ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the related concepts of embodiment, somatic transformation, and process within a shamanistic framework. It explains the consumption of rock art in the Trans-Pecos and considers how it was viewed and used by the original artists and subsequent viewers, before offering some concluding thoughts as to how we might reassess the boundaries and indeed the very concept of rock art regions. As in many regions of North America, rock art in the Trans-Pecos is the result of an embodied kinetic process, a shamanistic interaction with the veil between this world and the spirit world. Phenomenological approaches and notions of embodiment have been key motivating factors in recent developments within rock art studies and archaeology and anthropology as a whole. Despite the common occurrence in rock art corpuses worldwide of blurred animal human material boundaries, and also the exaggeration of human physiological features, there are surprisingly few examples of rock art researchers employing embodiment theory as an analytical tool.
