rock art

 

designs inscribed on rock surfaces and huge stone monuments in many parts of the world by primitive peoples. They have been found on every continent and are usually from prehistoric times. Petroglyphs (rock carvings) are more widespread than pictographs (rock paintings), which are preserved chiefly in dry regions, inside caves, and under overhanging cliffs. It is thought that these designs were created for purposes of religious propitiation and sympathetic magic. Whatever the motive, the prehistoric artist often reached great aesthetic heights, as in the Paleolithic art of Western Europe, the rock figures attributed to the San of S Africa, and the Tassili cliff paintings discovered in the central Sahara that suggest that this was once a fertile area. Similar evidence was found in the Alps of N Italy. Successive styles and phases were found, and several layers of designs were often superimposed. Wild animals and hunting scenes abound, while the scenes of daily life were depicted alongside representations of ceremonies and deities. In Neolithic times herders and cows appeared, but rock art seems to have declined and disappeared with the advent of agriculture. In Europe and Africa the style was largely naturalistic, while in Australia and the Americas designs were more often symbolic and geometric, and sometimes approached a primitive form of writing. Carvings were usually incised or chipped out with a stone. Sometimes they were deeply gouged out in intaglio technique. The paintings, made with charcoal and earth pigments mixed with grease, gum, or water, vary from crude outlines to fully developed polychrome compositions. Engraving and painting techniques were sometimes combined. Stenciled human hands were found in numerous places.

Bibliography

See D. S. Davidson, Aboriginal Australian and Tasmanian Rock Carvings and Paintings (1936); L. Frobenius and D. C. Fox, Prehistoric Rock Pictures in Europe and Africa (1937, repr. 1972); J. D. Lajoux, The Rock Paintings of Tassili (tr. 1963); H. Kuhn, The Rock Pictures of Europe (tr. 1966); C. Grant, Rock Art of the American Indian (1967); D. N. Lee and H. C. Woodhouse, Art on the Rocks of Southern Africa (1970).

Rock art is a term in archaeology for any man-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:

• Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces
• Pictographs - rock and cave paintings

In addition, petroforms and inukshuks are rock art made by aligning or piling natural stones. The stones themselves are used as large markings on the ground.

Terminology

The term "rock art" appears to have been used first used in about 1959: "The rock art tells us little for, a certain human being, certain about marriage customs.",^[1] and has also been described as "rock carvings",^[2] "rock drawings",^[3] "rock engravings",^[4] "rock inscriptions",^[5] "rock paintings",^[6] "rock pictures",^[7] "rock records"^[8] and "rock sculptures.^[9]

Location

Both petroglyphs and pictographs can be parietal, meaning on the walls of a cave or rock shelter, open-air meaning they are made on exposed natural outcrops or monument-based which are made on stones consciously deposited.

Creation

Petroglyphs are created by rock removal, including scratching, abrading, pecking, carving, drilling, incising and sculpting. Locations of choice are rock facets coated with patina, a dark mineral accumulation on rock surfaces. Petroglyphs remove the patina, exposing the contrasting lighter rock interior. Instances of negative images, produced by removing the patina surrounding the intended figure, are also known. Sometimes petroglyphs are painted or accentuated by polishing. The degree of repatination indicates relative dating. Some of the most ancient petroglyphs are the same color as the surrounding rock.

Pictography is the application of pigments. Survival of ancient paintings is attributable to use of mineral pigments, most commonly manganese, hematite, malachite, gypsum, limonite, clays and various oxides. The best preserved pictography is found under sheltering overhangs and in caves. The simplest pictographs are wet clay finger drawings and charcoal drawings. To produce crayons or paints first the minerals had to be finely ground and combined with binding materials. Crayons and animal hair brushes have been excavated in caves with paintings. Exceedingly fine lines evidence the production of excellent brushes. The most common rock art element found around the world, the human hand, exemplifies several pictography types. A technique used since the Neolithic is spraying around a hand, resulting in a negative image. The more common positive print was often made with pigment applied to the hand and transferred to the rock.

Groupings: Motifs and panels

Traditionally, individual markings are called motifs and groups of motifs are known as panels. Sequences of panels are treated as archaeological sites. This method of classifying rock art however has become less popular as the structure imposed is unlikely to have had any relevance to the art's creators. Even the word 'art' carries with it many modern prejudices about the purpose of the features.

Rock art can be found across a wide geographical and temporal spread of cultures perhaps to mark territory, to record historical events or stories or to help enact rituals. Some art seems to depict real events whilst many other examples are apparently entirely abstract.

Shamanism Motif

Common features in rock art that are related to portraying shamans were bones and other skeletal remains on their coats. One reason for the bones would be that they were used as a type of armor for protecting the shaman on his journeys through different worlds. Devlet, the author of "Rock Art and the Material Culture of Siberian and Central Asian Shamanism" highlights, “Another interpretation of these skeletal costume elements explains them as representations of a shaman brought back to life after the dismemberment that occurs during the initiation process: the depicted bones thus refer to the wearer’s own skeleton” (43). The concept of death and revival is often associated with shamans and the way they are portrayed. The bones were usually on the back of the shaman’s jacket or used on the breast-piece.

Another important aspect used to distinguish shamans in rock art depictions is that they are wearing fringed fabric. There are differences in the lengths of the fringe and where on the shaman the fringe is located. In the rock art, the fringe was usually long single strands attached to different parts of the shaman’s body. The symbolism of the fringe can be interpreted in several ways. One example is, “The fringe on a shaman’s coat is an important element, which marks his or her ornithomorphic nature (i.e. the ability to transform into a bird or to gain its abilities such as the capacity for flight)” (Devlet 44). The concept of fringe being correlated with flying was mainly used in rock art in the Altai, Tuva, and Mongolian regions.

A more mainstream characteristic is the detection of the shaman’s ritualistic drum. Even though there are different types, shapes, and images painted on the shaman’s drum, it is clearly depicted in the rock art. The range of decoration used on the drums varied from simplistic to innately elaborate. The resemblance is remarkably illustrated, “In the Altai region, images depicted on historical shamanic drums demonstrate a striking similarity with what is shown on the rock engravings” (Devlet 47).

See also

• Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka - World Heritage Site
• Rock Paintings of Sierra de San Francisco - World Heritage Site
• Knowth - Ireland
• Neolithic Subpluvial
• Petroforms
• Petroglyph
• Petrosomatoglyph
• Saharan rock art
• Sydney Rock Engravings
• Pomier Caves
• Water glyphs

Notes

References

• Ekaterina, Devlet. "Rock Art and the Material Culture of Siberian and Central Asian Shamanism." The Archaeology of Shamanism. 2001 43-54. 01/04/2007 <http://scandinavian.wisc.edu/dubois/Courses_folder/shamanism_readings/2_9_13/Devlet.pdf>.

• Malotki, Ekkehart and Weaver, Donald E. Jr., 2002, Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush: Colorao Plateau Rock Art, Kiva Publishing Inc., Walnut, CA, ISBN 1-885772-27-0 (cloth). For the "general public", this book has well over 200 color prints with commentary on each site whre the photos were taken; the organization begins with the earliest art and goes to modern times.

• Rohn, Arthur H. and Freguson, William M, 2006, Puebloan ruins of the Southwest, University of New Mexico Press, Albuqureque NM, ISBN-10 0-8263-3970-0 (pbk, : alk. paper). Adjunct to the primary discussion of the ruins, contains color prints of rock art at the sites, plus interpretations.

• Schaafsma, Polly, 1980, Indian Rock Art of the Southwest, School of American Research, Sana Fe, University of New Mexico press, Albuqureque NM, ISBN 0-8263-0913-5. Scholarly text with 349 references, 32 color plates, 283 black and white "Figures", 11 Maps, and 2 Tables.

External links

• RUPESTREWEB / LATIN AMERICAN ROCK ART. Articles, Zones, News, Rock art researchers directory
• Rock Art studies - A Bibliographic database at the Bancroft Library containing over 10,000 citations to the world's rock art literature.
• The website of Rock Art Foundation - Native American Rock Art
• Trust for African Rock Art
• British Rock Art Collection
• ARARA American Rock Art Research Association.
• Rupestre.net A rock art site, mainly devoted to Valcamonica and Alpine Rock Art.
• EuroPreArt The database of European Prehistoric Art.
• Art and Archaeology of the Dampier Archipelago
• Bradshaw Foundation Supports dissemination of information on rock art, migration, and the study of artistic man around the world.
• Rock Art in South Africa http://rockart.wits.ac.za/origins/
• UNESCO World Heritage: Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka

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