ABSTRACT
The period spanning from the 11th/10th to the 5th millennium BC is commonly understood as a transition period where human communities faced “changes” at different levels: climate, environmental and socio-cultural changes. That context lead also to changes in communities’ cultural expressions as it seems to be the case with Rock Art.
Portuguese rock art from the Pleistocene is relatively well known and described. Medium/Late Neolithic schematic rock art is also “a group” traditionally well identified and dated. However, Early Holocene rock art seems to be a “something in between”. To what extent is this “transitional mode” a consequence of the “nebula” that is still our understanding of this period and of the coeval social dynamics? This chapter discusses this problem as well as the difficulty to establish a chronological frame to encompass all those “changes”, knowledge gaps and heterogeneity.
The discussion will be focused on three regions: Douro, Tagus and Guadiana. The human-animals link will be the conductor thread through our discussion of the relationship between the environment, human communities and rock art, trying to unfold formally, conceptually and chronologically, the emergence and affirmation of schematic rock art, characterized by the progressive preponderance of the anthropomorphic figure.
