Full Description
Focusing on stunning paintings and engravings from around the world, Powerful Pictures interrogates the driving forces behind global rock art research. Many of the rock art motifs featured in the 16 chapters of this book were created by indigenous hunter-gatherer groups, and it sheds new light on non-Western rituals and worldviews, many of which are threatened or on the point of extinction. Stemming from a conference in Val Camonica in northern Italy, the book is arranged by continent, although it tackles how early research in some countries (e.g., Sweden, France, Spain, the USA, Canada, South Africa) influenced the trajectory of archaeological investigations in others (e.g., Australia, India, Mexico, Germany, Mongolia, Russia). All of the contributing authors have vast experience working with rock art and Indigenous communities, many of them holding posts in prestigious university departments around the world. The book will be of particular interest to professional historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, and indeed anyone who is interested in art, symbolism, and the past.
Contents
Why the history of rock art research matters - Joakim Goldhahn, Jamie Hampson, and Sam Challis ;
The history of rock art research in west Texas, North America, and beyond - Jamie Hampson ;
Reclaiming connections: Ethnography, archaeology, and images on stone in the southwestern United States - Kelley Hays-Gilpin and Dennis Gilpin ;
Rock art, landscapes and materiality in the Canadian Shield - Dagmara Zawadzka ;
On the history of rock art research in Mexico and Central America - Félix Alejandro Lerma Rodríguez ;
'To Alleviate the Night-Black Darkness that Conceals our most Ancient Times:' Carl Georg Brunius' Trailblazing Rock Art Thesis from 1818 - Joakim Goldhahn ;
History of the study of schematic rock art in Spain - Margarita Díaz-Andreu ;
Leo Frobenius' contribution to global rock art research - Richard Kuba and Martin Porr ;
History debunked: Endeavours in rewriting the San past from the indigenous rock art archive - Sam Challis ;
Rock art and archaeology? The problem of 'integration' in southern African later stone age research - David Mendel Witelson ;
A history of research into regional difference in southern African rock paintings - Ghilraen Laue ;
Explorers and researchers: Kimberley rock art discoveries 1838-1938 - Michael P. Rainsbury ;
Discovering and researching gwion (bradshaw) art in the Kimberley, Western Australia - Joc Schmiechen ;
Rock art research in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India - Sujitha Pillai ;
Historical overview of Mongolian rock art studies - Byambasuren Tseren ;
A history of rock art research in Russia - Irina Ponomareva
