Riders on the Stone

Summary

Horse riding scenes are arguably about the most emblematic representations within post-paleolithic open air rock art in Galicia (NW Iberia). They have been used as a controversial chronological milestone, setting them somewhere between the Final Neolithic and the Iron Age. Such an iconography may be related to a shift in the Human/Nature relationship arising along the Late Prehistory. While not discarding they are showing real activities, we believe the riding scenes could be emphasizing a new interventionist attitude of the human groups on the environment. Such an empowering stance would be well reflected in the -otherwise bizarre- representations of deer riding. Moreover, horse riding images -together with the carvings of metallic weapons- seem to underline the rise of the male warrior in the framework of an increasingly divided society.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Methodology and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art

Keywords

Spatial Coverage