stringy- between Indo-Iranian and shamanistic interpretations,
bark tree bark, 1993.
Where most rock-art traditions – like all those of prehistoric
Europe – have perished, a few continue, largely in other media. which this is a Wne recent example. The ochre and clay pigments
In central Australia, the now-celebrated ‘dot’ paintings of the are those used on the rocks; the subject and manners of depiction
desert country, generally in acrylic on canvas, derive their icon- are equally in the same tradition. It is not just an illustration for its
ography from the ancient traditions seen in the region’s rock- own sake, but derives from knowledge of the country, as related
engravings. The painting of central desert designs and images in by the varied ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ stories the images stand for.
synthetic materials on to portable surfaces is not at all ancient; it We mention these details to illustrate how pertinent modern
began at Papunya, about 200 km west of Alice Springs, in 1971 traditions of depiction and iconography can hint at the real nature
(Caruana 1993: 107). of the many traditions of rock-art we approach only by formal
On the central north coast of Australia, the long tradition of means.
painting seen on the rocks and crags of Arnhem Land is lively Reproduced by permission of the artist and of Cambridge
today in portable paintings made on the bark of eucalyptus trees University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
(Brody 1985) and, increasingly, on art paper (Dyer 1994), of Photograph by Gwil Owen.

2
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An archaeology of rock-art

Fig. 1.2. George Chaloupka, Spirits in the Land, oil on canvas, 1972.
This book is about the archaeology of rock-art, so other aspects to the images are not developed. Here is a picture inspired by rock-art
to stand for what is missing.
George Chaloupka, the senior researcher on Australian rock-art, is himself an artist. He painted this image at a time when Arnhem
Land was being presented as a desert, which deserved development if that was Wnancially advantageous, and otherwise had no merit. In
its subject and its manner of depiction, Chaloupka was inspired by the rock-art images, especially those which had been painted not
many years before by Najolbombi, last of the famous rock-painters, in western Arnhem Land. This is one of about twenty paintings that
were exhibited in Canberra and largely sold there. The last of those left over from the exhibition, it survived the destruction of
Chaloupka’s home in Darwin by Cyclone Tracy in 1977. The whereabouts of those sold in 1972 is not known.
We mention these details to illustrate – again, and in another context – how particular can be the reasons for which images are created,
and how capricious can be their survival and our access to knowledge of them.
Reproduced by permission of the artist.

began in the seventeenth century and has never recording and survey gear is standard. So are some of
ceased. The ancient little Wgures pecked into the ice- the methods, increasingly science-based, and their
smoothed rocks of Valcamonica, in Alpine north technical languages – direct AMS dating, strati-
Italy, were known to its country people, who had a graphic sequence, co-variation, taphonomy. And so
dialect word for them. And in Arnhem Land, north are many frames of ideas. Rock-art is seen as struc-
Australia, Aboriginal people know the old art of the tured by distinct, distinctive and distinguishable style,
Mimi – the other kind of human being who were in so amenable to stylistic studies (e.g. Francis in press,
their stone country long long before them and who contra Lorblanchet and Bahn 1993). And the images
still live there as frail-bodied spirits, sheltered within of rock-art lend themselves to contemporary research
the cracks in the ancient rocks (Brandl 1973; interest in ancient meanings and their social expres-
Chaloupka 1993; Lewis 1988; Taçon 1989; Taçon sion (e.g. Tilley 1991). But rock-art research remains
and Brockwell 1995; Taçon and Chippindale 1994). distanced from other special interests within archae-
Much of the apparatus with which archaeologists ology; and the special circumstances of survival and
approach rock-art (Whitley 1997) is the usual kit of study mean the methods developed for studying art in
the archaeologist’s trade: the drawing, photographic, other contexts may not transfer across either. Some

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Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale

methods and many frames of ideas translate uncer-

tainly into the diVerent language of pictures on the
rocks. Researchers use an eclectic mix of approaches,
some of them new (if any approach in twentieth-
century research can wholly be called new), some of
them borrowed (and adapted in or after the borrow-
ing to the circumstance of studying rock-art).
In Valcamonica – as in other parts of the world –
the tradition of marking the rocks tellingly stops as
its sheltered communities were overwhelmed by an
outside world of commanding people whose culture
was a literate one of reading and writing (Anati
1976: 153–6): for those communities, the swallow-
ing power of the growing Roman Empire. In a great
many regions, it was the Wrst Xeets of the European
expansion and their landing passengers who closed
down the world in which the rock-art had been
made; the regions are not numerous where we have
good ethnohistorical accounts of the rock-painters
and very few where the painting traditions are still
strong (for one, western Arnhem Land, see e.g.
Chaloupka 1993; West 1995). The worlds of texts
and the world of written words are diVerent in
Fig. 1.3. Eric Gill, Crocodile, carved into exterior brick wall, fundamental ways, as Sven Ouzman, Towards a mind-
Mond Laboratory, Free School Lane, Cambridge, 1930–1.
Rock-engravings are rare in the artiWcial landscapes of the
scape of landscape: rock-art as expression of world-under-
world’s contemporary cities. This is in a built surface of brick, standing, shows in Chapter 3. Even the rock-arts of
Wttingly a synthetic rock, as it is in a humanly created city-scape. our culture in our own day – among which one
The celebrated engraver and illustrator carved the image, about should include the inscriptions monumentally en-
1.8 metres high, to a subject chosen by the Russian physicist Peter
Kapitsa. It is Russian in its symbolism: the crocodile as the ‘great
graved into and the graYti sprayed on to the artiW-
unknown’ in created things. (There are crocodiles of two types, cial rock surfaces of buildings in our urban land-
freshwater and saltwater, in Roger Yilarama’s bark-painting, Fig. scapes – often oVer words alongside or instead of
1.1: in his Australian country, the two beasts are vital creatures, pictures (Figs. 1.3, 1.4).
important in the land and in the stories – not alien curiosities in
the zoological garden!) Gill’s own comment on his image of the
Inasmuch as rock-art is rather an archaeological
crocodile – reWned by visits to London Zoo to see and draw the subject apart, so will the methods of its study be set
real creatures – was, ‘What should we know of reptiles who only rather apart. Many of them will have novelty. Since
reptiles know?’ (MacCarthy 1989: 273). no settled or standard approach has emerged – Whit-
The Mond Building now houses the Cambridge University
collection of air photographs, a unit within the University much
ley (in press) will be the Wrst general handbook on
concerned with archaeology. StaV there think of their crocodile as the archaeological study of rock-art to be published
a Werce beast that stands guardian at the door to their precious – this is the time to explore the diversity of fruitful
archive. approaches, and to recognise their unities. Rock-art
We mention these details to illustrate – yet again, and in yet
another context – how the meanings of images are varied and
has been a subject-matter of archaeology for centu-
shifting. ries, at least in Scandinavia – yet the title of this
Photograph by Christopher Chippindale. book, The archaeology of rock-art, seems not to have

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An archaeology of rock-art

Fig. 1.4. Artist unknown, graYti piece, spray-paint on brick bridge abutment, Cambridge (Long Road railway bridge, old Bedford line
archway), c. 1995.
Images oYcially set on walls in the contemporary urban environment are primarily directional signs, in words alone, or in words
treated with graphic care, sometimes in pictures alone: ‘This is the way out’, ‘This is the way to the aeroplane.’ Distinctive ‘rock’-
paintings on artiWcial hard-rock surfaces of our own culture include the spray-painted graYti, said to have originated in New York in the
1970s (Castleman 1982; Cooper and Chalfant 1984), then seen in cities across the world (Stahl 1990).
Individual graYti artists declare their identity with small ‘tags’ contrived from their initials or nicknames. Often they make a ‘piece’, a
large and ambitious composition; the word ‘piece’ derives from ‘masterpiece’ and echoes the original meaning of that word, as denoting
the grand project with which an apprentice craftsman proves his skill and is thereby made a master.
Imagery in ‘pieces’ has many forms. Often central, as in this piece, is an elaborated polychrome geometrical form, again a kind of
lettering – nicknames, initials, or favoured word – treated with such graphic force that the letters are barely or not recognised. We Wnd it
striking, and telling of late twentieth-century values, that spray-graYti artists – the famous marginals who make a special iconography in
our society – nevertheless make their graphics on the model of those words which deWne the power of the controlling literates against
them.
We mention these details to illustrate – yet again, and in yet another context – how varied can be the ways in which images derive
from a society, and relate to its values.
Artist unknown, therefore reproduced without permission of the artist. Photograph by Christopher Chippindale.

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Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale

been used before. Rock-art is old, but this kind of Dating

study seems perhaps young. Chronology has always been important to rock-art
The diversity is represented by the eighteen studies, and remains generally diYcult.
remarkable essays that make up this book, by re- Carbon is present usually in minute traces only, and
searchers whose academic standing runs from senior it is generally supposed rather than known that the
professors to graduate students, and whose immedi- ‘carbon event’ which will be measured by radiocarbon
ate subject-matter spans the world. The unity is given is actually to be equated reliably with the ‘art event’,
by a deep structure both to the book and to individual the subject of study for which we would like a date.
papers. Since doubt surrounds just what best to do in Accordingly carbon dating of rock-art is a new Weld of
studying rock-art, the group emphasises considered endeavour, made possible only by the AMS radiocar-
and rigorous methods. Since methods do not exist in bon method with its scanty sample size, and still at an
the abstract, they show themselves in application by experimental stage (Nelson 1993). The disputes of
eVective case-studies that begin with the essentials: 1995–6 over the age of the Foz Côa petroglyphs
f what the stuV is; engravings, for which dates are argued that run from
f what date it is; the later Palaeolithic (Zilhão 1995) to the eighteenth
f how it is studied with informed methods; century or later of our own era (Bednarik 1995),
f how it is studied with formal methods; shows how large the uncertainties can be.
f how it is studied by analogy. Dating is here addressed by Jean Clottes, The
The group has not attempted a speciWc deWnition ‘Three Cs’: fresh avenues towards European Palaeolithic
of ‘rock-art’. We hold it to refer to human-made art, Chapter 7. The material available from the Euro-
marks on natural, non-portable rocky surfaces; the pean Palaeolithic often charcoal safely preserved in
more common being those which are either applied deep and still caves, is far more satisfactory for
upon the rock and called pictographs – including pain- trustworthy carbon-dating than are the materials of
tings, drawings, daubings, stencils, prints, beeswax such exposed surface imagery as Jo McDonald stu-
motifs – or which are cut into the rock and called dies in Shelter rock-art in the Sydney Basin – a space–time
petroglyphs – engravings, incisings, peckings, goug- continuum: exploring diVerent inXuences on change, Chap-
ings, symbolic grindings, etchings, and so forth. ter 18. Our own Chapter 6, Christopher Chippin-
‘Rock’ will do as a term for the surface that bears dale and Paul S. C. Taçon The many ways of dating
them, although sometimes the rock is a geological Arnhem Land rock-art, north Australia, takes dating as
surface as soft as mud (Bednarik 1986; Faulkner its central theme, for a region with exceptional and
1986). ‘Art’ is a less happy term, because art has a fortunate opportunities for varied dating methods.
rather speciWc meaning in recent western societies,
not suited to those many societies where the crafty Informed methods
making of images and pictures was a business cen- By informed methods we mean those that depend on
trally integrated with other concerns. In the absence some source of insight passed on directly or indirectly
of a better term – ‘rock image’, ‘rock picture’, ‘rock from those who made and used the rock-art – through
marking’, ‘rock trace’, ‘rock glyph’, and so on are ethnography, through ethnohistory, through the his-
also unhappy – we stay with rock-art. (In conse- torical record, or through modern understanding
quence we have to tolerate the confusion by which known with good cause to perpetuate ancient knowl-
the term ‘rock-art’ also refers to the iconography of edge; then, one can hope to explore the pictures from
rock-and-roll music!) We hyphenate ‘rock-art’, the inside, as it were. In Arnhem Land, for instance,
against common modern habit, in a slight attempt to the recent rock-painting tradition continues in Wne
make this term into a portmanteau. paintings on bark and paper, full of layered and

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An archaeology of rock-art

intricate meaning (Fig. 1.1); so the image of a croco- beast but Crocodile Ancestor, a man before he turned
dile in Thompson Nganjmirra’s painting Crocodile into a crocodile. The cross-hatching that Wlls the
Dreaming (1992) relates not to a mere beast, but to ‘the creatures’ bodies one might suppose mere decorative
Wrst Crocodile Ancestor, who was a man before he inWll, whilst in truth it is rarrk, a design that carries
turned into a crocodile with large jaws and gnawed strong meaning and is particular to the individual
through the Liverpool Ranges to see what lay beyond’ artist’s clan. Equally, in the Coso Range of California
(Dyer 1994: 54). The ‘hybrid’ creature in another of one would not have immediate cause to suppose, from
the same artist’s paintings, with snake body and the pictures of bighorn sheep and of rattlesnakes, that
crocodile head, we know to represent the Rainbow these images of everyday creatures in the Mojave
Serpent, one of the creator-beings who in the found- drylands stood for diVerent and deep meanings – as
ing days passed through the country, making its the old ethnohistoric records show (see Whitley’s
water-holes and creeks, Wlling it with creatures, and Finding rain in the desert: landscape, gender and far western
peopling it with its several clans, each in its proper North American rock-art, Chapter 2).
place in the land. And we know there is not just one There are practically no rock-art traditions that
Rainbow Serpent, for in the Dreamtime Yingarna, the continue into the present, and precious few of which
Mother Rainbow Serpent, grew two eggs in her body there is a good ethnographic or ethnohistoric record
and gave birth to a son, Ngalyod, and a daughter, available. Even the rich records of San knowledge, on
Ngalkunburriyaymi (Taylor 1990: 330). By their which an understanding of South African rock-paint-
common traits we – both Aboriginal Arnhem Landers ings has been built (e.g. Lewis-Williams 1981 and
and western researchers who have been give that subsequent work), come from Bushmen who were not
knowledge – can recognise late Rainbow Serpents in themselves painters and whose country was far re-
the rock-art, and then trace this distinctive subject moved from that region of the Drakensberg where a
back in the long dated sequence. In this way, we come compelling account of the rock-art has now been
to see how the Rainbow Serpent starts as a motif in made through treating their knowledge as informed
Arnhem Land rock-art when the rising sea-level of the about that art’s meaning. For some regions, the relev-
post-glacial brings the ocean across settled land; and ance of potentially informed sources is uncertain: are
an element in its founding ethnography is a creature of the rock-engravings of the later prehistoric Alps to be
the sea – a pipeWsh rather than a land snake (Taçon, comprehended through seeing in them Indo-Euro-
Wilson and Chippindale 1996). pean structures of religious knowledge as these have
Importantly, because iconographic meanings seem later been discerned (Masson 1995)? Or are those
to be variable and historically idiosyncratic – rather understandings no kind of true knowledge when it
than standardised and accessible by some generalis- comes to the ancient Alpine panels (de Lumley et al.
ing rules in an anthropology of art – that ethno- 1995)?
graphic insight into an informed knowledge is essen-
tial to that kind of understanding. Without it, one Formal methods
might suppose this snaky creature, because of its non- For much prehistoric art, beginning with the Palaeo-
natural combination of limbs and traits, might not be lithic art of the deep European caves, we have no
of the everyday, mundane world – but one would not basis for informed knowledge. There we must work
know just what it stood for, with just what meaning with formal methods, those that depend on no inside
and just what power. The crocodile as a picture, knowledge, but which work when one comes to the
because natural in its traits, one could think is wholly a stuV ‘cold’, as a prehistorian does. The information
subject from the natural world; nothing in the image available is then restricted to that which is immanent
itself tells the ignorant outsider that it is not only a in the images themselves, or which we can discern

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Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale

from their relations to each other and to the land- by informed methods: when enigmatic images come
scape, or by relation to whatever archaeological con- from a remote prehistory, we can have no inside
text is available. This includes inference by location knowledge of them; study must proceed by formal
in landscape (Richard Bradley, Daggers drawn: depic- methods and/or analogy. Most authors touch upon
tions of Bronze Age weapons in Atlantic Europe, Chapter more than one aspect, and do so with more than one
8; Sven Ouzman, Towards a mindscape of landscape: method; a diversity of approaches to studying rock-
rock-art as expression of world-understanding, Chapter art is evident. Four chapters primarily approach their
3), the Wguring out of what a picture shows by the subject-matters from informed perspectives: David
geometry of its shape (Benjamin Smith, The tale of the Whitley, Finding rain in the desert: landscape, gender and
chameleon and the platypus: limited and likely choices in far western North American rock-art, Sven Ouzman,
making pictures, Chapter 12), inference from a math- Towards a mindscape of landscape: rock-art as expression
ematical measure of information content and from of world-understanding, Michael A. Klassen, Icon and
site location (Ralph Hartley and Anne M. Wolly narrative in transition: contact-period rock-art at Writing-
Vawser, Spatial behaviour and learning in the prehistoric On-Stone, southern Alberta, Canada, Chapter 4, and
environment of the Colorado River drainage (south-eastern Thomas A. Dowson, Rain in Bushman belief, politics and
Utah), western North America, Chapter 11), and the history: the rock-art of rain-making in the south-eastern
relationship of similar but widely separated forms mountains, southern Africa, Chapter 5. One concen-
through the use of multivariate analyses (Meredith trates on diVerent strands of dating evidence: Chris-
Wilson, PaciWc rock-art and cultural genesis: a multivari- topher Chippindale and Paul S. C. Taçon, The many
ate exploration, Chapter 10) or by other techniques. ways of dating Arnhem Land rock-art, north Australia.
Even where there is informed knowledge, the Two rely on dating and formal methods: Jean
formal methods can be useful, just as one can study Clottes, The ‘Three Cs’: fresh avenues towards European
the geometry of pictures from any cultural context as Palaeolithic art and Richard Bradley, Daggers drawn:
an interest separate from their meaning, or as one can depictions of Bronze Age weapons in Atlantic Europe.
usefully Wnd kinds of modern understanding in as- Three focus on the formal: Kalle Sognnes, Symbols in
pects of paintings in the western tradition which in a changing world: rock-art and the transition from hunting
their own time were not a concern (see, e.g., Carrier to farming in mid Norway; Chapter 9, Meredith Wil-
1991). son, PaciWc rock-art and cultural genesis: a multivariate
exploration and Benjamin Smith, The tale of the chame-
Analogy leon and the platypus: limited and likely choices in making
Finally, analogy relates to, but does not duplicate, the pictures. Five use a combination of formal methods
formal methods: when we cannot observe x but we and analogy: Carolyn E. Boyd, Pictographic evidence of
can y, which is suYciently like it, we can hope to peyotism in the Lower Pecos, Texas Archaic, Chapter 13,
infer things about x based on observations of y. Pieter Jolly, Modelling change in the contact art of the
Aspects are necessarily particular to the distinctive south-eastern San, southern Africa, Chapter 14, Anne
nature of rock-art as a class of archaeological ma- Solomon, Ethnography and method in southern African
terials, but the issues of method that arise are the rock-art research, Chapter 15, Eva M. Walderhaug,
diYcult and well-known ones that concern archae- Changing art in a changing society: the hunters’ rock-art of
ological reasoning by analogy in general. western Norway, Chapter 16, and Henri-Paul Fran-
cfort, Central Asian petroglyphs: between Indo-Iranian
The studies in this book, and the book’s and shamanistic interpretations. Then Jo McDonald’s
structure Shelter rock-art in the Sydney Basin (Australia) – a
Some of this book’s authors can say little or nothing space–time continuum: exploring diVerent inXuences on

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An archaeology of rock-art

diachronic change weaves dating, formal methods and daily basis: in our cities, our parks, our gardens, our
analogy. We close with a Chapter 19 that combines homes. We map, mark and immortalise places. We
aspects of dating, formal methods and analogy with journey; we remember. Already our species has sent
Xashes of insight, inspiration and exasperation: John contrived objects out of the solar system, and left
Clegg, Making sense of obscure pictures from our own traces upon the rocks of the moon. The legacy of the
history: exotic images from Callan Park, Australia. His Wrst artists will continue in unimagined new ways.
chapter humbles us too, in showing how mysterious But through books such as this one the accomplish-
Wgures can be that are from our own culture, and ments of some of the earliest creators, our original
nearly from our own time. artists, poets and story-tellers, will not be forgotten!
These case-studies explore a wide range of pet- Read, reXect, relax and rejoice. Embark with us on a
roglyphs and pictographs from seven key regions of journey through time and space that explores the
the world: Australia (three-and-a-half chapters), visually creative essence of early humanity.
southern Africa (three-and-a-half), North America
(three), Scandinavia (two), western Europe (two), Paul S. C. Taçon and Christopher Chippindale
continental Asia (one) and the PaciWc Islands (one). Sydney and Cambridge
The chapters are not ordered by geographical loca- 1997
tion but rather by the primary methods researchers
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