Embodied rock art motifs in far west Texas and northern South Africa

Summary

In this paper, I consider embodied rock art motifs in two rock art regions: far west Texas and northern South Africa. By employing the tools of embodiment theory, certain motifs in both regions can usefully be seen as expressions of how indigenous ontologies were perceived, how things were, and how identities were tied to physical beings and manifestations of physical beings. As with research on ritualistic ontologies and the process of making rock art, embodiment theory can help us overcome the tendency in rock art studies to treat the original image-makers as reactive viewers of their own handiwork. A key point is that, once created, pictographs and petroglyphs are symbolic manifestations and powerful things in themselves; they are not mere ‘reflections’ of either natural or supernatural phenomena.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Rock Art, Embodiment, and Identity

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14600