The Economic and Social Context of Southern San Rock Art [and Comments and Reply]

Lewis‐Williams, J. D.; Bardill, Patricia N.; Biesele, Megan; Yearwood, Stephenie; Clegg, John; Davis, Whitney; Groenfeldt, David; Inskeep, R. R.; Jones, Tim E. H.; Pretty, Graeme Lloyd; Sauvet, Georges; Sieveking, Ann; Trbuhović, Vojislav B.; Noten, Francis Van; Vastokas, Joan M.; Walker, N.

doi:10.1086/202871

Cited by 123 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…It is in this regard that rock art comes to play an important role, as it can be understood, not only as the result but also as an agent for the definition and maintenance of the safety net, fighting against contradictory forces that could undermine it. It can be seen as the material expression of an ideology of reciprocity, as has been proposed for Southern San rock art (Lewis-Williams 1982).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper Palaeolithic lithic raw material sourcing in Central and Northern Portugal as an aid to reconstructing hunter-gatherer societies

Aubry¹,

Gameiro

Llach

et al. 2016

JLS

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Abstract:We present the results of the study of lithic raw materials used in Upper Palaeolithic occupations preserved in caves, rockshelters and open-air sites from two different geological environments in Portugal. For the sites located in the Lusitanian Basin, flint or silcrete sources are easily available in close vicinity. The Côa Valley sites, located in the Iberian Massif, are within a geological environment where restricted fine-grained vein quartz and siliceous metamorphic rocks are available, but no flint or silcrete, even though both are present in the archaeological assemblages. Data from the two clusters of sites are compared with a third newly located site in the Lower Vouga valley, at the limit of the Iberian Massif with the Lusitanian Basin, where quartz vein raw material types are locally available and flint is about 40 kilometres distant. This study reveals prehistoric adaptations to these different geological contexts, with shorter networks for the Lusitanian basin sites contrasting with the long distance ones for the Côa Valley, and the Vouga site at an intermediary position. Finally, we propose that lithic raw material supply networks, defined by a GIS least-cost algorithm, could be used as a proxy not only for territoriality in the case of local and regional lithic raw material sources, but also to infer long-distance social networks between different Palaeolithic human groups, created and maintained to promote the access to asymmetrically distributed resources.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Upper Palaeolithic lithic raw material sourcing in Central and Northern Portugal as an aid to reconstructing hunter-gatherer societies

Aubry¹,

Gameiro

Llach

et al. 2016

JLS

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show abstract

“…But, as many materialist-framed works show (Conkey 1980, Lewis-Williams 1982, Jochim 1983, Gilman 1984, Mithen 1987, Rosenfeld 1997, rock art was not always regarded as a mere provider of evidence for the existence of religion in prehistoric societies, and its study was not always seen as an archaeology of religion (see Palacio 2010) or as a quest for meaning (see also Balbín & Alcolea 1999, Balbín 2007. These have become essential issues in rock art research as social archaeology (namely functionalism and Marxism) has lost appeal and a practice rooted in thinking in terms of individuals and agency has gained terrain.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…11 In other words, the original premise concerned with the social relations in which the rock art was embedded (see, for instance, Lewis-Williams 1982, Dowson 1994 evolved into an 'explanation' of rock art by assigning particular meanings to the depictions. Individual genius, creativity and personal intentions (aspects that can or need not be explained), together with an allegedly universal predisposition towards religion and its practice, have become the ultimate explanation of the existence of rock art, that appears as the product of a myriad of individual independent events fundamentally disconnected from each other, that eventually formed the rock art corpus as we know it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Shamanism approached and treated social aspects and symbolic contents at the same level. Its controlled use of the ethnographic evidence (Lewis-Williams & Loubser 1986, Lewis-Williams 1991 helped reveal the meaning of rock art, avoiding speculation and embedding this search for meaning in a general aim to understand its function as part of social life (Lewis-Williams 1982).…”

Section: Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Rock art and rituals were ultimately considered social devices intended to release social tension, drive negotiations among different groups, alleviate conflict and negotiate status (Lewis-Williams 1980, 1982, 1995b, Blundell 1996, Dowson 1994. Ultimately, the existence of rock art was taken as an evidence of social struggle; its interpretation was intimately linked to the understanding of the economic and social context (Lewis-Williams 1982).…”

Section: Shamanism As Ethnographic Analogymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analogical Evidence and Shamanism in Archaeological Interpretation: South African and European Palaeolithic Rock Art

Berrocal

2011

Norwegian Archaeological Review

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Rock art studies have been strongly reliant on ethnography in recent decades. Since the 1970s, the (re)turn to ethnography has been considered short of a paradigmatic change, and it has indeed stirred a lot of theoretical discussion in the very under-theorized field of rock art research. The ethnographic turn has been mainly built around shamanism, very loosely defined here as the causal association that researchers establish between shamanic practices and rock art, and from which explanations have been sought. The application of this approach has changed through time, depending on 1) the archaeological context in which it was to be applied, 2) the use of additional sources of evidence (namely, neuropsychology), 3) the role of shamanism as a hypothesis or as an established fact. As a hypothesis it has been built on the basis of three different kinds of analogies: ethnographic, formal and uniformitarian. This paper addresses the shifting character of shamanism in South African and European Palaeolithic rock art studies, seeking to contribute at least in part to a broader reflection on the nature of analogical reasoning and its implications.

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The Nasca

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The Economic and Social Context of Southern San Rock Art [and Comments and Reply]

Cited by 123 publications

References 27 publications

Upper Palaeolithic lithic raw material sourcing in Central and Northern Portugal as an aid to reconstructing hunter-gatherer societies

Upper Palaeolithic lithic raw material sourcing in Central and Northern Portugal as an aid to reconstructing hunter-gatherer societies

Analogical Evidence and Shamanism in Archaeological Interpretation: South African and European Palaeolithic Rock Art

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