Saharan Rock Art: an Archaeology of Relational Ontologies in North African Prehistory

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Saharan Rock Art: an Archaeology of Relational Ontologies in North African Prehistory

Evans-Pritchard Lectures 2018 Dr Emmanuelle Honoré Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow - McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge Saharan Rock Art: An Archaeology of Relational Ontologies in North African Prehistory Archaeological data testify to the flourishing cultural development of Late Prehistoric communities during the last favourable interval in North Africa, before the large-scale desertification process that affected the Sahara around 3500 BC. This interval was also the moment for major transformations in the long-term history of Africa, with the adoption of pastoralism that made North African populations shift from a hunter-gatherer to a semi-nomadic pastoralist way of life. Based on the fieldwork I have conducted in the Eastern Sahara, this series of lectures aims to explore post- Pleistocene adaptations through the lens of transformations of the social world. How did the last hunters and the first pastoralists perceive and conceive the world and their relation to the world? What changes in their worldviews accompanied the development of the earliest African pastoralism? Wednesday, 2 May (Week 2) Changing Views of a Changing World: A Relation to Territories, Resources and Landscape in the Context of Holocene Environmental Changes Tuesday, 8 May (Week 3) Images of an Imagined World: The Complex Mythologies of the Last Hunter-Gatherers Tuesday, 15 May (Week 4) The Animal as Anima: The Role of Cattle in the Worldviews of Early African Pastoralist Societies Tuesday, 22 May (Week 5) Subsistence as Giving Some Substance: The Organization of Tasks and Social Relations amongst the Last Hunters and First Pastoralists Thursday, 24 May (Week 5) Towards a Palaeosociological Approach: Relational Ontologies and the Constitution of ‘Being in Society’ in North African late Prehistory All lectures take place at 5.00 pm in the Old Library, All Souls College Open to the public – all welcome .

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Saharan Rock Art. Archaeology of Tassilian Pastoral Iconography. by Augustin F
BOOK REVIEW Saharan Rock Art. Archaeology of Tassilian Pastoral Iconography. By Augustin F. C. Holl. African Archaeology Series. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, 2004, 192 pages. ISBN Paperback 0-7591-0605-3. Price: UK£ 22.95. The rock art of the Sahara is world class, but it series of vignettes that correspond to the annual has tended to be ignored by rock art specialists out- rhythms of pastoral transhumant life. The two panels side Saharan studies. This was underlined by omission are suggested as a narrative in the form of an allegory of any mention of Saharan art in CHIPPINDALE & or play in six acts. Act I (or Composition I) has five TAÇONs (1998) edited volume on world rock art. The scenes that deal with arrival at a camp site, setting up reasons for this may be partially due to most Saharan camp and watering the animals. Act II has three scenes rock art researchers being either French or Italian, but that deal with transit to a new camp. Act III is the new more probably due to the history of work being limited camp site that anticipates some important event, which to dating sequences (MUZZOLINI 1993) and concentra- is suggested as being gift-giving and the birth of a tion on purely collecting data to contrast styles new child. Act IV is the continuation of camp life into (SANSONI 1994). This has meant that theoretical frame- the dry season, but is seen as a metaphor for life works have tended to be abstract and general, mostly events and the new generation.
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Mythology and Legend, by JEAN- LOIC LE QUELLEC, Transla
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Thematic Study on Rock Art Africa
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Saharan Rock Art: Local Dynamics and Wider Perspectives
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~.THE DIGGING STICK Volume 23, No 1 ISSN 1013-7521 April 2006
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