ABSTRACT

Ontologies of Rock Art is the first publication to explore a wide range of ontological approaches to rock art interpretation, constituting the basis for groundbreaking studies on Indigenous knowledges, relational metaphysics, and rock imageries.

The book contributes to the growing body of research on the ontology of images by focusing on five main topics: ontology as a theoretical framework; the development of new concepts and methods for an ontological approach to rock art; the examination of the relationships between ontology, images, and Indigenous knowledges; the development of relational models for the analysis of rock images; and the impact of ontological approaches on different rock art traditions across the world.

Generating new avenues of research in ontological theory, political ontology, and rock art research, this collection will be relevant to archaeologists, anthropologists, and philosophers. In the context of an increasing interest in Indigenous ontologies, the volume will also be of interest to scholars in Indigenous studies.

Chapter 14 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9780429321863/ontologies-rock-art-oscar-moro-abad%C3%ADa-martin-porr?context=ubx&refId=3766b051-4754-4339-925c-2a262a505074

chapter |21 pages

Introduction

Ontology, rock art research, and the challenge of alterity

part I|81 pages

Philosophical and historical perspectives

chapter 2|18 pages

Rock art and the ontology of images

The ecology of images in hunter-gatherer and agrarian rock art

chapter 4|23 pages

Ontology and human evolution

Neanderthal “art” and the method of controlled equivocation

part II|106 pages

Rock art and Indigenous knowledges

chapter 5|18 pages

A lesson in time

Yanyuwa ontologies and meaning in the Southwest Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Australia

chapter 7|17 pages

Lines of becoming

Rock art, ontology, and Indigenous knowledge practices

chapter 8|22 pages

Art, representation, and the ontology of images

Some considerations from the WanjinaWunggurr tradition, Kimberley, Northwest Australia 1

part III|114 pages

Humans, animals, and more-than-human beings

chapter 10|22 pages

“When elephants were people”

Elephant/human images of the Olifants River, Western Cape, South Africa

chapter 11|19 pages

Images-in-the-making

Process and vivification in Pecos River-style rock art

chapter 14|17 pages

The faceless men

Partial bodies and body parts in Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art

chapter 15|16 pages

Hunters and shamans, sex and death

Relational ontologies and the materiality of the Lascaux “shaft-scene”

part IV|96 pages

Syncretism, contact, and contemporary rock art

chapter 16|19 pages

Communities of discourse

Contemporary graffiti at an abandoned Cold War radar station in Newfoundland

chapter 17|18 pages

More than one world?

Rock art that is Catholic and Indigenous in colonial New Mexico

chapter 18|21 pages

Kwipek, Mi'kma'ki

Pemiaq Aqq Pilua'sik Ta'n Tel Amalilitu'n Kuntewiktuk/Continuity and change in Mi'kmaw petroglyphs at Bedford, Nova Scotia, Canada

chapter 20|19 pages

When the virtual becomes actual

Indigenous ontologies within immersive reality environments