Kaparlgoo Blue: On the Adoption of Laundry Blue Pigment into the Visual Culture of Western Arnhem Land,Australia

International Journal of Historical Archaeology - It has been argued that laundry blue (whitener) was introduced into western Arnhem Land in the second half of the 1920s by missionaries, where it...     

The environmental context of a prehistoric rock carving on the Bjäre Peninsula,Scania, southern Sweden

Palaeoecological analysis of peat deposits from a small bog at Lingården, southern Sweden, have been used to examine the nature and timing of vegetation changes and anthropogenic activity associated with a nearby rock carving located close to the edge of the wetland. This study is the first of its type to investigate the environmental context of rock carvings in southern Sweden. Debate has tended to focus on chronology and iconography, with little consideration of the environmental relationships of rock carvings and how vegetation may help construct a site within its surrounding landscape. The pollen evidence from Lingården demonstrates that the rock carving was located in an isolated semi-wooded setting during the late Bronze Age. This is in stark contrast to several other pollen studies from the Bjäre Peninsula that record widespread woodland clearance and agricultural activity from the late Neolithic–Bronze Age transition. The results of this study support hypotheses that suggest complex rock carvings, such as Lingården, were separated from settled areas. This sense of separation and isolation is reinforced by the vegetation surrounding the rock carving. This paper also discusses the relationship between charcoal in the pollen sequence and evidence that the decorated outcrop had been burnt.     

Roaring Rocks: An Audio-Visual Perspective on Hunter-Gatherer Engravings in Northern Sweden and Scandinavia

This article attempts to extend the study of rock-art beyond the visual to include the non-visual experiences and perceptions of human beings. It is argued that there is 'more than meets the eye' when interpreting rock-art. Rather than restricting interpretation to the visual, the relationship between rock 'art', rock-art 'site' and the wider landscape is considered as articulated within a socially and historically specific Neolithic (ca. 4000-500 BC) hunter-gatherer 'mindscape'. An audio-visual perspective is argued, where the auditory sense and visual experience of the landscape combine in a vital interplay that is essential to the interpretation of 25 out of about 80 known rock-engraving sites in northern Scandinavia (ca. 33%). These sites have in common a strong water-centric focus; in particular noisy, running water. This approach provides a more profound understanding of these rock-art sites and the prehistoric use of 'images' as transmitters of different kinds of knowledge from the mundane to the esoteric. It is argued that the ebb and flow of water and human breath are analogous within a frame of enquiry that also considers shamanistic practice in approaching and experiencing these rock-engraving sites.