The shamanistic interpretation of hunter-gatherer rock arts has in recent years been heavily criticized. Much of this criticism draws on some of the same fundamental flaws in the shamanistic approach to understanding rock arts. In this article I briefly outline what it is about shamanism and its use in rock-art research that both sides of the debate have got wrong. Taking southern African hunter-gatherer rock art as a starting point, I demonstrate a new way of understanding rock art is indeed possible. I then explore the possibilities of this approach by examining rock art from the post Palaeolithic in Spain, and the Palaeolithic cave art of western Europe.

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The shamanistic interpretation of southern African rock art has had a significant impact on the study of rock art world-wide, as well as the archaeology of southern Africa. Despite considerable theoretical and methodological developments over nearly three decades the approach has retained its basis in Cartesian thinking and overstated the role of the shaman in the control of supernatural forces. By eschewing Cartesian principles and resituating the shaman in an animic hunter-gatherer ontology, I propose a new direction for southern African hunter-gatherer rock art studies. l initiate this new approach here by drawing on a specific set of themes in rock art - those that still greatly influence the wider reception of hunter-gatherer arts, so-called images of daily life. The interaction of non-human animals and rock surfaces, rocks that have been rubbed smooth by rhinoceroses, is also considered. I argue that the control of supernatural potency was not the exclusive preserve of shamans, but that all human and non-human animals were involved in maintaining the continued circulation of these vital life forces through the various activities that constituted human and non-human beings' identities. The painting and engraving of these activities revealed a deeper understanding of the world to ensure its continued existence.

Paul G. Bahn The Cambridge illustrated history of prehistoric art. xxxii+302, black-and-white and colour illustrations. 1998. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 0-521-45473-5 hardback £24.95 $39.95. - Volume 72 Issue 277

The interpretation of shamanic art runs into a number of hermeneutic problems. Most noticeably, hallucinatory images are perceived as graphic metaphors produced simply to explain shamans’ experiences in the spirit‐world. Interpretations along these lines downplay the vast diversity of shamanic expression as well as diminishing the role these images play in structuring social relations. Shamans’ experiences, which include relations with supernatural beings, are at the heart of those shamans’ identities. For shamans, then, these supernatural relations are as real as the everyday social relations we all recognize and accept. In this paper I take a specific set of rock paintings and demonstrate how politically prominent shamans use supernatural relations and their depiction in rock art images to underwrite social relations, and vice versa.

Peter Garlake. The hunter's vision: the prehistoric rock art of Zimbabwe. 176 pages, 36 colour plates, 185 figures, 1 map. 1995. London: British Museum Press; 0-7141-2518-0 hardback £16.99. - Volume 70 Issue 268

A celebrated and widely published work of art, long regarded as a copy of a Southern African rock painting, depicts a hunter disguised as an ostrich and stalking a troop of these birds. The ‘copy’, first published in 1905, is part of a collection of copies of rock paintings made in the 1860s and 1870s by George William Stow who died in 1882. Many original rock paintings copied by him have been re‐discovered, and they show that Stow's copies are, generally, fairly accurate. However, no rock painting that could be the source of the disputed ‘copy’ has been found. Instead, an alternative source for the ostrich painting has come to light. Comparison of Stow's cartoon with an illustration in Moffat's Missionary Labours and Scenes in South Africa (1842), suggests that Stow forged the supposed ‘copy’, using Moffat's picture as a model, reversing it left to right and making some other changes. It was not simply an innocent copy of this earlier picture, for Stow passed

Previous articleNext article No AccessDiscussion and CriticismOn Vision and Power in the Neolithic: Evidence From the Decorated MonumentsJ. D. Lewis-Williams, and T. A. DowsonJ. D. Lewis-Williams, and T. A. DowsonPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Current Anthropology Volume 34, Number 1Feb., 1993 Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/204136 Views: 30Total views on this site Citations: 43Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1993 The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological ResearchPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Chris Fowler Ontology in Neolithic Britain and Ireland: Beyond Animism, Religions 12, no.44 (Apr 2021): 249.https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12040249Richard A. 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