Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Convenors:
Martin Porr, Archaeology/Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia, martin.porr@uwa.edu.au
Shumon Hussain, University of Cologne, Germany, s.t.hussain@uni-koeln.de
Laura Mayer, University of Western Australia, Australia, laura.mayer@uwa.edu.au
The proposed session is aimed at introducing the study of Deep Time Heritage as a new field of research and critical engagement. The notion of Deep Time Heritage cursorily refers to evidence that is dated to the Pliocene, Pleistocene, Early Holocene and/or is the product of mostly mobile hunting/gathering/fishing societies. It refers to material evidence informing the understanding of human evolution before the dawn of modes of existence predicated on farming and animal domestication. These categories, however, are not exclusive and themselves open to critique and topics of critical engagement. They are starting points for informed explorations. We want to encourage discussions about heritage processes around these categories of archaeological and material evidence and about related historical and contemporary trajectories and structures, and specific analytical frameworks and tools.
Deep Time Heritage has so far not been systematically, theoretically, and comparatively explored. Within (critical) heritage studies, Plio/Pleistocene and Palaeolithic heritage and the heritage of hunting/gathering/fishing societies is largely undiscussed. There have so far been no attempts to view Deep Time Heritage from a Global North/Global South perspective and how these aspects must be related to each other historically and epistemologically. Framing the deep past as a heritage concern also helps to better understand that we do not only need to talk about “matters of fact” but also about “matters of concern” (Latour), and that empirical evidence is never neutral or innocent. It requires critical contextualisation, conceptual analysis, and affirmative placement in the present. The power of the past, and especially the deep past, to steer action in the present make it timely and necessary to reflexively monitor and guide such processes. These questions are particularly pertinent in the context of Indigenous heritage and the conflicts surrounding it, in which Indigenous voices and understandings continue to be neglected, marginalised, or even erased.
Papers:
Deep Time Heritage as Keystone Heritage
Shumon T. Hussain, Centre for Multidisciplinary Environmental Studies in the Humanities (MESH); Dept of Prehistoric Archaeology, Palaeolithic Research Unit (FAST), Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Cologne, Germany
Martin Porr, Archaeology/Centre for Rock Art Research + Management, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia
Laura Mayer, Archaeology, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Australia
What is Deep Time Heritage? What may be distinct about it as a phenomenon and what sets it apart from other types of heritage negotiation, usage and politics? We here briefly sketch possible answers to, and some of our ideas on, this important question in order to motivate new research, reflection, and critical engagement with heritage discourses making reference and mobilising the human deep past. In an effort to frame and kick-start WAC T15/Session 01: ‘Deep Time Heritage. Critical Perspectives, and Future Opportunities’, we suggest that deep time heritage often serves a purpose of keystone heritage, i.e., it represents a species of heritage that helps to define the larger ecosystem of thought and practice relating to key dimensions of heritage more broadly (origin, identity, nature/culture assumptions, etc.), and in this way typically enacts disproportionate effects on how we imagine ourselves and act in the present, given the fragmented archaeological evidence and the notoriously incomplete and highly contested knowledge that feeds it and supposedly supports its contestations.
Stone Tools as Proxies: Exploring Social Networks, Innovation, and Behavioural Patterns in the Kalahari Basin
Precious Chiwara-Maenzanise, Dept of Geological Sciences, Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Alex Blackwood, Dept of Geological Sciences, Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa; Human Palaeosystems Group, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Germany
Robyn Pickering, Dept of Geological Sciences, Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Christel Tinguely, Dept of Geological Sciences, University of Cape Town, South Africa
Jayne Wilkins, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Australia
Benjamin J. Schoville, Centre for Heritage + Culture, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) in southern Africa has garnered significant research attention in recent decades. However, much of this focus has centred on South Africa’s coastal and near-coastal regions, known for their well-preserved, well-dated rock shelters with extensive cultural sequences. This emphasis has led to the assumption that the Kalahari was largely uninhabited before ~90,000 years ago due to its arid conditions. Contrary to this assumption, evidence reveals human occupation in the Kalahari Basin dating back as far as 1.3 million years. Stone tool studies from Ga-Mohana Hill North Rockshelter, along with comparisons to sites such as Erfkroon, Florisbad, and White Paintings Rockshelter, show a consistent pattern of similarity in lithic technological behaviours. This uniformity suggests connectivity and social ties among human groups in the Kalahari Basin and its surroundings. Additionally, findings from sites within the Tswalu Kalahari Reserve further indicate that people prioritised high-quality raw materials sourced over 10 km away, highlighting a preference for quality over proximity in resource procurement. Collectively, this evidence offers a holistic perspective on the region’s past, demonstrating that humans in the Kalahari exhibited complex adaptive behaviours that enhance our understanding of human evolution in southern Africa’s interior landscapes.
Rock Art and the Construction of Cultural Identities
Stella Basinyi, University of York, UK
Early academic writings and anthropological studies which engaged in the study of African indigenous communities have perpetuated the thinking that likens the contemporary San community to early human ancestors. This thinking has further promoted the idea that San people are ancient, even relics, existing in some spaces as models of the early hunter gather lifestyle. Genetic and ethnographic studies are used to support this hypothesis. Among the San, these notions have raised issues of rights of access to ancestral sacred sites, and relationship with and authorship of rock art sites. In this research, I consider the case of the Tsodilo hills cultural landscape and how the communities around the site use the rock art to lay claims to the site and affirm their cultural identities. The study explores the construction of rock art narratives and influence on the San community. The main guiding question is, how do diverse stakeholders construct and benefit from the archaeological narratives, however problematic? This study employs qualitative case study research design. The data was collected through open-ended, semi-structured in-depth interviews. Thematic analysis was implemented to identify emerging categories and themes within the data. The analysis of interviews from this case study reminds us that rock.
The Politics of Deep-Time Heritage: A Perspective from the History of Science
Marianne Sommer, Dept of Cultural and Science Studies, University of Lucerne, Switzerland
In my work, I have been interested in how objects from the deep past feed into ethnic and national identity politics in Europe and the US. Beyond instrumentalisations of fossils for particular interests, the term heritage has been used for biological as well as cultural entities of supposedly pan-human interest. However, concepts such as heritage have been criticised because they can evoke notions of group consciousness and may imbue objects with a ‘divine presence’. Moreover, heritage scholarship cautions against understanding world heritage as a body of objects with inherent historical meaning. Nevertheless, even molecules have been imbued with the ‘magic of heritage’. The initiators of the Human Genome Diversity Project promoted a concept of genetic heritage that analogised human gene pools to archaeological legacies at a time when public awareness of heritage issues was at its height and heritage studies were beginning to emerge (Sommer, e.g., History Within, Chicago University Press 2016).
As any heritageisation process, this one was controversial. This is because relics from ‘our heritage’ only acquire meaning through the role they play in the negotiation and performance of identities. In my talk, I will concretise these considerations with examples from the history of Neanderthal interpretation.
Prehistoric Policies? How Ideas of the Ancestral Human Condition Influence British and Irish Just Transition Policy, and Why it Matters
Ben Elliott, University of Highlands and Islands (UHI), UK
Alice Rudge, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), UK
Graeme Warren, University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland
This paper reviews a new research project, Prehistoric Policies (PP), which began in April 2025. PP will examine the contested figure of the ancestral human, a conceptual amalgam of evolutionary origins, prehistory, and long-term behaviour, which currently underpins several strands of Just Transition (JT) policy in Britain and Ireland. Surprisingly, as policymakers plan for a JT, they often operationalise the figure of the prehistoric, ancestral human to theorise and contextualise the required societal changes. Deep time heritage is mobilised to justify actions for today and tomorrow.
The role of the ancestral or prehistoric human in popular/academic discourse about deep time has seen recent critique. Whilst its original construction was driven by anthropologists/archaeologists, it is now maintained by a wide range of actors, including popular science writers, who often lack an understanding of its empirical basis or political implications. PP will ultimately interrogate how popular science, academic research and policy interlink to sustain the claimed ancestral deep-time human in the contemporary world, and show why and how the ancestral condition features in future-focused debates; why this matters; and what the implications are. This paper provides a background to the project, outlines its methods and some (very!) preliminary results.
Relating to Deep Time Heritage: A Photovoice Approach to San Communities and Rock Art in South Africa
Mélanie Duval, Laboratoire EDYTEM UMR 5204, Université Savoie Mont Blanc, Campus Ccientifique, France; Rock Art Research Institute, GAES, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Leïla Baracchini, Institut de sciences sociales des religions, Université de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
This presentation explores how present-day societies perceive Deep Time heritage, focusing on South African rock art sites. It questions whether rock art, often attributed to the San as a homogeneous group, holds significance for today’s San communities. Specifically, it examines how the Khwe and !Xun communities in Platfontein, South Africa, relate to rock art.
The Khwe and !Xun share a history of war and displacement. During Namibia’s war for independence, many were recruited into the South African Defence Force to fight SWAPO. After SWAPO’s victory in 1990, about 500 individuals and their family relocated to South Africa, eventually settling in Platfontein, a farm containing rock engravings.
Heritage institutions and tourism stakeholders have long promoted these engravings as meaningful to the San, given their ancestral origins. However, efforts to involve the Khwe and !Xun in heritage tourism at Wildebeest Kuil have not succeeded.
In the framework of an international research project called COSMO-ART, a photovoice project reversing previous approaches, was initiated to explore heritage from their perspective. By producing images and interviews, this co-constructed research process questioned what heritage truly means to them. This presentation outlines the photovoice process, and discusses its contributions to understanding Deep Time heritage in contemporary societies.
Neanderthal Research as a Case Study for a Philosophy of Deep History
Hub Zwart, Erasmus School of Philosophy, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Self-understanding (know thyself!) is a core objective of philosophical reflection, but deepening our self-understanding as human beings requires a broadening of our temporal horizon. When philosophers became aware of the importance of history in the 19th century, their scope was limited to the past twenty-five centuries, relying on written sources. Close collaboration with paleo-archaeology allows us to broaden our scope and opens up the prospect of a philosophy of deep history, seeing the present as the outcome of long-term processes. We will focus on a particular moment in deep history, when Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in what is now Europe for thousands of years. Until recently, paleo-archaeological research focussed on the exceptionality of humans, so that the encounter between allegedly ‘superior’ humans and ‘inferior’ Neanderthals resulted in the demise of the latter. Currently, we notice a change of perspective, towards a more dynamical, interactive and inclusive view of early human history, – a shift which has repercussions for how we see ourselves as human beings today. Envisioning the contemporaneity of Neanderthals and modern humans requires a shift of emphasis from competition to interaction, mutual learning and exchange.
Exhibiting Deep-time Heritage: Lascaux IV and Environmental Sensibilities
Monika Stobiecka, Faculty of Liberal Arts, University of Warsaw, Poland
Lascaux IV, the latest iteration of exhibiting the famous cave paintings, exemplifies a critical approach to deep-time heritage by foregrounding human-nonhuman entanglements. Unlike traditional archaeological or natural history museums, the exhibition situates Upper Palaeolithic humans within their ecologies rather than at the centre of the narrative. Through immersive media, a full-scale cave replica, and an engaging guided tour, Lascaux IV presents a multispecies story that challenges anthropocentric assumptions about prehistoric life and therefore, overcomes a traditional narrative about the deep past. The exhibition highlights interspecies cohabitation, depicting past humans as one of many agents in the landscape rather than as dominant hunters or symbolic thinkers. In this presentation, I will examine the permanent exhibition at Lascaux IV and argue that it offers an alternative model for archaeological museums attuned to the needs of contemporary audiences. I will demonstrate how Lascaux IV, through its narrative structure and innovative use of media, realises the concept of a critical archaeological museum.
Deep Time Politics
Emma Kowal, Deakin University, Australia
Australian archaeology has periodically invoked debates with heavy moral implications for the descendants of the First Australians. I use the term ‘deep time politics’ to refer to a dynamic between archaeological findings, the media, and public discourse about ancient population movements that is also (implicitly or explicitly) about Indigenous rights. Over the last 15 years, deep time politics has been transformed by two forces: the rise of palaeogenomics, and an ever-greater understanding within Australian science of the need to engage Indigenous people and communities. Drawing on my experiences engaging with the field as an anthropologist researching the political, cultural and ethical implications of genomics in Indigenous communities, this article discusses the current political stakes of palaeogenomic research. Australian scientists working on the deep past are highly aware of the ethical and moral standards that Indigenous research guidelines require of them. This does not mean that deep time politics ends, but that it takes on new forms. Focusing on research on intracontinental population movements, archaic hominin introgression, and ghost populations, I examine the deep time politics of the twenty-first century.
The Indigenous Palaeolithic of the Western Hemisphere (the Americas)
Paulette Steeves, Algoma University, Canada
Indigenous archaeologies weave Indigenous voices, knowledge, and histories through Western archaeologies to reclaim and revive Indigenous histories and humanities erased and denied by Western archaeology. This is not an archaeology of resistance; it is an archaeology of reclaiming and revivance. Archaeologists often identify the Indigenous people of Turtle Island as Asians from Asia, a culture and country that did not exist in the deep past. Yet, in many Indigenous genesis histories, Indigenous people say they have been here since time immemorial. The traditional Western archaeological story argues that Indigenous people have been in the Western Hemisphere for 12- 15 kya. Disconnecting Indigenous people from their ancient homelands and identities is violent, destructive, and ongoing. In listening to oral histories and weaving them through archaeological evidence, I argue that Indigenous people have been in the Western Hemisphere for over 130 kya. Reclaiming and rewriting deep Indigenous history and relinking Indigenous people to their ancient homelands is a path to healing for Indigenous people. Understanding Indigenous people’s links to homelands in the deep past leads to decolonising minds and hearts and informs and addresses racism and discrimination in contemporary populations.
Challenging the Extinction Narrative: A Collaborative Exhibition Between Archaeologists and Fuegian Indigenous People
Ana Butto, CONICET – CADIC
Danae Fiore, CONICET, Universidad de Buenos Aires, AIA
Margarita Maldonado, Secretaría de Cultura, Municipalidad de Rio Grande
Vanina Ojeda, Comunidad Indígena Rafaela Ishton; Secretaria de Educación, Municipalidad de Ushuaia
Ayelen Tonko, Comunidad Indígena Kawésqar Residente en Puerto Edén
In this paper we present experiences and results on the collaborative work developed by a group of archaeologists and Indigenous representatives from Tierra del Fuego (South America) for the exhibition “Völkersterben? Nein, wir leben!!” held during 2024 at the Sankt Gabriel Monastery (Vienna, Austria). The exhibition celebrated the centenary of the work carried out by German ethnographer-priest Martin Gusinde with the Selk’nam, Yagan and Kawésqar nations, with the aim of showing his ethnographic legacy. The exhibition fostered the presentation of the voices of the Fuegian Indigenous communities. The exhibition contents were developed jointly by archaeologists and Indigenous representatives including: a) the selection of artifacts to be exhibited considered representative of their traditional ways of life; b) the writing of the artifact labels, including their original Indigenous names; and c) the production of photographs and texts by the Indigenous representatives, demonstrating the persistence and relevance of the Fuegian Indigenous societies that Gusinde had studied a century earlier. Thus, this collaborative process led to the generation of a multivocal exhibition that included the Indigenous self-representations, challenging the hegemonic discourse that often refers to these Fuegian peoples in the past tense and portrays them as extinct.