Burning Images: A Critical Review of Rock Art Conservation in Zimbabwe

Rock art is the most easily accessible of archaeological material. In Zimbabwe, there are thousands of sites, mostly in open-air environments which can be accessed and enjoyed by many people without any restrictions. Yet, rock art is also easily damaged and therefore requires conservation. Social, political and economic challenges in the last two decades have had profound effects on the conservation status of this particular cultural heritage. This paper examines the state of conservation of rock art, conservation approaches and challenges in Zimbabwe. It also discusses possible solutions especially as the country is making frantic efforts at international re-engagement. The story of rock art conservation in Zimbabwe is similar to what is happening in many neighbouring developing countries such as Kenya, Uganda and South Africa. Therefore, the discussion in this paper also informs on general issues in rock art management and conservation in Africa.     

Reflections on the Pedagogy of Archaeological Field Schools within Indigenous Community Archaeology Programmes in Australia

In this paper we investigate the pedagogy of archaeological field schools. Specifically, we explore the combination of tertiary level field schools and Indigenous community (or community-based) archaeology. Using a detailed case study of a rock art field school in Arnhem Land, Australia, we explore the processes and outcomes of combining archaeological field training with the ideas and methods of community archaeology. We discuss the relationship and unique challenges faced by such community archaeology field schools, particularly that of balancing the priorities of competing stakeholders. Our discussion illustrates the complexities of training students to work in an environment where cultural belief systems are still strongly linked to sites and landscapes. While the challenges are numerous, the outcomes, particularly for students, provide an unparalleled educational experience, one that cannot be obtained in any other learning format.     

Social Values and Rock Art Tourism: An Ethnographic Study of the Huashan Rock Art Area (China)

The rapid expansion of cultural tourism has led to increased numbers of visitors to rock art sites throughout the world. The rise of rock art tourism has affected not only the preservation of rock art sites, but also the social values attributed to the sites by communities in the immediate vicinity. Social values refer to the social and cultural meanings that a place of heritage holds for a particular community. This article aims to discuss the influence of tourism on the social values that uphold local communities’ emotional attachment to rock art heritage, using the Huashan rock art area in China as a case study. Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art Cultural Landscape is the first rock art heritage in China proposed to be inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and officially obtained World Heritage Status in July 2016. This article argues that many of the changes generated by the endeavour towards tourism promotion by the authorities in their pursuit of World Heritage designation have contributed to the reinforcement of the social values under discussion. However, negative feelings among the communities in response to the undesired consequences of the designation campaign might have resulted in the attenuation of such values. The ultimate goal of the research is to prompt further reflection on existing rock art heritage management mechanisms both in China and worldwide.     

The Upper Paleolithic Rock Art of Iberia

Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both geographically and temporally in recent years, in close coincidence with the growth of contemporaneous archeological evidence: cave art loci in Aragón and Levante attributable to the Solutrean and Magdalenian, many cave art sites and a few open-air ones in Andalucía and Extremadura that are mostly Solutrean (in line with evidence of a major Last Glacial Maximum human refugium in southern Spain), the spectacular Côa Valley open-air complex in northern Portugal (together with a growing number of other such loci and one cave) that was probably created during the Gravettian-Magdalenian periods, and a modest, but important increase in proven cave and open-air sites in the high, north-central interior of Spain that are probably Solutrean and/or Magdalenian. Despite regional variations in decorated surfaces, themes, techniques and styles, there are broad (and sometimes very specific) pan-Iberian similarities (as well as ones with the Upper Paleolithic art of southern France) that are indicative of widespread human contacts and shared systems of symbols and beliefs during the late Last Glacial. As this Ice Age world and the forms of social relationships and ideologies that helped human groups survive in it came to an end, so too did the decoration of caves, rockshelters and outcrops, although in some regions other styles of rock art would return under very different conditions of human existence.     

Removal of Rock Art Affected by the Raising of the Clanwilliam Dam Wall,Western Cape Province,South Africa: Techniques and Procedures

The commissioning by South Africa’s Department of Water and Sanitation of a new and higher wall for the Clanwilliam Dam will increase dam storage and provide additional water for emerging and existing commercial farmers. But there is a cost to South African heritage. The raising of the wall will flood 27 rock art sites as well as other archaeological and historical resources. In partial mitigation of this impact on heritage the removal of particular pieces of rock art was approved by Heritage Western Cape, the provincial heritage agency. This report focuses on the removal process and techniques used to cut out three pieces of rock art under the management of PGS Heritage between 18 April 2016 and 7 May 2016 from the sites designated CDE02 and CDW10. Publication of the techniques used and the procedures followed will add to the sparse literature on rock art removal and increase the accessibility and availability of information about the removed stones.     

Murujuga,Northwestern Australia: When Arid Hunter-Gatherers Became Coastal Foragers

ABSTRACT

The Dampier Archipelago (Murujuga) in northwestern Australia is a rich rock art province located in an arid-maritime cultural landscape. The archipelago juts into the Indian Ocean just north of the Tropic of Capricorn. When people started inscribing this rugged granophyre landscape it was an inland range more than 100 km from the coast. Murujuga rock art is contextualized by a 47,000-year-old occupation sequence from the Pilbara, a model for stylistic change, and a predictive model that envisages how people may have adapted to this eventual seascape. Initial testing of an outer island suggests that highly mobile coastal foragers took advantage of interior ranges across the Abydos Plain as sea levels rose after the Last Glacial Maximum. This article describes for the first time evidence for Australia's earliest domestic stone structures (dated to between 8063 and 7355 cal BP) and tests the predictive model. Rosemary Island is an inscribed landscape that reveals the emergence of an arid island and provides insights into the dynamics of mobile arid hunter-fisher-gatherers in the early Holocene. It adds to the body of Australian evidence for island abandonment with insulation, but with minimal evidence for subsequent (re)colonization.     

论岩画阐释中的多元视界

岩画意义的解释经常会出现望图生义或者恣意猜度的现象,导致学术界对岩画的解释产生了偏见。为了避免这种情况,在解读岩画的时候应当充分考虑各种可能的因素,如岩画所处的环境,岩画自身之间的关联,岩画产生地所呈现出来的地方性知识,其他学科的支持等。     

Ritual and Politics: An Examination of the 1072 Primal Ancestor Debate in the Northern Song

In considering the vital role played by imperial rites in claiming political legitimacy and maintaining social stability, Chinese emperors endeavored to present themselves as the perfect model for their subjects in terms of ritual performance. Focusing on a Northern Song (960–1127) ritual debate over the placement of imperial ancestors’ spirit tablets and ancestral chambers, especially that of the Primal Ancestor, this study aims to contribute to a better understanding of discussions on ancestral rituals and how they were intensified during the implementation of Wang Anshi’s New Policies. More importantly, this study reveals the differences between Song scholar-officials’ political positions and intellectual interests, thus providing a new interpretation of Song factionalism from the perspective of ritual politics.     

Engagement and Management: Developing a Monitoring System for Open-air Rock Art in the UK and Ireland

ABSTRACT

Neolithic and Early Bronze Age rock carvings in the United Kingdom and Ireland represent an internationally unique rock art tradition as it is, to the best of our knowledge, the only wholly abstract global rock art tradition. This heritage resource is, however, under threat from an array of factors, such as increasing population densities and agricultural intensity. In this paper, we report on the Condition Assessment Risk Evaluation (CARE) project that had as one of its primary objectives the co-production of a user-friendly, non-invasive condition assessment risk evaluation Toolkit for gathering and organising information essential for the long-term conservation of open-air rock art. We describe the public involvement CARE process through co-experience participatory focus groups, which evaluated the Toolkit, concluding that we can have confidence in the results obtained from the public. Furthermore, the variables that form part of the Toolkit and related management recommendations are presented.     

Ritual Mutilation of Europeans on the Torres Strait Maritime Frontier

Passage through the Torres Strait during the late 18th and early 19th centuries was a dangerous exercise for European mariners. Apart from a maze of largely unmapped reefs, mariners had to negotiate passage through waters inhabited by resident Indigenous communities who had acquired a reputation for brutal attacks and cruel treatment of castaways. This paper explores circumstances behind the murder and mutilation of crew and passengers by Torres Strait Islanders from five ships attempting to transit the Strait – Shaw Hormuzear/Chesterfield (1793), Charles Eaton (1834), Thomas Lord (1846), and Sperwer (1869). Using anthropological recordings from the late 19th century, these mutilations are recast as acts of ritual processing explicable with reference to Torres Strait Islander ontology. The circumstances that coalesced to precipitate these mutilations were complex and rare and ultimately unrepresentative of the majority of frontier interactions between European mariners and Torres Strait Islanders, which were generally friendly and mutually beneficial.     

An Eocene moncotyledon from Nelly Creek,Central Australia,with affinities to Hemerocallidaceae (Lilianae: Asparagales)

A monocotyledonous partial leaf macrofossil from Eocene beds at Nelly Creek near Lake Eyre in Central Australia is described. It is recognised as being close to several extant Australasian species of Dianella Lam. ex Juss. (Hemerocallidaceae), especially the D. odorata Blume / D. bambusifolia Hallier f. complex. However, because it has unique cuticular features relative to extant Hemerocallidaceae, the fossil is assigned to the new genus and species Dianellophyllum eocenicum Conran, Christophel & Cunningham.     

南宋进书仪探析——以圣政为例

南宋时,圣政修纂完毕后,须进呈皇帝和太上皇。在进呈过程中,宋廷制定了一套庄严肃穆而又极其烦琐的仪式。进呈皇帝之仪在皇帝和大臣处理日常政务的垂拱殿中完成。进呈给太上皇帝之仪在太上皇帝居所完成。在迎奉圣政和皇帝赴太上皇帝居所的环节中,秘书省道山堂和祥曦殿成为与进呈仪式紧密相关的空间。圣政的进呈仪式是由太上皇帝、皇帝、臣僚面向公众共同完成的两场表演,这种可视化表演具有浓厚的象征意义:对皇帝而言,是向天下臣民宣示自己总结和继承先朝的政治遗产,开启本朝的治道,并且以自身的实践教化臣民,传递"孝"的理念,倡导"孝";对臣僚而言,通过仪式表演,表达了他们致君"贤能"的愿望。圣政这种史籍的进书仪式为我们考察南宋官修史籍进书仪式提供了一个典型案例。     

Rock Art: A Potential Source of Information about Past Maritime Technology in the South-East Asia-Pacific Region

It is possible that most or all boats and rig-types used in prehistoric times in the South-East Asia-Pacific region have completely disappeared from the record, and that those recorded by Europeans in the 17th century may have been relatively recent innovations. The purpose of this paper is to introduce to the literature a new source of information on ancient boat and rig designs. This source is the information encoded in rock-art depictions of watercraft. This paper provides a technical appraisal of 18 images of watercraft from the Tutuala region of East Timor.
© 2007 The Authors     

Rock art on Socotra,Yemen: the discovery of a petroglyph site on the island's south coast.

Recent fieldwork on the south coast of the island of Socotra, Yemen, has revealed a hitherto unknown petroglyph site. This site represents the first rock art to have been recorded on the south coast, an area generally regarded as being unpopulated up until the recent past. The corpus of recorded petroglyphs includes feet, cupules, anthropomorphic figures and geometric motifs, whose designs parallel those from known rock‐art sites on the north coast. The importance of this site is that it provides us with the first glimpse into the religious and socio‐political lives of the inhabitants of the previously unknown southern half of Socotra. Placing these petroglyphs within the broader context of rock‐art studies on the island of Socotra has also allowed us to begin to disentangle the skewed view of Socotra's inhabitants.     

Rock Art Conservation and Tourism

Rock art conservation has developed hand-in-hand with the increased pace of tourism, yet the two activities tend to remain in opposing camps. Policies and guidelines have been developed for cultural heritage and cultural tourism and there is a widely accepted range of principles in place, but a theory of sustainable rock art tourism is only in its infancy. To mature, the discipline needs research into the interaction of key elements that affect the long-term conservation of frequently visited rock paintings and engravings in their original setting, as well as consideration of social and economic factors that drive tourism and the public interest in rock art.     

Time, Space, and Image Making: Rock Art from the Dhar Tichitt (Mauritania)

Prehistoric images are particularly versatile and difficult to grasp. In a few cases of historical continuity, local cultural glosses provide researchers with a rich corpus of data and help in the interpretation of the imagery. Such approaches contribute to the interpretation of the material in a frozen time perspective. Their impact on the development of archaeological methodologies enabling researchers to deal with strictly prehistoric image making traditions without any known descendant communities remains to be felt. This paper is an attempt to develop a subtle and robust archaeological methodology for the study of prehistoric images. The suggested approaches are replicable, and conclusions are falsifiable.Les images préhistoriques sont particulièrement versatiles, et leur sens difficile à cerner en raison de leur polysémie. Dans une poignée de cas, là ou il y a continuité historique, les chercheurs ont reussi à constituer une riche documentation sur les pratiques culturelles liées à l'utilisation des images. Ils/elles parviennent ainsi à des niveaux d'interpretation très detaillée, dans une conception paradoxalement réifiée des sociétés en question, conservant des pratiques culturelles inchangées pendant des millénaires. L'impact de telles approches sur l'élaboration de bonnes méthodes archéologique est négligeable. Dans la plupart des cas, les images et les vestiges matériels sont le uniques témoins des sociétés préhistoriques étudiées. Cet article s'efforce de developper des méthodes, à la fois subtiles et robustes, permettant une analyse systématique des images préhistoriques. Les méthodes proposées sont réplicables, et les conclusions refutables.     

The Rock Art of the Matobo Hills World Heritage Area,Zimbabwe: Management and Use,c 1800 to 2016

The Matobo Hills World Heritage Area in southern Zimbabwe is an acknowledged treasure trove of rock art sites. Despite a century of research and management, there remains much to be done to conserve these sites for future generations. Following a chronological approach, this paper reviews a century of research and conservation efforts, detailing various strategies and achievements by individuals, government agencies, and affiliated organisations. Zimbabwe’s recent economic collapse and ‘land reform’ programme had fundamental impacts on the appreciation and protection of the rock art sites by tourists, local communities, international organisations and government agencies, all of which are explored. The article ends with brief suggestions on how to potentially improve and expand the management of rock art in the Matobo Hills area.