{"id":6847,"date":"2025-04-24T04:53:06","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T04:53:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/?page_id=6847"},"modified":"2025-04-24T11:38:44","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T11:38:44","slug":"t05-s06-papers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/t05-s06-papers\/","title":{"rendered":"T05\/S06: Rock Art and Biographical Perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Format: Paper presentations with discussion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Convenors: <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assoc. Prof. Sally K. May, University of Adelaide, Australia, sally.may@adelaide.edu.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joakim Goldhahn, University of Adelaide, Australia, joakim.goldhahn@adelaide.edu.au<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biographical perspectives on rock art can be found interwoven within rock art studies globally. By offering an alternative approach to interpreting rock art, a biographical perspective invites us to analyse the details of an individual\u2019s life and background to understand how these experiences may have shaped their artistic expression and vice versa \u2013 how creating rock art may have impacted their life. In rare and remarkable instances, we know the names of individual rock art artists and can piece together historical accounts to explore their legacies. In other cases, we can identify individuals as creators of rock art across varying time depths, though their names remain unknown to us. Similarly, some burial monuments adorned with rock art have been argued to reflect the deceased\u2019s life. In this session, we challenge presenters to reflect on how rock art can also be biographical \u2013 offering insights into the lives of specific artists and others, and\/or offering a biographical perspective on rock art places and motifs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Papers:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Biographical Turn in Rock Art<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sally K. May, School of Humanities, University of Adelaide, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This paper introduces the Rock Art and Biographical Perspectives session, presenting a global overview of biographical approaches to rock art and highlighting the potential of this perspective to illustrate the lives of individual artists and the social worlds they inhabit. While rock art has often been studied through stylistic, chronological, or symbolic lenses, a biographical approach invites us to consider the personal histories, identities, and lived experiences of those who created these works. Drawing on examples from diverse regions this paper questions how individual authorship and life histories have been identified or inferred across different archaeological and ethnographic contexts. It then turns to western Arnhem Land, northern Australia, to offer a case study grounded in collaborative research with Aboriginal communities and families. Here, I consider how one artist\u2019s rock art reflects their personal, cultural, and historical narratives. These examples demonstrate how biographical perspectives can enrich our understanding of rock art as a socially embedded and historically situated practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paradox of Indigenous Artists as \u2018Artists\u2019: A Biographical Perspective on Aboriginal naBadmardi Nayombolmi\u2019s Art, Western Arnhem Land, Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joakim Goldhahn, The University of Adelaide, Australia<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

naBadmardi Nayombolmi has been described as a national icon and recognised as the world\u2019s most prolific known rock artist. His work spans various media, including bark, rock surfaces, cars, bodies, and objects. The breadth of his subject matter is remarkable, encompassing 16 fish species, four bird species, three turtle species, ten different mammals, four body-related motifs, four plant species, four types of reptiles, 15 objects, numerous ornaments, diverse human figures, spirit Beings, and more than a dozen Ancestral Beings. In this presentation, I take a biographical approach to his art, examining how his life is reflected in his artwork and how his artwork, in turn, mirrors his life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tactile Places: Exploring the Sensory and Liminal Character of Palaeolithic Embodied Markings at Ardales Cave<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barbara Oosterwijk, University of Exeter, UK<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deep within Ardales Cave in southern Spain, in its most secluded chamber, someone pressed their pigment-coated hands against the rock, dragging them downward to leave two striking markings. At the cave\u2019s threshold, another handprint marks the entrance, while two hand stencils\u2014sprayed by mouth\u2014lie hidden within a shimmering calcite curtain, accessible only by climbing. Found across Palaeolithic Europe and beyond, these embodied markings reflect how humans physically engaged with their surroundings. Using Ardales as a case study, this paper explores how such traces express a sensory and biographical relationship between body, movement, and place. Embodied markings\u2014motifs that resemble hands, fingers, or mouths\u2014materialise the gestures that created them, emphasising the act of marking as much as the mark itself. Often placed on liminal or hard-to-access surfaces, they appear choreographed to the cave\u2019s topography\u2014grasping ridges and dragging down walls\u2014suggesting intimate, performative acts. Unlike figurative depictions, these markings emphasise the immediacy of touch, offering a form of expression grounded in embodied experience. By examining these tactile acts, we gain insights not just into artistic practices, but into the lived experiences of early humans\u2014and how they may have perceived, inhabited, and inscribed meaning onto the world around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hand of Masitise: Exploring the Life of a Painter Through Two Rock Art Sites in Southeastern Lesotho<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Justine Wintjes, KwaZulu-Natal Museum, South\u00a0\u00a0Africa<\/em>
Ghilraen Laue, KwaZulu-Natal Museum, South\u00a0\u00a0Africa; Rock Art Research Institute, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of Witwatersrand, South Africa<\/em>
Anto Coetzee Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the early twentieth century in the mountain highlands of what is now Lesotho, few if any Bushmen (San) lived as hunter-gatherers in independent communities. Most had come to live under the protection of Sotho or Phuthi chiefs. In 1932, Masitise, a Phuthi man, created some \u2018Bushman paintings\u2019 on the veranda walls of the Quthing Residence at the request of Marion How, wife of the District Commissioner. The majority of the imagery refers to a battle scene between two Bushman chiefs, Soai and Mphaki. Other imagery includes eland, a snake, and an imaginary figure Masitise described as a mythical beast. Similar imagery occurs in a rock shelter half a km from the residence, reportedly painted in 1929. We use digital enhancement and visual analysis to reveal stylistic and iconographical similarities, and to argue that the two sets of figures may have been products of the same hand. This small body of work provides a glimpse into the life of Masitise. Taking inspiration from the Bushman tradition and finding his way in a new world order, Masitise combined realism and ambiguity in a distinctive expression, establishing a unique position for himself as an artist crossing boundaries and working \u2018in-between\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making Rock Art Today \u2013 Encounters with Practicing Samburu Rock Art Painters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prof. Peter Skoglund Linnaeus University, Sweden\u00a0<\/em>
Dr Emmanuel Ndiema National Museums of Kenya, Kenya\u00a0<\/em>
Dr Victoria Waldock, University of Oxford, UK<\/em>
Prof. Joakim Goldhahn, University of Adelaide, Australia\u00a0<\/em>
Steven Labarakwe Samburu, Snr. Elder, ENF, Kenya\u00a0<\/em>
Peter L. Lemoosa, Kenyatta University, Kenya\u00a0<\/em>
Muchemi Njeruz, Empower the Northern Frontier (ENF), Samburu, Kenya<\/em>
Dr Mathews Wakhungu, National Museums of Kenya, Kenya\u00a0<\/em>
Ebbe Westergren, Independent Scholar, Sweden<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kenya\u2019s Samburu warriors still make rock art and express their cultural identity through images of humans, animals, and weapons painted and carved on cliffs and rock shelters. In a new research project beginning this year, a group of international researchers will interact with different generations of Samburu painters, and through conversations learn when, where, and why they make rock art. The collaborative, participatory nature of the research is intrinsic to the enquiry, providing an opportunity to gain an emic perspective directly from the rock art creators themselves. In this paper we describe the processes of collaborative knowledge production, highlighting the importance of the artists’ role in shaping our understanding of their rock art practice. Building on our earlier work, we discuss our methodologies that incorporate not only artist profiles and dialogues, but also reciprocal community exchanges to construct reflexive research methods. These include training for local scouts to locate and photograph rock art, a locally-generated digital database of the imagery, and longer-term heritage plans to help sustain the communities today. Through this work we aim to gain a deeper understanding of how rock art creation and consumption impacts the lives, identities and broader socio-environmental landscapes of Samburu warriors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Format: Paper presentations with discussion Convenors:  Assoc. Prof. Sally K. May, University of Adelaide, Australia, sally.may@adelaide.edu.au Joakim Goldhahn, University of Adelaide, Australia, joakim.goldhahn@adelaide.edu.au Biographical perspectives on rock art can be found interwoven within rock art studies globally. By offering an alternative approach to interpreting rock art, a biographical perspective invites us to analyse the details of an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1157,"featured_media":276,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":{"0":"post-6847","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"pmpro-has-access","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1157"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6847"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7223,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6847\/revisions\/7223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldarchaeologicalcongress.com\/wac10\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}