ABSTRACT
Today there is much debate about the use of ethnography in attempts to discern the significance of ancient rock art. This chapter begins by briefly outlining the historical and personal background to this debate in southern Africa. Today researchers recognize that the starting point for any southern African interpretative work is the comments that nineteenth-century San people offered on their own people’s (or their recent ancestors’) rock art images, or on copies of the imagery. From that foundation it is possible to open up the sources to other components of the temporal and geographic mosaic of San ethnography. Blanket, highly generalized interpretations of ‘the art’ should be avoided. Rather, a key point in assessing the validity of this work is the multiple ‘fit’ between specifics of the ethnography and details of the imagery. The power of this ethnographic approach is illustrated by an account of an otherwise enigmatic San rock art panel.
