Reviews"The volume's strength is in the breadth and diversity of the contributions that illustrate the numerous approaches being taken to this analytical and interpretive problem. It will be useful for all rock art researchers concerned with interpretation, but also with documentation. Without some understanding of the potential existence of scenes, even the question of tabulating motifs becomes problematic: are the various motifs on a panel individual symbols or are they some combination of a single, symbolic representation? The answer will almost certainly vary from case to case but the many studies in this monograph can provide ideas for how best to resolve this problem." * Antiquity "[this is] the first coherent and comparative collection of papers to address the subject of scenes in rock art and is therefore an important addition to our understanding of not just early artmaking but also of images that illustrate a long history of humans interacting and performing in coherent groups." * Australian Archaeology "Any reader interested in the question "what makes a scene in rock art?" will find a wonderful array of answers in this book, most of them built from sophisticated theoretical frameworks and applied to worldwide case studies via the use of well-devised and relevant methods." * Danae Fiore, Universidad de Buenos Aires, "Any reader interested in the question "what makes a scene in rock art?" will find a wonderful array of answers in this book, most of them built from sophisticated theoretical frameworks and applied to worldwide case-studies via the use of well-devised and relevant methods." * Danae Fiore, Universidad de Buenos Aires, "Any reader interested in the question "what makes a scene in rock art?" will find a wonderful array of answers in this book, most of them built from sophisticated theoretical frameworks and applied to worldwide case studies via the use of well-devised and relevant methods." * Danae Fiore, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Table Of ContentList of Illustrations Preface Meg Conkey Introduction: Behind the Scenes--Did Scenes in Rock Art Create New Ways of Seeing the World? Iain Davidson and April Nowell Chapter 1. Scenes and non-Scenes in Rock Art Iain Davidson Chapter 2. The Possible Significance of Depicted Scenes for Cognitive Development. Livio Dobrez Chapter 3. Event Depiction in Rock Art: Landscape-Embedded Plan-View Narratives, Decontextualized Profile "scenes," and their Hybrid Instances Patricia Dobrez Chapter 4. Defining "scenes" in Rock Art Research: Visual Conventions and Beyond Madeleine Kelly and Bruno David Chapter 5. Putting Southern African Rock Paintings in Context: The View from the Mirabib Rockshelter, Western Namibia Grant S. McCall, Theodore P. Marks, Jordan Wilson, Andrew G. Schroll, and James G. Enloe Chapter 6. Scenic Narratives of Humans and Animals in Namibian rock art - A Methodological Restart with Data Mining Tilman Lenssen-Erz, Eymard Fäder, Oliver Vogels and Brigitte Mathiak Chapter 7. Between scene and association: Toward a Better Understanding of Scenes in the Rock Art of Iran Ebrahim Karimi Chapter 8. Music and Dancing Scenes in the Rock Art of Central India Meenakshi Dubey-Pathak and Jean Clottes Chapter 9. Hunting and havoc: Narrative Scenes in the Black Desert Rock Art of Jebel Qurma, Jordan Nathalie Østerled Brusgaard and Keshia A. N. Akkermans Chapter 10. Making a scene: An analysis of rock art panels from the Northwest Kimberley and Central Desert, Australia. June Ross Chapter 11. Scene but not heard: Seeing scenes in a northern Australian Aboriginal site Madeleine Kelly, Bruno David and Josephine Flood Chapter 12. A Comparison of "scenes" in Parietal and Non-Parietal Upper Paleolithic Imagery: Formal Differences and Ontological Implications Elisabeth Culley Chapter 13. Scene Makers: Finger Fluters in Rouffignac Cave (France) Leslie Van Gelder and April Nowell Chapter 14. Maps in Prehistoric Art Pilar Utrilla, Carlos Mazo, Rafael Domingo and Manuel Bea Chapter 15. Scenes in the Paleolithic and Levantine Art of Eastern Spain Valentín Villaverde Chapter 16. New Insights into the Analysis of Levantine Rock Art Scenes Informed by Observations on Western Arnhem Land Rock Art. Inés Domingo Chapter 17. Rules of Ordering and Grouping in the pitoti, the Later Prehistoric Rock-Engravings of Valcamonica (BS), Italy: from Solitary Figures through Clusters, Graphic Groups, and Scenes to Narrative Craig Alexander, Alberto Marretta, Thomas Huet, Christopher Chippindale Chapter 18. Finding Order out of Chaos: A Statistical Analysis of Nine Mile Canyon Rock Art Jerry D. Spangler and Iain Davidson Chapter 19. Interpreting Scenes in the Rock Art of the Canadian Maritimes Bryn Tapper and Oscar Moro Abadía Chapter 20. The "Black Series" in the Hunting Scenes of Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, Patagonia, Argentina. Carlos A. Aschero and Patricia Schneier Epilogue: Is There More to Scenes than Meets the eye? Iain Davidson and April Nowell
SynopsisDating back to at least 50,000 years ago, rock art is one of the oldest forms of human symbolic expression. Geographically, it spans all the continents on Earth. Scenes are common in some rock art, and recent work suggests that there are some hints of expression that looks like some of the conventions of western scenic art. In this unique volume examining the nature of scenes in rock art, researchers examine what defines a scene, what are the necessary elements of a scene, and what can the evolutionary history tell us about storytelling, sequential memory, and cognitive evolution among ancient and living cultures?
LC Classification NumberN5310 .M26 2021