Archaeology with Art [1 ed.] 9781784914936, 9781784914929

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Archaeology with Art

Edited by

Helen Chittock Joana Valdez-Tullett

Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED

www.archaeopress.com

ISBN 978 1 78491 492 9 ISBN 978 1 78491 493 6 (e-Pdf) © Archaeopress and the individual authors 2016 Cover: Eloise Govier ‘Raspberry Ripple Rain over the field’ (Oil Painting).

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Contents Archaeology with Art: A short introduction to this book�������������������������������������������� v Helen Chittock and Joana Valdez-Tullett Art practice and Archaeology: a mutually beneficial relationship����������������������������� vi The content of this book�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� vi Acknowledgements�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� vii References���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� vii Preface: The paragone has gone��������������������������������������������������������������������������������ix Andrew Cochrane Making a moment������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ x The reformation of the image������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ xi We are all .... now ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xii Élan vital������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ xiii References �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii Chapter 1: Making carved stone balls: art, experimental practice and archaeological research �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 1 Andrew Meirion Jones Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������1 Carved stone balls: curiosities and curious interpretations����������������������������������������1 The Winchester School of Art workshop�������������������������������������������������������������������� 5 Outcomes of the workshop���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8 ‘Their use is wholly unknown’���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 10 References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������11 Chapter 2: The fate of a thinking animal: the role of Upper Palaeolithic rock-art in mediating the relationship between humans and their surroundings���������������������� 13 António Batarda Fernandes Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������13 Conscious/Unconscious (and everything in between)����������������������������������������������15 Rock-art and landscape��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 16 Rock-art as a by-product������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 18 Rock-art and religion ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 20 The role of rock-art in mediating the relationship between humans and their surroundings ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������23 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������27 Acknowledgements�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 28 References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������28

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Chapter 3: The rock ‘artist’: exploring processes of interaction in the rock art landscapes of the north of Ireland��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 33 Rebecca Enlander Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������33 Geological Landscapes���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 34 Doagh Island, Inishowen - Dalradian Argyll and Appin Groups��������������������������������34 Mevagh���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������38 Cuilcagh - Marine shelf facies����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 40 Regional Expressions������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 42 Archaeologies of Art������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 43 Objects with History�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 45 Stone Places��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������45 Processes of Interaction ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 46 Reference, Repetition and Re-use���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 48 Conclusions���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������49 References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������50 Chapter 4: Art, Materiality and Creativity: understanding Atlantic Rock Art ������������ 53 Joana Valdez-Tullett Introducing the Case-Study: Atlantic Rock Art���������������������������������������������������������� 53 The nature of Rock Art: Initial remarks��������������������������������������������������������������������� 56 A Work of Art: the metaphor������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 57 The making of Rock Art: a process��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 58 The Material Medium����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60 The Setting����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������62 Creating Rock Art: the gesture and the performance�����������������������������������������������65 The Audience and the Audience’s Experience���������������������������������������������������������� 68 Interpreting rock art: the reflection of thought�������������������������������������������������������� 72 Summing Up�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������73 References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������75 Chapter 5: Images and materials: The making of narrative imagery in rock art and on metalwork��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 79 Peter Skoglund Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������79 Rock art in south-east Scania – a short introduction������������������������������������������������80 Figurative art and narratives������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 83 Narratives in rock art������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 83 Narratives on the razors�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 88 The making of images in rock art and on metalwork �����������������������������������������������89 Discussion and conclusions��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 90 Acknowledgement���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 93 References����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������93

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Chapter 6: Categorising the Iron Age: Similarity and Difference in an East Yorkshire Assemblage�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 97 Helen Chittock Art Practice and Archaeology����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 97 Categorising Archaeology����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 98 Dealing with ‘Mess’ in Archaeology������������������������������������������������������������������������ 101 Remaking: Copying and Reconstruction in Art and Archaeology����������������������������103 Shapeless Jars as a Category����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 108 Concluding Points��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 109 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������110 Chapter 7: Imagining and Illustrating the Archaeological Record: The Power of Evocation and Augmentation of Linear Drawing �����������������������������������������������������113 Dragoş Gheorghiu Introduction: The Imagination and Visual Representation of the Past�������������������113 Art and Archaeology ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 114 Linear Drawing as a Technique for Representation and Evocation�������������������������115 Our Artworks with Lines����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 115 Time Maps Project�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 116 Land Art as Linear Drawing [Dragoş Gheorghiu’s Art Work] ���������������������������������117 Experience and Linear Drawings [Georgina Jones’ Artwork]����������������������������������117 Conclusions�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������120 Acknowledgements������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 122 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������122 Chapter 8: Moving, changing, becoming: applying Aristotle´s kinesis paradigm to rock art ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������127 Andy Valdez-Tullett Kinesis���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������127 The four causes of kinesis��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 129 Movers and the moved������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 131 Rest�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������131 Pre-sightedness and rock art���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 133 José Alcino Tomé - last of the rock artists��������������������������������������������������������������� 135 Conclusions�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������137 Acknowledgements������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 138 References �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������138 Chapter 9: Experiential Art and Archaeology: Vital Material Engagements��������������141 Eloise Govier Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������141 Lively Matter�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������141 Experimental Art����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 142

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Çatalhöyük: a Neolithic town���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 143 Experimantal Art and Archaeology������������������������������������������������������������������������� 143 Vital Material Engagements������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 146 Seeing in the Dark��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 149 Sensory Engagement���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 150 Conclusion��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������152 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������153 Chapter 10: Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen����������������������������������������������������������157 John Was & Aaron Watson Introduction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������157 Background�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������157 The Project��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������161 The Dark Room�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������169 Discussion���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������170 Acknowledgements������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 174 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������175

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List of Figures and Tables Making carved stone balls: art, experimental practice and archaeological research Figure 1. The variety of interpretations of carved stone balls. Image by Hannah Sackett������2 Figure 2. The first stage in the carved stone ball chaîne opératoire: shaping a sphere. Photograph by Andrew Cochrane����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������5 Figure 3. The second stage in the carved stone ball chaîne opératoire: marking out the sphere. Photograph by Andrew Cochrane��������������������������������������������������������������������������������6 Figure 4. The third stage in the carved stone ball chaîne opératoire: carving out the knobs. Photograph by Andrew Cochrane����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������6 Figure 5. Working with pre-prepared plaster moulds at the Winchester school of Art. Photograph by Andrew Meirion Jones���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������7 Figure 6. A clay ‘carved stone ball’ of Marshall type 4a Photograph by Andrew Meirion Jones�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8 Figure 7. ‘Carved stone balls’ in plaster at the end of the WSA workshop. Photograph by Andrew Meirion Jones����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������9 The fate of a thinking animal: the role of Upper Palaeolithic rock-art in mediating the relationship between humans and their surroundings Figure 1. Upper Paleolithic representation of a wagging tail aurochs (Côa Valley, Portugal). Drawing of the aurochs by Fernando Barbosa.������������������������������������������������������������������������24 Figure 2. Côa Valley (Portugal) Upper Paleolithic quadruped motif (probably an aurochs) depicted in a fashion that suggests the animal is in the act of defecating or urinating. This image, as similar ones existent in Western Europe Pleistocene art (Joseph 2003, 322), hints that humans were aware of how different animal species demarcated their territory. Drawing by CNART.���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������26 The rock ‘artist’: exploring processes of interaction in the rock art landscapes of the north of Ireland Table 1. Regional preferences for surfaces and motifs in the survey area. Note: 1Indicates the lithology of the actual carved surfaces, as opposed to the character geology of the area. 2Burren natural carvings - an additional set of modifications include, but are not exclusive to: splitting and repositioning boulders, the definition of a rim or lip around the boulder’s edge, and the elongation of natural cracks and hollows to create anthropomorphic forms. 3Data compiled from field observations where possible and van Hoek (1986, 1988, and 1993).������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������35 Figure 1. Ireland geo map Distribution map demonstrating site location of all Irish rock art and passage grave art sites in relation to the solid geology of Ireland: note the apparent avoidance of the Central lowlands which are principally underlain by Carboniferous limestones. Sites discussed in text include: the Argyll Group in the Inishowen area (and Doagh Island) and the sandstone erratics on Carboniferous limestone in Cavan and Fermanagh (Burren, Marlbank, Reyfad). Solid geology 1:500,000© gsi.ie; data compiled by the present author using ArcMap 10.���������������������������������������������������������������������������������36

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Figure 2. Above: Graph demonstrating distribution of rock art and passage grave art in the survey area by solid geology. Site type totals are: Passage grave art (36 including 3 ‘standing stones’ thought to be reused kerb stones), Cup-and-ring art (174), and Cupmarked (126). Below: Graph demonstrating distribution of outcrop, erratic and cultural stone by solid geology. Site type total are: Outcrop (179), erratic boulders (77), and cultural stone (99 including 33 passage tombs, 11 cist slabs, 13 capstones and 18 standing stones). Geological unit classification is based on the 1:500,000 solid geology series, available digitally from © gsi.ie; point data compiled by the present author using ArcMap 10. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������37 Figure 3. Detail of cupmarks at Carrowreagh and cartouche motif at Magheranaul. The Carrowreagh rock art is typically characterised by isolated and group cup and disc marks, with the decorated surfaces characterised by ice-smoothed outcrops of the Termon Pelite Formation. This contrasts with nearby Magheranaul, where rock art frequently occurs on flat, heavily fissured outcrops of pelite and schistose pelite, with fissured surfaces often favoured for composing rock art. The rock art is also different is character, with natural features often used including the elaborate cartouch and tailed disc design which incorporates natural grooves.���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������39 Figure 4. Detail of the main decorated slab at Reyfad which is heavily decorated with an array of cup, cup-and-ring and penannular motifs. The rock art does not appear to conform to an overall design and suggests that the motifs accumulated through successive ‘carving events’��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������41 Table 2. The rock surface is mediated and transformed with each stage of use and reuse in the production of rock art. Likened to the symbolic process of Gawan canoe production, meaning is applied to the surface with each stage of interaction, transforming the natural to the animate (after Munn 1976, figure 4 and Nash 2002, figure 9.7).��������������������������������44 Table 3. simplified diagrams demonstrating (left) the dual importance of physical and cultural acts in the production of material culture, whereby processes are bound by material qualities, personal ability, cultural norms and social identity, and (right) the stages involved in socialising the landscape, whereby natural features become places over time through visual, physical or verbal interaction, and natural places become socialised through engagement. ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������48 Art, Materiality and Creativity: understanding Atlantic Rock Art Figure 1. General view of Penedo dos Sinais, located in the outskirts of Citânia de Briteiros (Guimarães, Portugal). This example can be considered a ‘classic’ Atlantic Art composition. Photograph by Centro Nacional de Arte Rupestre (CNART)����������������������������������������������������54 Figures 2a and 2b. Example of an animal depiction on Laje das Fogaças (Lanhelas, Portugal). Photograph by Joana Valdez-Tullett �����������������������������������������������������������������������55 Figure 3. A large cup-and-ring motif embraces a granite boulder at Monte dos Fortes (Valença, Portugal). Photograph by Joana Valdez-Tullett��������������������������������������������������������63 Figure 4. Landscape setting o Monte dos Fortes I (Valença, Portugal). Photograph by Joana Valdez-Tullett ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������67 Figure 5. Location of the shelter in the mouth of the river Tua. Photograph by Joana Valdez-Tullett. ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������68

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Figure 6. Drawing of the Panel 31 in the Tua shelter. Palaeolithic depiction of three different species sharing the same body. Drawing by Joana Valdez-Tullett and Joana Castro Teixeira. ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������69 Figure 7. Moment of discovery and first examination of the panel with Palaeolithic rock art at the Tua shelter. The motifs are depicted on the top of the rocky surface demanding specific body positions for its observation. Photograph by Alexandre Lima �������������������������70 Images and materials: The making of narrative imagery in rock art and on metalwork Figure 1. Map of Scandinavia with the studied area indicated by a black dot. Image: Tony Axelsson.������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������80 Figure 2a-d. The spatial distribution of those sites in south-east Scania which can be attributed to a specific phase. a) Spatial distribution of images during phase 1, 1700-1400 BC b) Spatial distribution of images during phase 2, 1400-1100 BC c) Spatial distribution of images during phase 3, 1100-800 BC d) Spatial distribution of images during phase 4, 800-200 BC. Images by Peter Skoglund.�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������82 Figure 3a–b. Slabs No. 7 and 8 from the Kivik grave, Scania. Photo: Catarina Bertilsson, 2002. Source: Swedish Rock Art Research Archives id: 1368 and 1369.��������������������������������84 Figure 4a-c. Documentation of the Gladsax 8 panel. a) The original documentation; b) The axes highlighted by red color; c) the horse, the larger cup-mark and the cross in circle highlighted by red color. Documentation by Broström and Ihrestam. From Broström and Ihrestam 2013. Figures 4b and 4c revised by Richard Potter. (1)��������������������������������������������85 Figure 4a-c. Documentation of the Gladsax 8 panel. a) The original documentation; b) The axes highlighted by red color; c) the horse, the larger cup-mark and the cross in circle highlighted by red color. Documentation by Broström and Ihrestam. From Broström and Ihrestam 2013. Figures 4b and 4c revised by Richard Potter. (2)��������������������������������������������86 Figure 5. Razor decorated with a ship and a horse pulling a sun-symbol. From Kaul 1998: 99.����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������87 Categorising the Iron Age: Similarity and Difference in an East Yorkshire Assemblage Figure 1. A Shapeless Jar from Hanging Cliff, Kilham (Pit HA29), the author after Rigby (2004), graphical scale added by author.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������105 Imagining and Illustrating the Archaeological Record: The Power of Evocation and Augmentation of Linear Drawing Figure 1. Dragoş Gheorghiu, Land art: The visualization of the watch guard’s path, Abrantes Castle, Time Maps Project, 30 June 2014. Photograph by Dragoş Gheorghiu�����118 Figure 2. Dragoş Gheorghiu, Land art: The drawing on a rock inside the funerary chamber drawn on the surface of the chambered tomb, Barclodyad Y Gawres, GestART Project, 21st May 2014. Photograph with drone by Andy Beardsley.������������������������������������������������118 Figure 3. Georgina Jones, Drawing of Vădastra landscape, Time Maps Project, June 2013. Photograph by Georgina Jones�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������119

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Figures 4 and 5. Top, The hands of the artist modelling clay, Georgina Jones. Bottom, Modelled clay transformed into a pot, Georgina Jones. Time Maps Project, June 2013. Photographs by Georgina Jones.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������121 Moving, changing, becoming: applying Aristotle´s kinesis paradigm to rock art Figure 1. Rock 1n - Stoupe Brow West, Flyindales Moor, North Yorkshire, England (adapted and redrawn from Brown and Chappell 2005, 39).���������������������������������������������������������������132 Figure 2. Pedra das Procesións, Galicia (adapted and redrawn from Bradley and Fabregas Valcarce 1998, 56).������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������133 Figure 3. A selection of the rock art of José Alcino Tomé at Rego da Vide. Top left rock 2, top right rock 3 and bottom rock 5 (adapted and redrawn from Zilhão 1997).�������������������136 Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen Figure 1. Examples of rock art in Scotland. A: Achnabreck. B: Ormaig. C: Cairnbaan. D: Ben Lawers. Photographs by Aaron Watson���������������������������������������������������������������������������������158 Figure 2. A: Excavation at Torbhlaren. B: Excavation at Ormaig. C: Excavation on Ben Lawers. D: A broken hammerstone from Torbhlaren. E: A worn quartz pebble from Torbhlaren, perhaps used to shape motifs. F: The ‘peck’ marks that result from hammering are visible at Ormaig. G: Quartz debris from Torbhlaren. Photographs by Aaron Watson�������������������159 Figure 3. A: Rock art extends along the crest of an outcrop at Torbhlaren, while a natural ledge offers a viewpoint alongside. B: Excavation at Torbhlaren. C: The cluster of cobbles in the foreground marks consolidated ground alongside a large carved boulder on Ben Lawers. D: A cup with several rings framed by the view beyond. Photographs by Aaron Watson�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������160 Figure 4. The sparkling surfaces of carved schist boulders upon Ben Lawers share qualities with the shimmering loch below. Photographs by Aaron Watson���������������������������������������161 Figure 5. The Living Symbols sculpting workshops. Photographs by Aaron Watson�����������162 Figure 6. Still frames from Act 1 of the audiovisual installation.�������������������������������������������169 Figure 7. Still frames from Act 2 of the audiovisual installation.�������������������������������������������170 Figure 8. Moonlight reflecting upon the surface of Loch Tay, viewed from a carved rock high on the slopes of Ben Lawers. Photographs by Aaron Watson��������������������������������������171 Figure 9. Still frames from Act 3 of the audiovisual installation.�������������������������������������������172

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Archaeology with Art: A short introduction to this book Helen Chittock,1 University of Southampton/ British Museum (UK) Joana Valdez-Tullett,2 University of Southampton (UK) / CEAACP/ FCT (Portugal) Archaeology and art history have a long-standing relationship. This relationship has been fostered partly by common academic origins, both disciplines sharing their roots in antiquarianism and diverging gradually during the 18th century (e.g. Cochrane and Russell 2007; Ingold 2011; Renfrew et al. 2004; Shanks 1991). Historically, the two disciplines have also shared an interest in the study of ‘things’ (Thomas 2015: 1288) and both have, over the course of the past centuries, developed formal modes of analysing them through the study of style, aesthetics, iconography, etc. (Olsen 2012: 24; Thomas 2015: 1288). Recent years have, however, seen increasing emphasis on the shared values of archaeology and art practice, rather than art history. This is, perhaps, a result of the material-cultural turn (see Hicks 2010) and the growing desires of archaeologists to explore the properties and capacities of materials themselves (e.g. Conneller 2011; Jones 2012), something that art practitioners do regularly. This book is about the complex material interactions that result in ‘art’, and our focus on art practice is derived from the desire to move beyond the typological study of past art to examine the processes involved in art, rather than the end result. It is a contribution to the exploration of what archaeologists can learn about the making of past art from collaboration and discussion with present day practitioners. The ten papers all employ novel methods of approaching different archaeological records, things and materials from prehistoric Europe, with the aim of provoking thought and discussion. It is important to specify that this book does not aim to offer a solid definition of what we see as ‘art’. To do so is difficult enough with regards to present day cultures but when discussing images and objects from the distant past it becomes very problematic. As we have written elsewhere (Valdez-Tullett and Chittock 2015) we take cues from both artists and archaeologists in viewing art as an extremely fluid category; the production, modification, placement or destruction of things and images; the working of materials. Art can be a performance with a 1 2

[email protected] [email protected]

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specific meaning, or it can occur as a result of everyday life (Mithen 2004: 155). To highlight the fluid and contingent nature of what we call art, some of the papers in this volume discuss archaeological material traditionally referred to as ‘art’, while others discuss performances and objects that are seemingly more mundane. Art practice and Archaeology: a mutually beneficial relationship The idea of a working relationship between archaeology and art practice is not new. Over several decades, archaeologists have experimented with art practice in their investigations of the past, drawing analogous comparisons between the activities of the two disciplines (e.g. Cochrane and Russell 2007; Refrew 2003) and sometimes producing artworks of their own to enhance their archaeological understandings (e.g. Cochrane and Russell 2007; Tilley et al. 2000, also see Gheorghiu, this volume, and Jones, this volume). This volume will also touch on the fact that the relationship between archaeology and art practice is not one-sided. Archaeology has, similarly, provided inspiration for art practitioners as part of what Dieter Roelstraete has termed the ‘Historical Turn’ (2009). The ‘Les Dejeuner sous L’herbe’ project by Swiss artist Daniel Spoerri is a good example of this reciprocity. In 1983 the artist offered an outdoor meal to 120 people, after which the tables, along with the crockery and leftover food, were buried and the memory of their location lost. With the collaboration of archaeologist Jean-Paul Demoule, an archaeological investigation process was initiated in order to locate and excavate the tables. Spoerri was interested in the application of the archaeological method, rather than the final result of the experiment, and therefore all the remains of the meal were excavated, labelled and packed according to archaeological standards (Demoule 2011). The papers of this volume will, at several points, explore the reciprocity between archaeologists and art practitioners, and will use the existing crossover between the two disciplines as a starting point for their own considerations of the processes involved in making past art. The content of this book The observation of the exciting results of the study of archaeology through art practice summarised above prompted the two authors of this volume to organise a session for the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) conference of 2013, in order to further explore the potential of new approaches. The session was entitled Archaeology with Art: Space, Context, Fabrication and Gesture, and borrowed part of its name from Tim Ingold, who had recently stated his wish to carry out ‘anthropology with art’ rather an anthropology of art (2013: 8). Ingold’s aim was to “link art and anthropology through the correspondence of their practices” (2013: x

8), and we found this a fitting sentiment on which to base our session, inviting archaeologists, art practitioners, and those who view themselves as straddling both disciplines, to participate in discussion. The content of the session centred on the idea of process, and the ways in which an understanding of the making of contemporary art might inform and enrich understandings of the material engagements involved in past artistic practice. Papers on a range of topics, from ceramics to rock art, were delivered and resulted in rich discussion, which spilled out into the corridor and beyond after the session itself was over. It is the ideas first discussed during and since the TAG 2013 session that have culminated in the publication of this volume of ten papers, some of which were first presented as part of the session, while others are welcome subsequent additions. The papers of this volume cover a diverse range of topics, from Jones’ practical investigation of making carved stone balls; to A. Valdez-Tullett’s philosophical exploration of rock art’s spatial characteristics. They are united by the fact that each one seeks to push the boundaries of our discipline and cover new ground. We hope that each one provokes thought and discussion, and that the fruitful crossdisciplinary collaborations described in these pages will continue to flourish. Acknowledgements This volume represents a milestone for both the authors, as the first edited volume either of us has produced. We would like to thank all the authors of the volume not only for contributing such a fascinating range of papers but also for bearing with us at times where we have perhaps been slightly less efficient than more experienced editors. The same goes for the diligent group of reviewers who have kindly read and commented on the papers of this volume. Our shared PhD supervisor, Professor Andrew M. Jones, also deserves special thanks for his invaluable advice, time and patience. Lastly, we thank all the speakers and delegates of the TAG2013 session, upon which this volume is based, for such a stimulating and interesting few hours. In alphabetical order: Ana C. Santos, Andrew M. Jones, Andy Valdez-Tullett, Damien Campbell-Bell, Georgina Jones, Gheorghiu Dragos, Ian Dawson, Lucy Shipley, Marta Díaz-Guardamino, Peter Sköglund and Rebecca Enlander. A special thanks to Eloise Govier for allowing us to use her beautiful art in the cover of this book. References Cochrane, A. and I. Russell. 2007. Visualizing Archaeologies: a Manifesto, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 17 (1), 3-19. Conneller, C. 2011. An Archaeology of Materials: Substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. London: Routledge. xi

Demoule, J-P. 2011. http://www.jeanpauldemoule.com/a-propos-du-dejeunersous-lherbe-de-daniel-spoerri/ Consulted on the 15th September 2016. Hicks, D. 2010. The material-cultural turn: event and effect. In The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies, (Eds.) D. Hicks and M.C. Beaudry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 25-98. Ingold, T. 2011. Being Alive: Essays on Movement, Knowledge and Description. London: Routledge. Ingold, T. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London: Routledge. Jones, A. 2012. Prehistoric Materialities: Becoming Material in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mithen, S. 2004. Contemporary art and archaeology. In Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology and Art, (Eds.) C. Renfrew, C. Gosden, and E. DeMarrais. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, 153 – 168. Olsen, B. 2012. After Interpretation: Remembering Archaeology, Current Swedish Archaeology, 20, 11-34. Renfrew, C. 2003. Figuring it out. What are we? Where do we come from? The parallel visions of artists and archaeologists. London: Thames and Hudson. Renfrew, C.; Gosden, C; DeMarrais, E. 2004. Introduction: art as archaeology and archaeology as art. In Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology and Art, (Eds.) C. Renfrew; C. Gosden and E. DeMarrais. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Roelstraete, D. 2009. http://www.e-flux.com/journal/the-way-of-the-shovel-onthe-archeological-imaginary-in-art/, Consulted on the 15th of September 2016 Shanks, M. 1991. Experiencing the past. London: Routledge. Thomas, J. 2015. The future of archaeological theory, Antiquity 89, 1277-86. Tilley, C.; Hamilton, S.; Bender, B. 2000. Art and the re-presentation of the past, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 6(1), 35. Valdez-Tullett, J. and Chittock. H. 2015. ‘The unique result of a unique temperament’ (Oscar Wilde): seeing texture through the making of art, World Art, 5(2), 249-269.

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Preface: The paragone has gone Andrew Cochrane Every human being is an artist… All other definitions end up saying that there are artists and non-artists - people who can do something and people who can’t do anything Joseph Beuys Leonardo da Vinci famously drew a paragone between painting and the other arts such as sculpture and architecture. The medium of painting was deemed to be both distinct and superior; in doing so, da Vinci developed boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, to the benefit of those who painted. Other paragoni have permeated through time and genders, with recent ones including painting by men versus photography by women (Danto 2013, 100). Again, such divisions were designed to reinforce disciplinary boundaries of interpretation, and control. Although long standing bed-fellows, art and archaeology have historically been subjected to a paragone. The artist Simon Callery succinctly illustrated this when he reported that ‘...archaeology is about limiting interpretations… about limiting connections, about proposing truth or a fact. Art seems to be actually richer when it works through misunderstandings…’ (Cameron 2004, 135). As with da Vinci’s paragone, and Michelangelo’s later retort, Callery evoked a paragone that gave preference to one approach over another. The separated disciplines have both benefited from collaboration, but are often seen to occupy their own domains. Bailey (2014) has recently challenged such historical boundaries, and argued that provocative and radical work (i.e. non derivative) is only possible when moving beyond the horizons of one’s own discipline (see also McFadyen 2013). Bailey (2014) urged us to conceptually step out of our office windows (a leap of faith?) and into the world of creative practice; with this he echoed the antiquary and illustrator William Stukeley, working in the early eighteenth century. It is interesting how good ideas are often forgotten. Moving to the twentieth century, via Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s sixteenth century painting The harvesters, Ingold (1993) invited us to inhabit (via our senses) the world both creatively and performatively. Such taskscapes work though lines and meshworks of interconnectivity. Clarke (1968) depicted such activities as existing as nodal points in a network (see also Latour 1993); Ingold (2007) preferred uninterrupted process. For Ingold (2013), knowing, learning and discovering are experimental modes, stimulated by acts of doing. Practice and understanding are not observational, instead they develop via trial and error. You grow into knowledge. Such depictions are not necessarily new to archaeology, and in many ways formulated the basis for Leroi­Gourhan’s xiii

(1993 [1967]) chaîne opératoire, in which gestures, marking and interactions with things generated possibilities (see also Benjamin 1996 [1917]). Conneller (2011) offers one of the most sophisticated versions of this line of thinking to date (see also Enlander, Jones, Skoglund, J. Valdez-Tullett, this volume). Here, we have opportunities for experimentation, assemblage, process and creative risk taking at any given moment. Making a moment Things happen in the present. We now exist in a post-Gathering Time world (Whittle et al. 2011). For years, approaches to understanding how things happen were hampered by a-historical essentialist universal narratives, that could be applied to any place at any time. Barrett (1994) requested we consider processes and performances that occur in and over time. McFadyen (e.g. 2006) has consistently challenged the idea that things, particularly monuments, were the result of pre-determined ideas. Instead, we have the relations of things - affected and affecting - determining overall process. Think less of a planned seventeenth century cathedral and more of an organically created medieval one. High Resolution dating techniques (e.g. Bayesian modeling), strontium isotope analysis, aDNA studies inter alia, are increasingly allowing us to notice specific changes and movements at different scales, e.g. lifetime, generational, settlement, environment (Bayliss and Whittle 2007; Hofmann 2015; Robb 2014). We can now better witness the actions we have previously speculated over as they are actually happening. Creative processes do work, on the ground, beyond theoretical modelling. Such specificity is revealed by Enlander (Chapter 3), in her systematic survey of the geology of rock art sites in the north of Ireland. These environmental data sets are illuminated with considerations of biographies and practices of repetition and reuse. Here, process and collaboration are key. Archaeology in the later parts of the twentieth century was heavily influenced by literary criticism, deconstructionism and post structuralism; most predominantly through the writings of Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005), Roland Barthes (1915-1980), Michel Foucault (1926-1984), Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Umberto Eco (1932-2016). Moving into the twentieth century, instead of following these literary traditions, many contributions in this volume, develop the work of others (e.g. Cochrane 2009; Bonaventura and Jones 2011), and seek out sculptural ways of thinking through things. Chittock (this volume), Jones (this volume) and Skoglund (this volume) go even further by working with contemporary artists and students. Jones was able to investigate more robust sequences (chaîne opératoire) for carved stone ball creation. Things happen in the present, and this volume brings us closer to that viewpoint, in our narratives of a past. xiv

The reformation of the image When Martin Luther nailed his theses to the door, he set a stage for the West’s obsession with representation and meaning; this is often termed the Reformation. The reformation of the image was a contradiction, in that the image did not progress, rather it almost entered into oblivion. From 1500 to 1580, in northern Europe, the history of the image becomes a story of image extermination (Koerner 2008, 27). Such Lutheran annihilations have had a long legacy, for it is from the Reformation that images achieve clarity through symbolism, representation and interpretation. We carry those burdens of how to approach images today. For instance, for over 150 years, representational accounts of how to decode and decipher images carved into rock have dominated (see discussions in Cochrane 2013). In such models, materials are passive and inert, patiently waiting for meanings to be overlain onto them by thoughtful people (see also discussions by Skoglund this volume). The encoding and then decoding of things are deemed universal human activities - being as popular in the past as it is in archaeology today (Cochrane 2012). In such proposals, materials are separate from humans, and influence little in the process of representation (Russell and Cochrane 2014). Materials appear transparent here; they simply serve as the substrate upon which representations are overlaid (Cochrane and Jones 2012). The world becomes reduced merely to human cosmologies and representations of such beliefs (Barrett and Ko 2009). All models are wrong, some models are useful (Box 1979, 202); domineering representational approaches increasingly seem less useful. Such approaches are after all symptomatic of modernity’s crisis over purification and Great Divides (Latour 1993). The contributions to this volume offer stimulating alternatives to the traditional Symbolic / Semiotic perspectives. For instance, Andy Valdez-Tullett (Chapter 8) introduces the 1940s work of José Alcino Tomé in the Côa Valley, Portugal. The valley and the schist stone collaborated with José to produce carved images - remove one of these elements and the images stop being created. It is via collaborations in the world that things happen; they take work, but with persistence they will often occur. Gheorghiu (Chapter 7) builds on such positions, and re-imagines the archaeological imagination, to usurp the tyrannies of realism (see also Fernandes this volume). Here, neither alterity nor modernity are dependent on linearity, but rather immersion. Such entanglements with focus on materials, often appearing at first glance unconnected, reminds me of the of the work of Joseph Beuys (see discussions in Bonami 2005). Here, we have active re-compositions between doing, making, and being.

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We are all .... now Archaeology has engaged with creative practice since its beginnings (Russell and Cochrane 2014; see Chittock this volume for detailed discussion). Over the years, some have demonstrated their influences from the arts and visual culture, more so than others (e.g. Bailey 2013; Cochrane and Russell 2007; Evans 2004; Renfrew 1969; Russell 2013; Shanks 1991; Valdez-Tullett and Chittock 2015; Watson 2012). In this volume, Was and Watson (Chapter 10) created mixed media installations at the Kilmartin Museum, located in one of the richest rock art environments in north-west Europe. Key to this project, was the inclusion of works by local residents; here, people were invited to express themselves via carving materials / mark making. The circumstances of motif generation, differed from the rock art from deep history, in that Was and Watson could ask the makers what they were doing, feeling and thinking. The project successfully highlighted rhythms of repetition in image shape and the importance of the process of production. Creative practices are not an exception to other practices (Rancière 2004: 45); they can, however, re-configure the distribution of such activities. In many ways, the themes from the Kilmartin Glen experiential practices resonated with Govier’s account of Çatalhöyük, Turkey (Chapter 9). For instance, in Kilmartin, one of the participants carved an image that was deliberately hidden from view. The significance of the image lay in that she knew it was there; among other things, it helped remind her of herself (Was and Watson, this volume). At Çatalhöyük, Govier describes how some images (such as in Building 80), were placed so that they would not have been easy to see. It might be possible that making it, and knowing it was there, was more important than reading meanings from it at a later date. I enjoyed Govier’s descriptions of images that were covered by plasterings. Two years ago, whilst at Çatalhöyük, I was lucky enough to be able to remove a red painted hand, layers of plaster, and find other red painted images further below. In this instance, the process of re-discovery was as exciting as re-creation. As Fernandes (Chapter 2) rightly notes, making and discovery, can be entertaining. The relationships of making with seeing are not simple ones. Images are of course more than just expressions of ourselves; as Mitchell (2005) noticed, they often want things themselves. Following our Joseph Beuys quote at the start, we need to move beyond the simple distribution between things that act and things that are acted upon (Rancière 2004). In a sense, Beuys (inadvertently?) developed ideas from the aesthetician Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), who advocated that we break down perceived oppositions between those who think and those doomed to passivity; the greatest and maybe oldest paragone.

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Élan vital The desire for something more than what delights the eyes has been a constant feature for the study of the past (Renfrew 2008, 335). Combined, the chapters in this volume offer refreshing re-examinations of the ways in which we can think through the processes of creative practice. We have been challenged to step through the disciplinary window, to close it firmly behind us, and never return. Following the philosophies of the film The Matrix (1999) and Baudrillard (1994), it might be better to consider that there is in fact no window. There are no looking glasses, boundaries or horizons - all is open to inhabit. Has the paragone really gone? Time will tell, but for the moment this volume highlights that collaborative practices with mixtures of things, are the way forward. References Bailey, D. W. 2013. Cutting the earth/cutting the body. In A. González-Ruibal (Ed.), Reclaiming archaeology: beyond the tropes of modernity, 337–345. London: Routledge. Bailey, D. W. 2014. Art//archaeology//art:letting go-beyond. In I. Russell and A. Cochrane, A. (eds), Art and archaeology: collaborations, conversations, criticisms, 231-50. New York: Springer-Kluwer. Barrett, J.C. 1994. Fragments from antiquity: An Archaeology of Social Life in Britain, 2900–1200BC. London: Routledge. Barrett, J.C. and Ko, I. 2009. A phenomenology of landscape: a crisis in British landscape archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology, 9(3): 275–294. Baudrillard, J. 1994. Simulacra and simulation. Trans. S. F. Glaser. University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbor. Bayliss, A. and Whittle, A, (eds), 2007. Histories of the dead: building chronologies for five southern British long barrows. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17.1, supplement. Benjamin, W. 1996 [1917]. Painting, or signs and marks. In M. Bullock and M.W. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: selected writings, Vol.1, 1913–1926, 84–5. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bonami, F. 2005. The legacy of the myth maker. Tate Etc 3, 81-95. Bonaventura, P. and Jones, A. 2011. Sculpture and archaeology. Farnham: Asgate. Box, G.E.P. 1979. Robustness in scientific model building. In R.L. Launer and G.N. Wilkinson (eds), Robustness in statistics, 201-36. New York: Academic Press.

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Cameron, S. C. 2004. Art from archaeology: Simon Callery’s segsbury project in cross-disciplinary context. Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Department of Archaeology, Cambridge University Clarke, D.L. 1968. Analytical archaeology. London: Methuen and Co Ltd. Cochrane, A. 2009. Additive subtraction: addressing pick-dressing in Irish passage tombs. In J. Thomas and V. Oliveira Jorge (eds), Archaeology and the politics of vision in a post-modern context, 163-85. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Cochrane, A. 2012. The immanency of the intangible image. In I.-M. Back Danielsson,F. Fahlander, and Y. Sjöstrand (eds), Encountering imagery: Materialities, perceptions, relations, 133–60. Stockholm: Stockholm University. Cochrane, A. 2013. Representational approaches to Irish passage tombs: Legacies, burdens, opportunities. In B. Alberti, A. M. Jones, and J. Pollard (eds), Archaeology after Interpretation. Materials, relations, becomings, 251– 72. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Cochrane, A. and Russell, I. 2007. Visualizing archaeologies: a manifesto. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 17(1), 3–19. Cochrane, A., and Jones, A. M. 2012. Visualising the Neolithic: an introduction. In A. Cochrane and A. M. Jones (eds), Visualising the Neolithic, 1–14. Oxbow: Oxford. Conneller, C. 2011 An archaeology of materials. Substantial transformations in Early Prehistoric Europe. London: Routledge. Danto, A.C. 2013. What art is. New Haven: Yale University Press. Evans, C. 2004. Unearthing displacement: Surrealism and the ‘archaeology’ of Paul Nash. In C.Renfrew, C. Gosden, and E. DeMarrais (eds), Substance, memory, display: Archaeology and art, 103–117. Cambridge: McDonald Institute. Hofmann, D. 2015. What have genetics ever done for us? The Implications of aDNA Data for Interpreting Identity in Early Neolithic Central Europe. European Journal of Archaeology 18 (3), 454–476. Ingold, T. 1993. The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25, 152174. Ingold, T. 2007. Lines: a brief history. London: Routledge. Ingold, T. 2013. Making: anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. London: Routledge. Koerner, J. L. 2008. The reformation of the image. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. xviii

Latour, B. 1993. We have never been modern. Trans by. C. Porter. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Leroi-Gourhan, A. 1993 [1967]. Gesture and speech. Trans. by Anna Bostock Berger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. McFadyen, L. 2006. Building technologies, quick architecture and Early Neolithic Long Barrow sites in southern Britain. Archaeological Review from Cambridge 21(1): 117–34. McFadyen, L. 2013. Designing with living: a contextual archaeology of dependent architecture. In B. Alberti, A. M. Jones, and J. Pollard (eds), Archaeology after Interpretation. Materials, relations, becomings, 135–150. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press. Mitchell, W.J.T. 2005. What Do Pictures Want? The lives and loves of images. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rancière, J. 2004. The politics of aesthetics. The distribution of the sensible. Trans. Gabriel Rockhill. London: Continuum International. Renfrew, C. 1969. The arts of the first farmers. Sheffield: Sheffield City Museum. Renfrew, C. 2008. After-image. In J.Thomas and V. Oliveira Jorge (eds), Archaeology and the politics of vision in a post-modern context, 330-42. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Robb, J. 2014. The future Neolithic: a new research agenda. In A. Whittle and P. Bickle (eds), Early farmers: the view from archaeology and science, 21-38. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Russell, I. A. 2013. The art of the past: Before and after archaeology. In D. Roelstraete (Ed.), The way of the shovel: Art as archaeology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Russell, I. and Cochrane, A. 2014. Art and archaeology: collaborations, conversations, criticisms. New York: Springer-Kluwer. Shanks, M. 1991. Experiencing the past: on the character of archaeology. London: Routledge. Valdez-Tullett, J. and Chittock, H. 2015. ‘The unique result of a unique temperament’ (Oscar Wilde): seeing texture through the making of art. World Art 5(2), 249-69. Watson, A. 2012. Four Sites, Four Methods. In A.M. Jones, J. Pollard, M.J. Allen and J. Gardiner (eds), Image, memory and monumentality, 307-27. Oxford: Oxbow Books. Whittle, A., Healy, F. and Bayliss, A. 2011. Gathering time: dating the Early Neolithic enclosures of southern Britain and Ireland. Oxford: Oxbow Books.

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Making carved stone balls: art, experimental practice and archaeological research Andrew Meirion Jones, University of Southampton (UK)1 Introduction The decorated Neolithic artefacts known as carved stone balls are a particular source of pride to the people of Northeast Scotland, and Scotland more generally. Just as the balls are a source of pride, they are also a source of curiosity for archaeologists and other academics. The Leverhulme funded ‘Making a Mark’ project, running from 2014-2016, aims to provide a context for the understanding these Neolithic curiosities, along with other decorated Neolithic artefacts from three key regions of Britain and Ireland: i. southern England (from Cornwall in the west to East Anglia in the east, and as far north as the Thames Valley); ii. Wales, Isle of Man and eastern Ireland; iii. north-east Scotland and Orkney: the home of the carved stone balls. The project applies digital imaging techniques to the documentation of a suite of decorated Neolithic artefacts in a variety of media: stone, chalk, antler and wood. The aim of digital documentation is to enhance our understanding of the working and production of these decorated artefacts. In addition the project also draws on the insights and practices of contemporary artists to understand processes of making. To this end the project has involved collaboration with artists Ian Dawson, Winchester School of Art, and Louisa Minkin, Central St. Martins School of Art, looking at the making of carved stone balls. It is the outcomes of this artistic experimental practice I want to consider in this paper. Carved stone balls: curiosities and curious interpretations Carved stone balls are fascinating and intriguing artefacts, but they are archaeologically frustrating, with few contextual associations to aid us in their interpretation. Partly because of this they have been subject to a variety of interpretations, graphically depicted here in Figure 1. I will discuss these interpretations in order of plausibility: from the most implausible to the more plausible. A cursory examination of web forums (e.g. the power of the ancients amongst us; www.ancient-origins.net) reveals several peculiar interpretations, such as the notion that carved stone balls are representations of pollen grains (specifically Pinus sp.) or representations of atomic structures. More recent proposals suggest that carved stone balls might have been used as a form of stone 1

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Figure 1. The variety of interpretations of carved stone balls. Image by Hannah Sackett

Jones - Making carved stone balls ball bearings used for shifting megaliths. Experimental practice to this end by Andrew Young and Bruce Bradley of Exeter University is documented in a short on-line article in National Geographic (Ravilious 2010). While this experiment showed that spherical stone balls combined with runners of industrially planned wood could shift megalithic blocks of up to 45 tons it far from proves that this was how carved stone balls were deployed in the past. The theory has a number of archaeological shortcomings. First amongst these is the lack of evidence in Britain for a single carved stone ball south of a line running roughly between Newcastle and Carlisle (though there are a number recorded in eastern and northern Ireland; Marshall 1977). There are simply no carved stone balls in Wessex. It could potentially be argued that the balls were used to shift megaliths in Northeast Scotland, though the celebrated recumbent stone circles of this region are demonstrably later than the likely dates for carved stone balls. Richard Bradley has decisively dated recumbent stone circles to the Early to Middle Bronze Age (Bradley 2005; Welfare 2011). Notably no carved stone balls have been found contextually associated with this class of monument, which makes their use in this context unlikely. Second, a cursory examination of the range of extant examples of carved stone balls indicates that very few are perfectly spherical. A number have carved knobs or other protuberances (see Marshall 1977), which make them singularly unsuitable for rolling. While Young and Bradley’s theory works experimentally using contemporary materials (industrially planed wood and spherical stone balls) it fails to agree with any of the available archaeological evidence. For this reason it must be rejected. A perennial interpretation is the idea that carved stone balls are aerodynamic hunting tools, or bolas. The interpretation was first discussed by Sir John Evans in his Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain of 1897. Evans (1897: 422-423) quite clearly draws parallels between carved stone balls and the Bolas of Patagonia. Similarly, after a mathematical modeling of the aerodynamics of carved stone balls, T. N. Todd (2006) likewise concludes that carved stone balls were thrown at birds disturbing crops or to frighten large animals – like wolves and other predators - troubling prehistoric flocks (Todd 2006: 71-72). What is not clear is why elaborate carving is required for this purpose. Surely uncarved stones would serve precisely the same purpose? Dorothy Marshall (1977) was the first person to provide a systematic catalogue and typology for carved stone balls. One of the interpretations she favoured was the notion that carved stone balls were prestige objects passed around meetings of significant individuals. She muses: ‘Could a ball have been used at a clan conference, the chief handling it as he considered a judgement, or perhaps being handed round, the one holding it having the right to speak?’ (Marshall 1977: 64). There are no intrinsic problems with this idea, though it is difficult to substantiate

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Archaeology with Art archaeologically. One of the advantages of this interpretation is that it accords with the known archaeological evidence: most carved stone balls are found in settlement contexts. Other possible interpretations focus on the mathematical properties of carved stone balls. For example Ludovic Mann (1914) describes carved stone balls as weights. Marshall (1977) notes their broad consistency in size (c. 70mm), while authors such as Keith Critchlow (1979: 161-181) and Robert Lawlor (1982) have argued that the balls represent the shapes of platonic solids discovered some millennia before Plato, and that they may have operated as megalithic measurement devices associated with the laying out of stone circles. Their chronological and stratigraphic association with stone circles is unproven, and their role as measurement devices seems unlikely. Though their precise relationship to platonic solids may be stretching the point, their symmetry and geometry appears to be undeniable (Reimann 2014). Finally, one of the most persuasive recent discussions of carved stone balls by Gavin Macgregor (1999) simply points out the sensual significance of carved stone balls as they are turned in the hand. Again this is undeniable to anyone who has handled one of these remarkable objects. We are faced then with a plethora of different interpretations. Our preliminary starting point when examining these objects had to be the objects themselves. In particular I was interested in their dimensions, the materials used, and traces of working evident on the balls. As part of the ‘Making a Mark’ project we are also interested in relating this evidence to other Neolithic artefacts, particularly those of chalk from other Neolithic contexts in southern England. It became clear quite early on that there was considerable evidence for working visible in Neolithic artefacts. In some of the chalk artefacts from southern England we have observed evidence of working and reworking, as with the examples of the Folkton Drums (Jones et al. 2015). This led us to consider the working of carved stone balls. While we have found no evidence of reworking amongst the collections we examined (Ashmolean, Pitt Rivers, British Museum, Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology), we began to observe some evidence for incomplete working, and very clear evidence – in the form of pecking - for the shaping of the balls. In fact Dorothy Marshall (1977: 61) had already noted evidence for percussion marks amongst some of the balls she catalogued. Marshall very clearly defines the carved stone balls as belonging to distinct typologies; her ‘type 1’ consisting of those with three knobs, while ‘type 2’ is of balls with 4 knobs etc. The more we began to examine the balls, and look again at evidence for working on the balls, the clearer it became that we were not looking

Jones - Making carved stone balls at discrete and distinct types, but at points in a chaîne opératoire, or a sequence of working. One of the first thing we had noted were the numbers of unworked or plain balls in museum collections, remarked upon by Marshall, but not part of her typological scheme. We surmised that the chaîne opératoire must begin with the shaping of a sphere of stone (Figure 2), followed by shallow incisions carving out Figure 2. The first stage in the carved stone ball circular shapes on the chaîne opératoire: shaping a sphere. surface of the balls – Photograph by Andrew Cochrane these would be classified as type 4a or 9c in Marshall’s typology (Figure 3), and that further working would result in more prominent knobs on the ball’s surface, Marshall’s type 4b. Further embellishment could occur by working in the interspaces between knobs, Marshall’s types 4c or 4d, and by decoration of the knobs themselves (Figure 4), Marshalls type 9a. The notion that we were not looking at a distinct series of ‘types’, but at a sequence of working seemed to work as an idea, but did it work in practice? The Winchester School of Art workshop Inspired by Gilles Deleuze’s (2002) discussion of movement and force in his analysis of the art of Francis Bacon, and by Tim Ingold’s (2013) recent suggestion that archaeologists and anthropologists should learn by doing, I wanted to experiment with an archaeology with art, an archaeology that corresponds with arts ‘own movement of growth or becoming’ (Ingold 2013: 8), to follow the paths along which it leads. An investigation of the sequence of making of carved stone balls seemed especially suited to this, and so we set out to make carved balls for ourselves. To this end Ian Dawson, Louisa Minkin, and the author collaborated in working with a group of Winchester fine art students and archaeologists (including one of the editors of this volume) in the sculpture studio at Winchester School of Art on 8th November 2013 (see also Minkin and Dawson 2014).

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Figure 3. The second stage in the carved stone ball chaîne opératoire: marking out the sphere. Photograph by Andrew Cochrane

Figure 4. The third stage in the carved stone ball chaîne opératoire: carving out the knobs. Photograph by Andrew Cochrane

The aim was to investigate whether the hypothetical sequence for six knobbed carved stone balls worked in practice. The workshop began by discussing the archaeological context of carved stone balls to around 15-20 of the fine art students, and the three archaeologists involved on the day. At the outset one fine art student asked the very pertinent question: ‘would Neolithic people have had tables to work at?’ We acknowledged the slightly artificial nature of working in a contemporary sculpture studio, and began carving using bellshaped pre-prepared moulds of dried plaster (Figure 5). One of the first obstacles to arise was securing the moulds for working. This was quickly solved using blocks of wood secured to the tables. Initially most people began carving out shapes using metal chisels. Quite quickly we realized how inefficient this was, and began the basic shaping of the blocks of plaster using hammers.

Jones - Making carved stone balls Once most people had worked their plaster into a roughly spherical shape we took a short break from working with plaster to work with hand-sized lumps of unfired clay (Figure 6). This was done to allow people to understand the next stage of carving, to map out circular shapes on their clay balls, and understand their disposition in relation to each other, before carving out the interspaces between these shapes. A number of attempts were made with this, and we experimented with string as a means of dividing up the sphere, which proved unworkable. Figure 5. Working with pre-prepared plaster moulds Finally the best method at the Winchester school of Art. seemed to be to mark out Photograph by Andrew Meirion Jones the sphere simply using fingernail impressions. The interspaces were then carved out using wooden spatulas. Imagine my delight when the first clay ‘carved stone ball’ appeared before me (Figure 6), looking exactly like a bona fide ‘type 4a or 4b’ carved stone ball. We then transferred back to our plaster spheres, and attempted to apply what we had learnt in clay in this different medium. We began by mapping out our circular shapes on the plaster using the sharp points of chisels. Once this was achieved people then began carving out the interspaces between these circular shapes, again using chisels. Immediately we encountered difficulty working these restricted spaces on our plaster sculptures, and people used a variety of methods for slowly scratching out these interspaces, fingers, thumbs, chisels. The faster and more skilled people quickly began to carve out more and more of these interspaces producing forms with 6 prominent knobs that looked very like Marshalls type 4b. Finally, people began decorating the knobs with a variety of carved designs inspired by the Neolithic

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Archaeology with Art repertoire. We finished the day with a discussion with the students around a table full of ‘carved balls’ made of plaster (Figure 7). What was learnt from this experience? Firstly I should say that we cheated quite considerably: we were not carving the kinds of metamorphic rocks that most carved stone balls are made from (this would have significantly extended the length of time taken), nor were we using authentic prehistoric tools for the task. Again, we were carving on tables in a modern sculpture studio, not around the hearth, on the floor in a stone-built Figure 6. A clay ‘carved stone ball’ of Marshall type house, like those typical 4a Photograph by Andrew Meirion Jones of Neolithic Orkney. This would not pass the rigorous requirements of ‘experimental archaeology’. The experiment was more concerned with learning about process and geometry, than attempting to reproduce forms with authenticity and fidelity. I should say that I left the day feeling elated – I felt that the initial hypothesis had been substantiated: the sequence of working I had envisaged actually worked in practice! However my elation was also tinged with regret. Had things gone too well? What had we really learnt? What fresh paths had art practices led me down as an archaeologist? In the spirit of experimentation I had perhaps expected more flashes of inspiration and some unexpected outcomes. Outcomes of the workshop Over the subsequent weeks I allowed the experience to sink in, and this is when the unexpected outcomes began to make themselves known: One of the simplest points to emerge from the exercise was the social nature of carving – people chatted whilst carving, discussed what they were making,

Jones - Making carved stone balls and shared any logistical problems while making these curious objects. One of these logistical problems was the difficulty of envisaging shapes – the tactile nature of carving was very evident, as Gavin MacGregor (1999) had already noted. A number of people remarked that in fact vision was not really required in making the balls, and that making could have occurred in poor light or semi-darkness, in fact this accords well with the kinds of conditions prevailing in Late Neolithic houses in Orkney. Shapes emerged from Figure 7. ‘Carved stone balls’ in plaster at the end of the the practice of dividing WSA workshop. Photograph by Andrew Meirion Jones up a sphere using basic geometric forms, such as circles. It would seem that the so-called ‘platonic forms’ are not really representations, but are the outcomes of subdividing a sphere, as has been argued by Reimann (2014). People remarked on the various stages involved in making our carved stone balls – each stage seemed to involve a series of different working techniques. In the final discussion we talked about carved stone balls as ‘masterpieces’, as objects that embodied all the skills learnt by a craftsperson in stone working. Carved stone balls embody a series of skills familiar to the Neolithic stone worker, including pecking and shaping, grinding, working with a burin or point; the last also being a skill that transfers to other materials like wood and antler working. The idea that carved stone balls might embody a process of working resonates with one of the key conclusions of the workshop. If we were able to demonstrate that several of the standard typological categories in fact relate to stages in a

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Archaeology with Art sequence of working, this begs further questions. Why do we find so many unfinished/incomplete artefacts in the archaeological record? ‘Their use is wholly unknown’ In their catalogue of prehistoric art from the British Isles, Stuart Piggott and Glyn Daniel (1951: 14) state of carved stone balls that ‘their use is wholly unknown’. At first sight this remark seems defeatist. But looking at this statement in the light of the workshop, one wonders if it was not prescient. Almost all the previous interpretations of carved stone balls are based on the twin premises of representation and functionality- balls are either assumed to be finished representations of pollen grains, mathematical shapes, or objects devised for a specific and final function, be it missiles, ball bearings or tokens of authority. The Winchester workshop instead enabled us to appreciate that carved stone balls are performances – performances that involve a series of gestures and traces; this is surely why each ball is subtly different, as it encapsulates each individual’s gestures in its making. Carved stone balls are the outcomes of the gestures involved in shaping stones, in working with stone using a series of different skills and techniques. Moreover many of the carved stone balls we recover archaeologically are the result of incomplete performances; they are discarded moments in the sequence of making. Is it possible that their use is wholly unknown, precisely because they were never intended to be used? Rather their creation may have served an end in itself. The workshop therefore leads us down further avenues of enquiry. Are carved stone balls finished and complete artefacts? What kind of contexts do we find carved stone balls in; are those found in the wider landscape the result of deliberate deposition or were they discarded on settlements once people had worked them, and learnt from them? How do the skills involved in making carved stone balls translate to those of other stone artefacts? Why are some Neolithic stone artefacts polished, while most carved stone balls remain mainly unpolished? Is there a significant difference between carving out of stone and incising or making marks on stone during the Neolithic, and how does this relate to carving, incising and impressing in other Neolithic contexts, such as rock art, passage tomb art and pottery decoration? At this stage, the ‘Making a Mark’ project has only examined a fraction of the known carved stone balls and decorated Neolithic artefacts and at this juncture it would be wrong to come to any definite conclusions. Nevertheless what has developed from the Winchester workshop is a robust predictive method for understanding the sequence of carved stone ball manufacture. With this method it is then possible to ask fresh questions of the archaeological material: how many carved stone balls are ‘complete’? How many were exchanged in a complete state, how many half-finished? Carved stone balls are found in a number of locations,

Jones - Making carved stone balls including Orkney, Northeast Scotland, north-east and north-west England and eastern and northern Ireland. Based on the predictive method established by the Winchester workshop we should now be able to identify centres of working defined by groups of balls of each stage in the chaîne opératoire of working. We should also be able to determine whether carved stone balls were exchanged out of a single regional ‘centre’ of manufacture or whether they were being worked in multiple locations? If carved stone balls are prestige objects for exchange then all of the balls outside the known regional grouping in NE Scotland ought to be complete balls in the final stages of working. The chaîne opératoire method developed in the Winchester workshop, will help us answer broader questions regarding trade, exchange and prestige in prehistory (see Clarke et al. 1985). The engagement with open-ended experimental art practice has lead the project along fresh paths and returned us to the archaeological record invigorated with a fresh series of questions. References www.ancient-origins.net/.../could-strange-prehistoric-carved-stone-balls-. (Accessed 13th March 2015). Bradley, R. 2005. The moon and the bonfire. An investigation of three stone circles in north-east Scotland. Edinburgh, Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Clarke, D. V.; Cowie, T. G. and Foxon, A. 1985. Symbols of Power: at the time of Stonehenge. Edinburgh, HMSO. Critchlow, K. 1979. Time stands still. New light on megalithic science. London, Floris Books. Deleuze, G. 2002. Francis Bacon: the logic of sensation. London, Continuum. Evans, J. 1897. Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons and Ornaments of Great Britain. London, Longmans, Green and Co. Ingold, T. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London, Routledge. Jones, A. M.; Cochrane, A.; Carter, C.; Dawson, I.; Díaz-Guardamino, M.; Kotoula, E. and Minkin, L. 2015. Digital imaging and prehistoric imagery: a new analysis of the Folkton Drums. Antiquity 89(347):1083-1095. Lawlor, R. 1982. Sacred geometry. Philosophy and practice. London, Thames and Hudson. Mann, L. M. 1914. The Carved Stone Balls of Scotland: A New Theory as to their Use. Proceedings Society Antiquaries Scotland 48: 407-20. MacGregor, G. 1999 Making sense of the past in the present: A sensory analysis of carved stone balls, World Archaeology 31 (2), 258-271.

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Archaeology with Art Marshall, D. 1977. Carved stone balls. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 108: 40-72. Minkin, L.; Dawson, I. 2014. Object lessons: copying and reconstruction as a teaching strategy. Art, Design and Communication in Higher Education 13(1): 19-29. Piggott, S. and Daniel, G. 1951 A Picture book of Ancient British Art. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Ravilious, K. 2010. Stonehenge built with balls? http://news.nationalgeographic. com/news/2010/12/101210-stonehenge-balls-ball-bearings-science-rolled/ (Accessed 12th March 2015). Reimann, D. A. 2014. Art and symmetry of Scottish carved stone balls. Proceedings of Bridges 2014: Mathematics, Music, Art, Architecture, Culture: 441-444. Todd, T.N. 2006. The aerodynamics of carved stone balls. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 136: 61-74. Welfare, A. 2011. Great crowns of stone. The recumbent stone circles of Scotland. Edinburgh, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

Batarda Fernandes

The fate of a thinking animal: the role of Upper Palaeolithic rock-art in mediating the relationship between humans and their surroundings António Batarda Fernandes,1 Côa Valley Archaeological Park and Museum (Portugal) / Postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Archaeology, Anthropology and Forensic Science, Faculty of Science and Technology, Bournemouth University (UK) Nature, Mr Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above. Spiegel and Wolf 1951. Upper Palaeolithic rock-art possesses manifold, often superimposed meanings. Some are only fully accessible to the original creators; some are re-imagined by present day researchers. Some may be the result of conscious expressions of the artist’s mind in a given time, while others may reflect the idiosyncrasies of an entire community. Although original creators were (admittedly) unaware of the fact, ancient imagery can be regarded as a stepping-stone in the process of human appropriation of their surroundings. It will be argued that Upper Palaeolithic rockart can be seen as part of a millennia old, yet still ongoing, attempt, including present day archaeology, to place and understand ourselves within a ‘natural’ world that becomes humanized when landscapes are created. Introduction The term rock-art refers to motifs painted or engraved onto stone surfaces, located in different contexts and originating from more or less distant pasts. This is a straightforward and simple definition to which most can adhere.2 But rockart also provides unique clues regarding our predecessors’ thought processes (notably spiritual or religious beliefs and cognitive abilities) and gives evidence, in the Upper Palaeolithic, of the emergence of Homo Sapiens Sapiens; a thinking animal with an aptitude for abstract thought and the capability to put it to use. Claims have been made regarding the most ancient paleoart created by the Homo genus placing it within the Lower Paleolithic (Bednarik 2008). Recent discoveries in South African caves do give evidence of ‘early’ (some 100 000 years ago) human [email protected] But do see the International Federation of Rock-art Organizations definition for rock-art (IFRAO) and a previously published discussion by the author on rock-art, graffiti and vandalism (Fernandes 2009).

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Archaeology with Art cognitive abilities (Henshilwood et al. 2009). More recent studies have suggested that Neanderthals also produced rock-art (Rodríguez-Vidal et al. 2014). Probably in the near future, more finds will surface presenting even stronger challenges to the attribution of rock-art solely to Sapiens Sapiens. However, this essay will focus on the final period of the Pleistocene, when some authors consider to have occurred a sudden explosion of human creativity (e.g. Lorblanchet 2007; Pike et al. 2012). This event is more often linked to Western Europe, but recently discovered and dated rock-art in the Sulawesi region of Indonesia demonstrates that it was happening in other places as well (Aubert et al. 2014). Although this is a research paper, it should be also viewed as an opinion piece in which personal views are presented. Before presenting the central argument of this paper, consideration is first given to psychological, spatial, aesthetic and religious dimensions of rock-art production. It will be argued that rock-art, namely that arising from Upper Palaeolithic Western Europe, can be used as a means to unveil, in a diachronic fashion, human agency within the natural world, thus assessing its role in what is suggested to be the (illusory and self-deceiving) human effort to exert hegemonic dominance over the planet. Hence, this effort is regarded as constituting the major driving force of human existence; call it progress, civilization or cultural evolution. Today, despite ongoing, post-modern, relativist academic and scientific adjournment processes, it is suggested that the existing capitalistic, hence the de facto, production paradigm is still modern as it shields itself behind the idea of a never ending supply of resources, and an almost blind (and obviously misleading) faith in the unlimited resilience of the human species. The debate around climate change is a good example as human influence on the rise of global temperatures is played down. On one side of the barricade, the arguments put forward can even be said to have a pre-modern stance on the debate over human influence on rising temperatures as scientific evidence is discarded or discredited (Hiltzik 2015). All over the world, for instance, dams continue to be built or oil harvested, by traditional means and by fracking, an extraction technique that is even posing a threat to the conservation of what is referred to as the ‘Sistine Chapel’ of prehistoric rock-art, the cave of Altamira (Pardo 2012). Despite pressure from the public opinions of developed countries, whose momentum the current economic crisis is currently slowing, and moderating efforts by a limited number of nations, it is suggested that the ‘business as usual’ mentality continues to dominate such matters, as Realpolitik keeps on demonstrating (Maltezou and Koutantou 2015). To conclude this introductory section, it has been noted elsewhere by the author (Fernandes 2005) that the effort invested in cultural and natural heritage conservation is doubly and deeply selfish. Its ulterior aims are to preserve:

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal a) A non-existent unspoiled natural world, ultimately seeking to ensure that the planet will continue to sustainably support humans indefinitely; and: b) Present day representations and interpretations (subject, however, to continuous reinvention) of more or less long gone past societies, regarded as significant for the construction of a collective memory, even if contingent and relentlessly recyclable. It might be even added that nature and heritage conservationist discourse encompasses the more or less hidden intention of ‘render(ing) the lively world a storehouse of supplies for the elite’ (Alaimo 2012: 558). Be as it may, if the past is dead or at least a strange place, the present, in an ultra-relativistic sense, does not also exist. Rather, it is believed that the past is present in individual and collective heritage, be it personal, family-related or social group-based, emotional or cognitive. Archaeology and History are not obviously excluded from this process or just merry or innocent observers in the processes by which the past is continuously reused. Despite a certain postmodern ultra-relativistic vertigo, we did not just parachute in to our own lives, nor have the culture(s) or society(ies) to which we belong appeared out of thin air. Conscious/Unconscious (and everything in between) Throughout this essay the role of the unconscious in human endeavors aimed at the appropriation of their environments, in which rock-art is suggested here to have played an instrumental part, will be mentioned often. Nevertheless, if it is quite difficult to access the consciousness of our ancestors, it is impossible to penetrate the unconscious mind.3 Or is it? It can be argued that while the conscious enforces concepts in a synchronic fashion (that is, dictates the meaning that is attributed to rock-art symbols, for instance) and is hard to fully grasp a posteriori, the materialization of unconscious activity is truly universal and crosses time boundaries. Freud investigated the hidden motivations that lie in the backs of our minds suggesting that they are recurrent in human history (Thurschwell 2000). For instance, he argued that prehistoric humans already had guilt (linked with the Oedipus complex) as an important social constraint (Freud 2001). While the precise formulation of Freud’s theory may be considered quite objectionable today, it can be suggested, despite rare exceptions in the ethnographic record, of which Malinowski’s writings on the Trobriand Islands natives describe one of the best examples (1929), that one of the great universal taboos, incest, was instated in quite an instinctive fashion well before the emergence of Sapiens Sapiens. Our Nevertheless, Lewis-Williams notes that ‘human beings are not either conscious or unconscious’ and that ‘consciousness should rather be thought of as a spectrum (…) (where) at one end (…) is alert consciousness’ and, at the other, ‘deep, dreamless sleep’ (2008: 27).

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Archaeology with Art closest primate relatives, monkeys and apes, ‘show a tendency to avoid incest that is similar to that displayed by human beings’ (Arnhart 2005: 204). Furthermore, the ‘widespread existence of anti-incest mechanisms’ in other animals suggests an evolutionary ‘awareness’ of the biological cost of incest, high probability of birth defects (Herzog 2012). On the other hand, Freud’s disciple, Jung, saw in history the existence of collective unconscious archetypes that, while being reflected in different ways in diverse societies, (in myths, tales or cognitive and behavioral structures) all expose the basic human fear: that of physical and even spiritual oblivion (Jung 1990). Academics from other areas, such as the art critic Howell (1991), have drawn attention to the fundamentals of human life (sex, death, mourning, birth). The anthropologist Donald Brown even collated a rather large, influential and still expanding (Brown 2000) list of human universals, such as aesthetics, belief in the supernatural or religion, anthropomorphization or collective identities, comprising ‘those features of culture, society, language, behavior, and psyche for which there are no known exception’ (1991: 4). Moreover, Silva and Tehrani (2016), after conducting a phylogenetic study, have recently put forward that Indo-European folktales (and any given fairytale can be regarded as a mythicised story symbolically invested with a certain number of these constants) are quite older than previously thought, originating, at least, in the Bronze Age. Rock-art and landscape Rock-art keeps record of the fashion in which humans have constructed their ‘world’, halfway between the constraints imposed by the physical, the ‘real’ and the desires and wills of human minds. In this sense, rock-art serves as a means to embody ourselves in the landscape. Following Ingold’s view (2000), it is argued that the landscape is not just the natural world or, on the other hand, just an ‘artificial’ human construction: ‘Human beings do not, in their movements, inscribe their life stories upon the surface of nature (...); rather, these histories are woven, along with the life-cycles of plants and animals, into the texture of the surface itself’ (Ingold 2000: 198). The environment, as Ingold elegantly puts it, ‘is itself pregnant with the past’ (2000: 189). In this sense, rock-art motifs are evidence of past relationships between humans and their environment that add to the piling up of histories we continually entrench within our landscapes. However, it is not argued that a supreme human agency works upon the natural world seeking to dominate it, ultimately justifying the emergence rock-art. If the natural world is not a static backdrop, being rather intertwined within human culture and both influencing each other’s

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal actions, one of the main premises of this paper is that Sapiens Sapiens does not intuitively see itself as living in a more or less symbiotic fashion with nature. It is not suggested, however, that our Upper Palaeolithic ancestors envisioned that by creating rock-art they would be in fact starting to move from nature onto the higher plane of ‘Culture’. As Ingold (2000: 189) notes, this partition between human and non-human is entirely artificial; a fiction put forward by mythologies and religion as a tool to legitimize the notion of progress insofar as it entails the illusory domination of the world. Upper Palaeolithic rock-art is at the heart of the beginnings of this process. Marking the landscape could be viewed as a way of stating and establishing dominance over the natural world by means of a semiconscious thought process linked with the concrete necessities of each precise context of production. On the other hand, rock-art motifs, as other posterior marks placed within the landscape, also provide depth to history and appease human fears regarding individual and collective oblivion. They assure that something will stay behind after the producing, living entities have disappeared: a sort of perpetuation, in a fully conscious manner, of a certain social group, and, in an unconscious fashion, of the species itself. In turn, the depth of human history, as also signaled by these marks left behind, reinforces the existential gest of the species also providing a sense of meaning or significance to human lives. This ancient yet on-going process of landscape creation, of transforming what is perceived to be the ‘non-human’, the physical world, in to a container of relatable codes or symbols, had, in the inscription or painting of motifs during the Upper Palaeolithic, its major founding moment. These motifs were the first human-made, cultural marks in the form of images available to be perceived by upcoming generations. It is suggested that analyzing the evolution of this process is one of the most relevant contributions that the study of rock-art spatial distribution patterns can deliver. Richard Bradley carried out a comparative study on more or less contemporaneous (from the Neolithic onwards) Northern Iberia and Southern Scandinavia rock-art and its location in the landscape (2000: 64-80). It is suggested that his reflections are also valid when considering earlier Upper Palaeolithic rock-art. He argues that: ‘The significance of a particular location becomes archaeologically identifiable through that activity, and yet there is every reason to think that the place itself had achieved a special significance before (…) these events occurred.’ (Bradley 2000: 79) In fact, the significance humans attributed to natural topographic features might have determined the need to mark those sites with their culturally invested,

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Archaeology with Art meaningful signs. Chris Scarre describes several types of different ‘prominent landscapes features such as mountains, cliffs, caves, pools, waterfalls, hot springs, and large trees’ (2008: 212) as ‘places of power’, of recurrent significance within very different chronological contexts. It is suggested that when human beings invest meaning into those places of power these may also become ‘shrines of the land’ (Scarre 2008: 212), not specifically in the sense discussed by Scarre, but as a combination of both categories. It has been suggested elsewhere regarding the open-air Côa Valley rock-art complex (Fernandes 2008, 2010) that the precise topographic location as well as shapes, texture or tones of rock faces might have been decisive in the selection of outcrops to engrave during Upper Palaeolithic times. If so, this further reinforces the role rock-art, namely sites located in the open-air, had in the process of landscape creation and in the attempt of seizing and transforming the physical world. Regarding cave sites, if indeed the only ‘outside’ landscape creation process that can be envisaged is the spatial distribution pattern of decorated caves (Sieveking 1978, 2003), it is also important to note that rock-art motifs have been placed within underground environments following what has been described as a precise, perhaps ideological, rationale. In fact, it has been proposed these locations have gone through what can be regarded as a sort of a ‘cave-size’ symbolical landscape construction process when rock-art was painted, engraved, and, in some cases, sculpted (see Bahn and Vertut 1997:189-201 or Leroi-Gourhan 1992 for a discussion on the matter). Thus, it suggested that decorated caves, even if originally, before the production of rock-art, were considered just ‘places of power’, have also played a part in the effort to transform the physical world and create landscapes when ‘upgraded’ in to ‘shrines of the land’ by the inscription of artistic motifs. Rock-art as a by-product Rock-art might be seen as a by-product of other human activities. This is not to say it originated by accident, rather that all our actions, even if carried out in a quite unconscious or instinctive fashion, can produce entirely different outcomes to what was originally intended. These outcomes might become, on their own perceived merits, significant realms of the human mental ‘toolkit’ and cognitive capacity. For instance, the biologist Gillian Morriss-Kay (2010) suggests that hunting might have been behind the emergence of abstract thought which, in turn, fostered the surfacing of art. Her argument is based on the premise that humans are the only beings that give chase to an animal that falls outside their field of vision. Hunters had to rely on what she calls the ‘mind’s eye’ to continue to visualize a deer (for instance) that disappears over a hilltop. She concludes stating that:

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal ‘The neural changes that provided our ancestors with the imagination to understand, through logic, the continued existence of something that is no longer visible (…) would have had a genuine evolutionary advantage. Without these survival-enhancing functional origins, it is unlikely that we would have the neural equipment to create art’ (Morriss-Kay 2010: 174). In this sense, the emergence of (rock-) art can be seen as a by-product of hunting activities. On the other hand, researchers working at the Prehistoric rock-art site of Kilmartin, Scotland (specifically, Torbhlaren sites 1 and 2), propose that rather than just having a traditional motif-centered perspective, the artistic production process in itself should also be valued as it might have been a meaningful performance. They base their proposal on the fact that archaeological layers around the studied panels preserved chunks and flakes of quartz (deemed to be the remnants of the tools used to create carvings) while other pieces appear to have been deliberately placed in fissures of the outcrops containing rock-art (Jones et al. 2011). Taking the argument further, it may be put forward that rockart can be seen as a by-product of its own creation. That is, it could be the result of a ritualistic, creative performance process that may have been accompanied by other meaningful activities such as chanting, dancing or eating. Repetition of similar motifs may represent the recurrence of such activities. In this sense, the rock-art creation processes as well as the events that might have originated the need to accomplish rock-art imagery, as Fowles and Arterberry (2013) suggest regarding eighteenth century Comanche engraved imagery, could be in itself as important as the final result. Shamanistic interpretations of rock-art (e.g. Lewis-Williams 2002) can also entail the idea of rock-art being a by-product of other human activities. That is, the drive behind rock-art creation can be perceived as having been the commanding need to visually translate images or concepts envisaged by the shaman while in trance. In this sense, rock-art can be seen as the by-product of the shaman’s socially significant quest through the spiritual realm in order to achieve proposed goals. Art in itself can be seen as being recurrent, since artists continually find inspiration in older works of art. Picasso, for example, took inspiration from African sculptures that, at the time, were considered to be primitive art (Howell 1991: 233). This recurrence may also be viewed as art having the capability of constantly being its own by-product. Furthermore, art can also generate its own by-products. The example that comes to mind is that of writing systems. Emmanuel Anati has tried to establish that the genesis of writing systems may be found in rock-art. The Italian researcher notes that the syntactic connections between the different signs (or, as he also calls them, ‘graphemes’) present in Upper Palaeolithic rock-art may lead us to infer that the ‘human logical conceptual mechanisms that resulted

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Archaeology with Art in the invention of modern writing in the last 5000 years’ had been there, at least, for 40 000 years (Anati 2000: 25). While regarding rock-art as a by-product of other human endeavors might be considered quite controversial, the above paragraphs aim to establish that this notion is latent in different attempts to explain rock-art and pinpoint its emergence. Within a recently developed field of knowledge, CENA, (Cognitive, Evolutionary and Neuro-Aesthetics ) (Dissanayake 2009: 159), issues such as the emergence of symbolic behavior (e.g. art or religion) are being engaged in a fashion that could be described as trying to establish a sort of ‘Archaeology of the Mind’. Current debate comprises two distinct positions: those who believe artistic behavior is innate, coded in our genes, surfacing, in its own right, whenever it is evolutionary profitable to upgrade our mental ‘toolkit’ (Dissanayake 2009;4 Dutton 2009;) and those who suggest it is just one of many, successive and mere evolutionary byproducts of responses to both internal and external pressures on (proto-) human populations (e.g. Gould 2002). Maybe both perspectives described above only entail the old nature vs. culture dichotomy formulated in different terms. Either way, both stances appear to suggest that we are just ‘machines’ automatically carrying out a self-adjusting program. Here another question might arise: do we ever have available a fair amount of ‘free will’ involved in our evolutionary adaptations? Did our arborous hominid predecessors suddenly just felt like coming down from the trees or did they compulsorily need, due to environmental changes, competition, and/or other factors, to access new sustenance sources in order to survive? Rock-art and religion The previous sections of this paper have discussed the nature and origins of rockart. The remainder of the paper aims to offer a view of the role rock-art might have had in the appropriation by humans of their surroundings. Towards that aim, the following passage by Max Raphael from his seminal study on Upper Paleolithic cave art is useful in setting the tone of the following closing sections: ‘Art is the creative act which gives the material and ideological lifecontents of a concrete society adequate visible forms. These forms are not completely determined by their antecedents nor do they arise mechanically Dissanayake’s view is apparently somehow at odds with that position since it focuses more on the artistic behavior itself than on the ‘end result’. Making art is just what it is and further justifications may be regarded as superfluous. For instance, visual arts need not be representative and can be (also) done due to the pleasure derived from its creation act (2009: 165). This view, which evokes ‘Art for Art’s sake’, one of the first interpretation theories for paleoart (Bahn 2002) and also the importance of the performance act in art creation as described above, is useful in questioning the motif centered approach that is ubiquitous in rock-art research. Nevertheless, when considering the emergence of art, Dissanayake does state: ‘We know that minds (…) work as they do because that way of working (and not some other way) contributed to survival and reproductive success’ (2009: 161, author’s emphasis).

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Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal under the pressure of external influences nor are they the product of both: the truth is that they have no history of their own. More precisely: art has historical roots that lie outside it, and it has historical consequences that again lie outside it. Art as such is not a historical act but an act of creating values. (…) The main task of a history of art is to show that these determined forms – forms and not contents! – must necessarily arise from definite economic, social, political, moral, religious, etc., roots, that these forms express them, represent them, manifest them; (…) that they react on these roots and play a part in their transformation. Every attempt to go beyond this task and to constitute an immanent history of the development of forms necessarily leads to reducing the creative process to a mechanical act.’ (Raphael 1945: 17). Drawing from Raphael’s quote, it is suggested that rock-art illustrates, in a way most archaeological data cannot, the beginning of Sapiens Sapiens’ discovery, comprehension and dominance of an environment that only gains intelligibility when spiritual, symbolic and mythological dimensions are bestowed upon it; our world, or following what was stated above, landscapes. A world of conquest and progress but also an object created by a primordially instinctive mind. Again evoking Raphael’s words, rock-art translates into signs, ‘theologies’ of comprehension and proto-control (hence, of humanization) of our environments. Today, only the iconic character of rock-art is fully reachable since the mythologies (or, more plainly, the stories) that might have provided meaning and significance to rock-art are lost, although interpretative analogies, sometimes simplistic, sometimes esoteric, might be inferred, through ethnography, from socalled modern primitive societies. Steven Mithen points out: ‘Archaeologists are more likely to have success at reconstructing the “outside” meanings of this art, rather than the “inside” meanings which require access to the lost mythological world of the prehistoric mind.’ (1996: 159). In a way, diachronically speaking, this ‘outside’ meaning is the content provided, through the creation of mythologies and theologies, thus legitimizing human appropriation of the world. Mithen also notes that ‘religious ideologies (…) came into existence at the time of the Middle/Upper Palaeolithic transition and have remained with us ever since’ (1996: 177-178). The same author introduced the concept of cognitive fluidity, a condition ‘that arose in the human mind, which resulted in art, new technology, and a transformation in the exploitation of the natural world and the means of social interaction’ (Mithen 1996: 178), in an attempt to pinpoint the birth of conceptual thought. On the other hand, Boyer speaks of the ‘recurrence of certain types of mental representations in religious systems’ (1992: 27), such

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Archaeology with Art as superhuman beings (Spiro et al. 1987: 161-186). Michel Lorblanchet states that rock-art was ‘probably born with and from religion’ (1999: 272, author’s translation). Lewis-Williams suggests that ‘religion is not an intrinsically unrecoverable component of the past’ (2008: 39). He goes on to argue that religion is ‘wired into the human brain’ (Lewis-Williams 2008: 27). Even if this is so, the fact that religious belief might be connected to poorly understood neuro-chemical mechanisms (Culotta 2009), does not disallow the viewing of these beliefs as fulfilling a social cohesion role in different societies. Furthermore, it is suggested that Sapiens Sapiens, regardless of precise circumstances, always needed ways of alleviating in an escapist fashion the ruthless reality of being, not so much the finite nature of human earthly existence but essentially finding meaning and living a self-perceived consequential life (Frankl 1984).5 It has been proposed elsewhere by the author (Luís and Fernandes 2010) that rock-art can also be seen as being just entertainment. Entertainment in a similar manner as we understand the concept today (as opposed to ‘high culture’, see Shusterman 2003), but also as an ontological, cultural, socio-economic tool to ‘indoctrinate’ society or individuals within a society; an appealing method to convey messages is the most effective way to assure deliverance and acceptance of a given moral content. Thus, religion,6 with the attached paraphernalia of all explaining myths, coded signs and ritual practices may have taken advantage of alluring and powerful ways to assure that social cohesion was achieved and moral commands were complied in a more successful manner. In a way, it can be suggested that it anticipated the much quoted and influential McLuhan’s (1964) notion, ‘the medium is the message’. Depending on each precise context of creation, we can see in many rock-art motifs a vehicle that conveyed and materialized, in visible and perennial fashion, aspects of such paraphernalia. Therefore, rock-art played a major part in the very fabric of social regulating processes. Max Raphael pointed that: ‘what the works of art that have survived show us is a maximum of spiritually creative power placed in the service of the ruling ideas and classes. (…) In every known society art has had the function of creating a synthesis of real actions and theoretical-ideological ideas. This synthesis of compulsions and The author is aware that considering tout court human life as having a finite nature might be regarded as a quite Western point of view. Nevertheless, in spite a thorough evaluation of the matter being admittedly outside the scope of this paper, it is suggested that it is rather a case of how individuals and communities in different geographic and chronological contexts deal with the termination of life and the acceptance of death. For instance, even if Buddhism seeks self-illumination and the achievement of a completely at peace state of mind, which in turn would appease any fears regarding physical disappearance, it can be argued that very few, if any at all, reach that ‘higher’ condition. And thus the quest for meaning iteratively continues, since even the realization that there is no meaning to life is in itself giving meaning… 6 Besides its role in strengthening harmony and the character of social groups (Durkheim 1965) and even in controlling economic practices (Rappaport 1999). See also Renfrew for a list of ‘Archaeological Indicators of Ritual’ (1994: 51). 5

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal wishes in the Paleolithic age displays a striking power of emotion and thought.’ (1945: 13). The existence of social classes in the Upper Palaeolithic is extremely difficult to establish from the available archaeological record, rock-art included.7 Therefore it will not be suggested that rock-art, a ‘maximum of spiritually creative power’ (Raphael 1945: 13) serviced the needs of a ruling class. However, if the term ‘class’ is substituted by the word ‘species’, Raphael’s statement does adequately portray the commencement of the appropriation process by humans of their surroundings and the full emergence of a species that fundamentally, as discussed in the introduction, sees itself as the ruler of all others. A species that, nevertheless, is only trying to do its best to survive, in spite of the fact our thinking brains continually carry on feeding us illusions of greatness or enforcing a higher teleonomic reason for our existence. Moreover, a species which is yet to be fully conscious of the significance of the process that was set in motion while being deeply engaged in the embedding of the surrounding world with signs that while inspired by nature only have their full meaning if seen through the human ‘mind’s eye’. The role of rock-art in mediating the relationship between humans and their surroundings As suggested in the course of this paper, human beings began, long ago, a process of appropriation of their surroundings, even if not in an entirely conscious fashion. Indeed, the first step in this process, linked to our ability for abstraction, was precisely to artificially divide the world into the natural and human realms. Quoting Raphael again, ‘the act of artistic creation has produced a content that comprises more than was supplied by reality and by social consciousness’ (1945: 35). Even if artistic creation reacts to and tries to engage with ‘reality’ and the natural world, it may be also seen as attempt to negate those same constraints. That is, there is a dormant or hidden dimension in rock-art that, besides elevating it beyond ‘the subordinated tasks that man embraces, or that are dictated by religion or magic’ (Bataille 1979: 80; author’s translation), carries an encrypted message onwards. The stories and mythologies, whose representation some researchers suggest to have been the main purpose of rock-art (see Bahn 2010: 56-66), created to justify and give meaning to human existence become selffulfilling prophecies! They are, as Hariri (2015) would put it, ‘fictions’, serving religious or secular purposes, that are used to engage individuals in collective endeavors and help to reinforce social order. Hariri believes that the ability to This is the major critique addressed to Marxist archaeology (Renfrew and Bahn 2000: 472). Raphael, albeit not being an archaeologist, was himself a Marxist. See Mitchell (2006) for an account of Raphael’s Marxist approach to art.

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Archaeology with Art cooperate flexibly in large numbers is what basically distinguishes us from other species. Considering that images are perhaps the most powerful translation of the whole spectrum of human mental activity (see Koch 2004; Lewis-Williams 2002:180-185), it is no wonder that for so many millennia rock-art has been created (and recreated) time and time again thus constituting the ‘backbone’ of such narrative fictions. Max Raphael notes that a work of art has to ‘carry a formelement through several dimensions in such a way that certain axes of different frames of reference are unambiguously related to one another’ (Raphael 1945: 34; author’s emphasis). In the case of rock-art, it is suggested that time can be used in Raphael’s sentence as a surrogate of consciousness since, these form-elements (to which themes and techniques of execution might be added) are recurrent in the rock-art (and other kinds of art) of different periods and geographies. For instance, aurochsen (and the symbolic meaning behind the motif, whatever it might have been) are commonly represented in Western Europe Upper Paleolithic art (Figure 1). Images of their domesticated descendants can be found, for instance, in the Anatolian Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük or in Minoan art. Another example comes from the rock-art at Mont Bego, France. Besides the origin of the name itself, which is suggested to signify ‘sacred mountain (Be) where the ox-god (Go)

Figure 1. Upper Paleolithic representation of a wagging tail aurochs (Côa Valley, Portugal). Drawing of the aurochs by CNART.

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal lives’ (Baudry and Tarrête 2003: 92; author’s translation), horn-shaped motifs, believed to depict bovine horns, feature in the majority of the Proto-historic rockart imagery (Baudry and Tarrête 2003: 43-56). Today, the ox still continues to be a powerful symbol that can be found, incorporating similar and diverse symbolic uses, in bullfighting, the running of the bulls (for instance, in the world famous San Fermín festival in Pamplona) or the Toro de fuego (‘fire bull’), for example. In fact, in the Iberian Peninsula, the bull is such an evocative and ubiquitous sign that it has become one of the major iconic symbols of one of the peninsular countries, Spain.8 As Bradley notes, ‘(rock-art) is not a unitary phenomenon and it exhibits a wide range of variation across time and space’. It is, therefore, ‘legitimate to compare petroglyphs with free-standing sculptures and Roman inscriptions with entirely abstract designs’ (2000: 65), for instance. This variation is given by the precise contexts of rock-art production. Thus, it is reasonable to compare motifs in an endeavor to understand how recurrent themes have survived and evolved, not only in precise meaning but also in the technical means that were used to represent them. Mircea Eliade (1991), for example, has proposed connections between a wide range of West and East religious images and symbols. On the other hand, right at the beginning of the 20th century, Aby Warburg favored a radical approach seeking to disengage art history from narrative constraints. He resorted to a method of his own design (‘montage-collision’) in which non-related pieces (such as pagan artifacts and Renaissance paintings) are confronted with one another in order to internally detect discontinuities, incongruities, tensions and the powers of enchantment, empathy, totemism and animism in art works (Michaud 2007). It is suggested that for prehistoric societies it was important to sublimate normal fears that arose from day to day life in a harsh and hazardous environment. Western European Upper Palaeolithic rock-art depicts a limited number of animal species, on which humans could have depended for sustenance together with other less or not at all depicted species.9 It would have been a daunting experience to face an aurochs, a megaloceros, a large goat, a herd of wild horses, a woolly mammoth, or a saber tooth cat. Moreover, due to their aggressive nature and size, some these animals would have been probably seen as competing rivals for dominance over a territory. At the same time, also considering the delicate, almost intimate, nature Throughout History, different societies had in the bull an evocative symbol linked with the celebration of the vitality of nature and life (Baudry and Tarrête 2003: 99-101; Goderie et al. 2013; Koroxenidis 2003). The examples provided just try to illustrate a few of the uses the symbol has had (and has) in some areas of the Mediterranean basin. 9 The fact that many animal species (such as rodents) or natural features of the landscape (rivers or mountains) or celestial bodies (the Sun or the Moon) were not depicted in Upper Paleolithic art further reinforces the symbolical meaning of the ones that have been represented (mostly big herbivorous species such as aurochs, ibex, deer and horses) (Bahn and Vertut 1997: 134-169). 8

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Archaeology with Art many Upper Palaeolithic depictions possess, it can be suggested that these same animals and their natural behavior would have been the most impressive feature of surrounding environments. Hence, painting or engraving these would have been a way of symbolically exorcizing such fears while concomitantly creating the stories or mythologies that bred life and might to the images. Imagery would slowly become ‘signified’, that is, transformed into symbols imbued with selfintelligible ‘universal’ meaning. Human beings look at their given environment, try to understand and seize it by projecting a mentally generated ‘abstract’ image in the available media, the smooth rocky surfaces of caves or open-air outcrops. This re-creation is not ‘reality’ itself but our representation of it in images that become coded signs to which nevertheless evolving values and meanings are embedded. Rock-art is thus evidence of the beginning of this process of human parting from the natural world, albeit, almost paradoxically, the special fondness for the depicted animals that transpires from many exquisite Upper Palaeolithic zoomorphic motifs. As other animals do, humans begin marking the territory using the full might of their most valuable device, the brain. Biological ejections (see Figure 2) are no longer needed since humans are animals that have a more powerful way, at least as it is understood in this dominance seeking human endeavor, of marking, thus ‘controlling’, nature when landscapes are created.

Figure 2. Côa Valley (Portugal) Upper Paleolithic quadruped motif at Quinta da Barca Rock 4 (probably an aurochs) depicted in a fashion that suggests the animal is in the act of defecating or urinating. This image, as similar ones existent in Western Europe Pleistocene art (Joseph 2003, 322), hints that humans were aware of how different animal species demarcated their territory. Drawing by CNART.

This process is independent of concrete contexts of production, or other specificities, namely originality, creativity and individual artistry. Albeit these obviously constitute momentous dimensions of rock-art and its contemporary study, it is suggested that the human attempt at world appropriation, trying to make the planet our exclusive dwelling, is universal. That is to say, our species, adapting to but also shaping the natural world and its

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal competitiveness, has had the drive (and the skill, albeit possibly limited) to try to subjugate all other species and the environment. Imagery from different relatively early Sapiens Sapiens contexts (c. 40 000 BP onwards), is believed to constitute examples of the use of rock-art in the commencement of this process. The recurrence of particular motifs in these different contexts (Hodgson and Watson 2015), as well as the repetition of motifs and existence of stylistic canons within the same artistic tradition (namely Western Europe Upper Palaeolithic depictions of aurochsen, horses, goats and deer), also suggests the ‘pre-existence’ of an universal mindset, which is proposed to have also included the semi-conscious drive to seek appropriation of existing environments. The (ongoing) end results of these independently induced processes are obviously diverse. Nevertheless, dominance has always been sought when trying to gain hegemony over ‘internal’ competitors, be it by economic or factual war (Diamond 1998; Morris 2010), or ‘external’ ones, be it by human-caused, or greatly aided, extinction of species (Bartlett et al. 2015) or by attempting to bring back lost species in a ‘domesticated’ fashion that serves human interests (Sandler 2014) and ultimately also contributes to reinforce our overall illusory sense of supremacy. Finally, it should be stressed that the author does not consider that humans really exert hegemonic dominance over the whole planet at this or any point of History, although some authors defend such a view (see for instance Hariri 2015). Rather, the discussed semi-conscious process of seeking dominance is seen as a sort of apotheosis, a fictional attempt to preserve the genetic and cultural heritage of the species by carrying out a perpetual negotiation between (what is seen as) natural chaos and supposedly rational human order. This pairing is nothing more than the dichotomous translation of a neurotic and pathological human bewilderment, transposed to our representations of and mediations with the world while seeking a (non-existent?) sense of meaning and purpose, on the individual level, but also as a species.10 Conclusion In these lines, the author tried to establish, in a schematic fashion, the foundations for a diachronic approach to rock-art that values its role in mediating relationships between humans and their surroundings. It is recognized, however, that Bradley is correct when he notes that ‘the failure of more ambitious approaches has shown that this (rock-art) is not the kind of material that lends itself to too much generalization’ (Bradley 2000: 66). Nevertheless, while what has been suggested in this paper may generate some problems of over-generalization, the main A thought provoking view on this mentioned human idiosyncratic schizophrenia is provided by George Carlin in his “Saving the Planet” piece (available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c), which the author highly recommends. 10

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Archaeology with Art purpose has been to step outside traditional synchronic interpretations of rock-art in order to try to begin ascertaining its universal significance. This endeavor may lead the rock-art discipline of study to free itself from an obsessive search for the ‘true’ interpretation of ancient art, which many pursue. In a way, it does not matter what the images meant. Rather, it is a case of how today they are perceived to have meant to their creators. It is suggested that a mere monographic account of techniques, themes or spatial distribution patterns is not entirely satisfactory. May the current approach help to bridge the gap between purely mechanical ‘causeeffect’ approaches to rock-art interpretation and a wry description of motifs? The main concern would thus be to try to understand human beings within the full range of the coordinates where our actions unfold, that is, space and time. Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank the editors of this volume and the reviewers of this paper for providing helpful comments and suggestions. Nevertheless, views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author. References Alaimo, S. 2012. Sustainable This, Sustainable That: New Materialisms, Posthumanism, and Unknown Futures. PMLA 127(3): 558-564. Aubert, M., Brumm, A., Ramli, M., Sutikna, T., Saptomo, E. W., Hakim, B., Morwood, M. J., van den Bergh, G. D., Kinsley, L. and Dosseto, A. 2014. Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia. Nature 514: 223–227. Anati, E. 2000. Orígenes de la Escritura. Boletín de Arte Rupestre de Aragón 3: 23-43. Arnhart, L. 2005. The incest taboo as Darwinian natural right. In A. Wolf and W. Durham (eds.), Inbreeding, incest, and the incest taboo: The state of knowledge at the turn of the century: 190-218. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Bahn, P. and Vertut, J. 1997. Journey through the Ice Age. Berkeley, University of California Press. Bahn, P. 2002. Ways of Looking at Prehistoric Rock-art. Diogenes 49(193): 88-93. Bahn, P. 2001. Prehistoric Rock Art: Polemics and Progress. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Bartlett, L. J., Williams, D. R., Prescott, G.W., Balmford, A., Green, R. E., Eriksson, A., Valdes, P. J., Singarayer, J. S. and Manica, A. 2015. Robustness despite uncertainty: regional climate data reveal the dominant role of humans in explaining global extinctions of Late Quaternary megafauna. Ecography 39(2): 152-161. Bataille, G. 1979. Lascaux ou la naissance de l’art. Ouevres completes IX. Paris, Gallimard.

Batarda Fernandes - The fate of a thinking animal Baudry, M.-Th. and Tarrête, J. (eds.) 2003. Le mont Bego. Vallées des Merveilles et de Fontanalba. Besançon, Monum, Éditions du patrimoine. Bednarik, R. 2008. Neurophysiology and paleoart. AURA Newsletter 25(1): 6-15. Boyer, P. 1992 Explaining Religious Ideas: Elements of a Cognitive Approach. Numen 39(1): 27-57. Bradley, R. 2000. An archaeology of natural places. London, Routledge. Brown, D.E. 1991. Human universals. New York, McGraw-Hill. Brown, D.E., 2000. Human universals and their implications. In N. Roughley (Ed.), Being humans: Anthropological universality and particularity in transdisciplinary perspectives: 156-174. New York, Walter de Gruyter. Culotta, E. 2009. On the origin of religion. Science 326: 784-787. Diamond, J. M. 1998. Guns, germs, and steel: the fates of human societies. New York, W.W. Norton & Co. Dissanayake, E. 2009. The artification hypothesis and its relevance to cognitive science, evolutionary aesthetics, and neuroaesthetics. Cognitive Semiotics 5: 148-173. Durkheim, É. 1965. The elementary forms of the religious life. New York, Free Press. Dutton, D. 2009. The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution. New York, Bloomsbury. Eliade, M. 1991. Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Fernandes, A. P. B. 2005. Dinâmicas de Desenvolvimento Sustentado Fomentadas pela Criação do Parque Arqueológico do Vale do Côa. In V.O, Jorge (ed.), Conservar para Quê?: 183-197. Porto and Coimbra, Centro de Estudos Arqueológicos das Universidades de Coimbra e Porto. Fernandes, A. P. B. 2008. Aesthetics, ethics, and rock-art conservation: How far can we go? The case of recent conservation tests carried out in un-engraved outcrops in the Côa Valley, Portugal. In T. Heyd and J. Clegg (eds.), Aesthetics and Rock-art III Symposium: 85-92. Oxford, Archaeopress. Fernandes, A. P. B., 2009. Vandalism, graffiti or ‘just’ rock art? The case of a recent engraving in the Côa Valley rock art complex in Portugal. FUMDHAmentos 9(3): 729-43. Fernandes, A.P.B. 2010. Slope orientation of rock art sites in the Côa Valley, Portugal: A case study in the spatial distribution of open-air Upper Palaeolithic rock art, IFRAO Congress, September 2010 – Symposium: Pleistocene art in Europe (Pre-Acts). Fowles, S. and Arterberry, J. 2013. Gesture and performance in Comanche rock art. World Art 3(1):67-82.

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Enlander

The rock ‘artist’: exploring processes of interaction in the rock art landscapes of the north of Ireland Rebecca Enlander,1 Independent Researcher Introduction The carved rock surfaces of Ireland form part of a much wider art tradition encountered across Atlantic Europe: a broad geographical area frequently defined by cultural connections, including the exclusive distribution of passage tombs and their associated megalithic or passage grave art, and the tradition of abstract cupand-ring art during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (Bradley 1997, 2009). The rock art tradition draws upon a basic repertoire of motifs which include cupmarks, and cups surrounded by concentric rings, with the occasional addition of radiating grooves or tails. These motifs may occur in isolation, or form dense clustered or interlinked designs. Additionally, the landscape contexts where many sites were carved in situ upon ‘living’ rock surfaces are broadly similar, with an emphasis on landscape positions which relate to movement and visibility across the wider terrain (Bradley 1997). At a local scale, regional expressions of rock art frequently reference very subtle characteristics of their localities. In many ways, the individual stone surfaces influenced the very motifs carved upon them. Although the importance of distinct, regional scales of carving activity have been explored more recently in northern England (Sharpe 2007, 2012), Scotland (Jones et al. 2011) and Ireland (O’Connor 2006; Shee Twohig 2012), serious consideration of local variability and subtleties, in both the setting and form of rock art sites, are lacking (Evans and Dowson 2004: 103; Sharpe 2007: 2). Furthermore, the social significance of themes such as experiential qualities of process, or materiality of surfaces, have not been explored in regards to the open-air rock art localities of northwest Europe (see Jones et al. 2011 regarding the character of carved rock surfaces in Kilmartin, Argyll). The aim of this paper is to explore some of the potential processes and decisions behind rock art production, using examples of two distinct rock art localities in the north of Ireland. By considering the geological variability of rock art localities (as reflected in the surfaces selected for use), this paper explores the presence of discrete regional interactions. In the first instance, this paper will examine the often subtle differences in the choice of natural topography, geological form and 1

[email protected]; [email protected]

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Archaeology with Art abstract imagery employed in Irish rock art, before providing a synthesis of the processes and decisions behind rock art production (carving), in order to explore the ideology behind rock art. Through interpretive methods (including artefact biographies and ethnographic considerations), a number of distinct processes or sets of behaviours will be discussed, which include distinct practices of reference, repetition and reuse. Geological Landscapes By defining contextual elements of the landscape such as solid geology, it may be possible to ascertain if certain geological areas were favoured in the distribution and character of Irish rock art. It should be stressed, however, that both solid geology and the availability of stone surfaces need to be considered in tandem. Geological trends in site distribution do not suggest that carvers were aware of geological divisions; rather, subtle distinctions in texture, colour and even ‘hardness’ may have been reacted to in the selection of surfaces. The diversity of rock types encountered in Ireland’s geology reflects the variability of environment and distinct regions which form the various landscapes of this island. The current scenery has also undergone natural and cultural modification, due to the climatic extremes of the Palaeogene and Quaternary and millennia of human influence. Ireland’s topography is defined by a mountainous rim and comparatively flat interior, which is punctuated by infrequent islands of sandstone, and mainly underlain by Carboniferous limestones, and blanketed in more recent peat. From the stark, windswept terrain of Donegal to the rolling drumlin landscape of Down and Armagh, pierced by the peaks of the Mournes, Ireland is a land of contrasts (Holland and Sanders 2009; Mitchell et al. 2010), and is amongst the most geologically diverse areas on the planet. For the purposes of this paper, two contrasting clusters of rock art are discussed: the distinct metamorphic surfaces of Doagh Island, Donegal, and the elaborately carved glacial erratics at Reyfad and its surrounding region in the border area of Fermanagh and Cavan. These localities demonstrate considerable variability in their geological and topographic choice, preference for stone type and forms, and the character of rock art encountered. A summary of the rock art surfaces in each location is provided in Table 1. Doagh Island, Inishowen - Dalradian Argyll and Appin Groups Figures 1 and 2 demonstrate a strong preference for rock art to occur across psammites and pelites within the Argyll and Appin groups, which includes the Inishowen region, with high concentrations of rock art sites principally focused to the north of the peninsula on Doagh Island. The Argyll and Appin Groups of Donegal consist of a

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’

Regional Geology Cuilcagh – (Fermanagh/ Cavan Limestones) Carboniferous

Rock Art Lithology1 49 – sandstone erratics – preference for large erratics next to Cuilcagh

Doagh Island – Argyll and Appin Groups Psammitic & pelitic schists, quartzite and Gneiss

Carrowreagh Donegal: 20 – psammite/ quartz schist Magheranaul Donegal: 64 – schist/ schistose psammite

Motifs Present

Use of Natural Features Observed? 6 sites have a worked lip or other 26 – cupmarks modification, while an additional 18 – cup-and-ring 30 sites have no ‘rock art’ but 5 – rosettes with cup/ other modification2 Rosettes and ring penannular rings are common in the region. 12 – cupmarks/ disc At Carrowreagh, radial motifs 4 – cup-and-ring/ tend to follow the direction disc of slope (only applicable to 4 4 – cup-and-ring with sites) At Magheranaul, 15 sites radial incorporate natural features 26 – cupmarks/ disc3 including the incorporation of natural hollows and the 20 – cup-and3 use of fissures to truncate, ring/ disc elaborate or divide motifs. The 12 – including 3 incorporation of natural features enclosure/ radial is most striking at surface which 5 – including 3 incorporates cartouche or cartouche enclosure motifs.

Table 1. Regional preferences for surfaces and motifs in the survey area. Note: 1 Indicates the lithology of the actual carved surfaces, as opposed to the character geology of the area. 2Burren natural carvings - an additional set of modifications include, but are not exclusive to: splitting and repositioning boulders, the definition of a rim or lip around the boulder’s edge, and the elongation of natural cracks and hollows to create anthropomorphic forms. 3Data compiled from field observations where possible and van Hoek (1986, 1988, and 1993).

range of metamorphic rocks including quartzite (metamorphosed quartz sandstone), psammites (metamorphosed sandstone) and pelite (metamorphosed mudstone and siltstone), which vary considerably in colour, texture and surface form. Although the strong association with the Argyll Group may represent a biased result due to unequal coverage of sites across the region, this association is potentially indicative of a preference for specific petrologies in this area. While decorated boulders may have been lost due to field clearance and associated activities, a clear preference for outcropping psammites and pelites is evident (Figure 2). The strong preference for the geology of the Argyll Group is further supported when site distribution is considered across Donegal at a wider scale. The main geological trends run northeast to southwest across the county and a majority of the Donegal rock art falls within the limits of the Argyll succession, especially the band of pelitic and psammitic schists known as the Termon Formation. There are minimal rock art panels to the north of the Termon pelites, an area characterised by quartzite, while the Southern Highland Group, located to the south and extending as far as Tyrone, is characterised by pelites and psammites, but outcropping surfaces

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Archaeology with Art

Figure 1. Ireland geo map Distribution map demonstrating site location of all Irish rock art and passage grave art sites in relation to the solid geology of Ireland: note the apparent avoidance of the Central lowlands which are principally underlain by Carboniferous limestones. Sites discussed in text include: the Argyll Group in the Inishowen area (and Doagh Island) and the sandstone erratics on Carboniferous limestone in Cavan and Fermanagh (Burren, Marlbank, Reyfad). Solid geology 1:500,000© gsi.ie; data compiled by the present author using ArcMap 10.

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’

70

Cup-and-ring Cupmarked Passage grave art

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

    120 100

Outcrop

Erratic

Cultural

80 60 40 20 0

  Figure 00.2: Above: Graph demonstrating distribution of rock art and passage grave art in the

Figure 2. Above: art and passagestones’ grave survey area by solid Graph geology.demonstrating Site type totals are:distribution Passage graveof art rock (36 including 3 ‘standing art in the survey area by solid geology. Site type totals are: Passage grave art (36 thought to be reused kerb stones), Cup-and-ring art (174), and Cupmarked (126). Below: Graph including 3 ‘standing stones’ thought to be reused kerb stones), Cup-and-ring art demonstrating distribution of outcrop, erratic and cultural stone by solid geology. Site type total are: (174), Cupmarked (126).(77), Below: of outcrop, Outcropand (179), erratic boulders and Graph cultural demonstrating stone (99 includingdistribution 33 passage tombs, 11 cist slabs, 13 and capstones and 18 stone standingbystones). basedOutcrop on the 1:500,000 erratic cultural solidGeological geology.unit Siteclassification type totalis are: (179), solid geology series, (77), available from © gsi.ie; data compiled by thetombs, present 11 author erratic boulders anddigitally cultural stone (99 point including 33 passage cist using ArcMap 10.  slabs, 13 capstones and 18 standing stones). Geological unit classification is based on the 1:500,000 solid geology series, available digitally from © gsi.ie; point data compiled by the present author using ArcMap 10.

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Archaeology with Art are rarely the focus of decoration (Figure 1). While the apparent limitation of rock art to this area is no doubt influenced by differential site preservation and survey biases, Inishowen has been the focus of several intensive archaeological surveys, and if distribution was not a response to geology, then one would expect a more uniform coverage of sites across the Argyll succession. When explored at a higher resolution, the role of distinct geologies in site distribution becomes even more evident. At Doagh Island in particular, two large clusters of carved surfaces dominate the southern shoreline, and although close, each cluster is distinct in its use of outcropping stone and in the motifs employed. The rock art of Carrowreagh occupies a low-lying landscape dominated by extensive, icesmoothed outcrops of the Termon Pelite Formation and is characterised by cup and disc-marks with limited use of enclosing rings (frequently single) and radial tails. There is minimal evidence for the incorporation of natural features: radial lines were carved in the direction of the stone’s slope. As smooth surfaces are dominant in the Carrowreagh rock art, this is perhaps unsurprising. Moving eastwards across Doagh Island, Carrowreagh is characteristically distinct from Magheranaul in terms of surfaces selected and motifs employed in the production of rock art. At Magheranaul rock art frequently occurs on flat, heavily fissured outcrops of pelite and schistose pelite which gently mimic the natural topography of the local terrain. A total of 64 areas of outcrop are recorded as bearing decoration (van Hoek 1987) but, unfortunately, a number of areas of outcrop have become inaccessible or destroyed. A majority of these surfaces were observed in the field (Enlander 2013), and a total of 15 sites were observed to incorporate natural features including natural hollows and fissures which truncate, elaborate or divide motifs. Natural jointing often acts to frame certain motifs and the elaborate cartouches and tailed discs which characterise the rock art of Magheranaul frequently link to, or incorporate natural grooves. At Carrowreagh and Magheranaul smooth and heavily folded stone surfaces are readily available; at Magheranaul these seem to have been disregarded in favour of fissured surfaces for composing rock art, while smooth surfaces were employed at Carrowreagh. The restriction of available stone may have influenced the differences in stone selection and rock art composition at Carrowreagh and Magheranaul, however, the contrast between the sites is stark and it is the dissimilarity in geology which may have informed the appearance of these distinct rock art hubs (Figure 3). Mevagh The clustered rock art sites across north Donegal are restricted to quite specific topographical areas including Doagh Island and the Rosguill Peninsula, where rock art at Mevagh is concentrated on the near-vertical outcropping surface of a

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’

Figure 3. Detail of cupmarks at Carrowreagh and cartouche motif at Magheranaul. The Carrowreagh rock art is typically characterised by isolated and group cup and disc marks, with the decorated surfaces characterised by ice-smoothed outcrops of the Termon Pelite Formation. This contrasts with nearby Magheranaul, where rock art frequently occurs on flat, heavily fissured outcrops of pelite and schistose pelite, with fissured surfaces often favoured for composing rock art. The rock art is also different is character, with natural features often used including the elaborate cartouch and tailed disc design which incorporates natural grooves.

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Archaeology with Art dramatic metamorphosed igneous intrusion, probably a dyke. At Mevagh, large sections of the highly fractured surface are carved with a range of distinct cupand-ring, groove and rosette based motifs, many of which are highly idiosyncratic. The placement and form of motifs at Mevagh suggests that individual carvers or artists responded to the appearance of jointing lines. This placement and form, arguably, may reflect the behaviour of rock art at Magheranaul, Doagh Island, where more complex motifs are associated with heavily jointed and cracked surfaces. Outside of the clustered rock art panels on Inishowen (and Mevagh), rock art in north Donegal is quite dispersed, and across the area, the motifs become more distinct and crowded in clustered areas of rock art. Two underlying factors account for the distribution and appearance of rock art in this region: 1) topographically distinct parts of the landscape are more likely to be associated with repeated carving activity, and include restricted, low-lying parcels of land (Doagh Island and Rosguill Peninsula), and distinct geological features (large outcropping ridges), and, 2) at the scale of stone surface, natural features including jointing lines and quartz were responded to in the production of rock art, giving rise to distinct motifs. Cuilcagh - Marine shelf facies Another smaller cluster of rock art is situated at the limits of a broad unit of Carboniferous limestone bedrock which is characterised by limestones and calcareous shales. A total of 42 recorded sites fall within this formation, with a majority of sites situated where this broad limestone and shale series meet the younger sandstones of Cuilcagh Mountain, close to the Marble Arch Caves (Figures 1 and 2). Hard limestones are a notable element of this landscape, characterised by the subsequent development of karst landforms, including swallow holes (water can be seen to disappear underground), springs or resurgences (water returns to the surface), dolines (enclosed depressions) and caves systems at Marble Arch and Reyfad. Superficial (primarily glacial) deposits are of further interest, as many non-limestone erratics, especially large sandstone boulders, have been incorporated into a variety of monuments (Kytmannow et al. 2008), and form the focus of rock art and other modification in the region. At a higher resolution, the idiosyncrasy of surfaces selected in the production of rock art in this region is interesting: frequently pedestals are a feature of these sites (a ‘pedestal’ effect is produced by the differential erosion between the protected limestone under the boulder and that of the wider countryside). Erratic sandstone boulders with limestone pedestals are often the focus of decoration, as well as boulders situated near sinkholes and other features of karst origin. The motifs typical of the region range from cups, cup-and-ring marks and dished or basin

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’ motifs, with several instances of rosette compositions. In general, these motifs occur in isolation, or seem to have been carved over time: no overall composition is apparent and the possible repeated use of these boulders is evidenced through the accumulation of motifs. In addition to typical rock art motifs, there are further instances of boulders exhibiting other forms of rock sculpting which are difficult to class within the known rock art tradition. The typical stone surfaces in the area appear to have been decorated on subsequent occasions, with repetition evidenced by the accumulation of motifs which border and occasionally superimpose each other. Rock art frequently marks the upper surface of boulders and slabs, but is most densely executed upon large, horizontal surfaces. The continued carving of surfaces is particularly well demonstrated at Reyfad, where the largest decorated slab is littered with cup, cup-and-ring and penannular motifs (Figure 4), and at Unshogagh in the Burren, where over 150 cupmarks saturate the boulder’s surface. Panels are most clustered to the north of Cuilcagh on mid altitude slopes, while a number of dispersed examples of rock art occur to the northeast of the Cuilcagh Mountains, close to the shores of Upper

Figure 4. Detail of the main decorated slab at Reyfad which is heavily decorated with an array of cup, cup-and-ring and penannular motifs. The rock art does not appear to conform to an overall design and suggests that the motifs accumulated through successive ‘carving events’

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Archaeology with Art and Lower Lough Erne. These dispersed examples of rock art are commonly not insitu and are decorated with cups and cup-and-ring marks, including two sandstone slabs at Drumlyon and Eshbralley. As well as motifs typical of the broad cup-and-ring tradition, the elevated panels closest to Cuilcagh are also characterised by distinct rosette and penannular motifs. The local geological and topographic character of the locality may have been a focal point for prehistoric communities in the production of rock art. Mountainous slopes and water bodies contribute to orchestrating movement through the region and the rock art most frequently occurs in association with limestone pedestals, close to or in the line of sight of karst features including sink holes and small cave openings, features which are all distinctly characteristic to this region. In addition to motifs which are typical of the cup-and-ring repertoire (e.g. cups, rosettes and penannular rings), a further 36 instances of boulders exhibiting other forms of rock sculpting have been identified within the Cuilcagh material (Burns and Nolan 2011). These interactions with stone surfaces include the definition of a lip along the boulder’s edge and the creation of hollows or basin features at the apex or corners of the stone’s surface. While the Cuilcagh sandstone is not calcareous, the latter are not regular enough in execution to be considered cupmarks, but their repeated presence on boulders across the region suggests these are at least partially anthropomorphic in origin. In addition, many of these boulders were also rotated, or the limestone below was undercut, or choke stones were inserted, creating visually striking profiles. There are three distinct features of the Cuilcagh rock art: 1) the distinctive nature of the pedestal rocks (Kytmannow et al. 2008, 4), alongside the characteristic karst landscape features, 2) the deliberate shaping and repositioning of the sandstone erratics, which potentially functioned as a means of creating visually striking space between the limestone and sandstone surfaces, and 3) similar rock art motifs are present throughout the area, and the quantity and diversity of motifs on individual surfaces, as well as the presence of other forms of sculpture (including the creation of a lip or groove along the upper edge of the sandstone), become more dense in areas of clustered panels. Further work is required to classify and comprehend the dynamics of human interaction with stone surfaces in the area. However, the presence of potential sculptings in conjunction with definite rock art on at least 20 boulders suggests a link between these practices (although their chronological relationship remains elusive). Regional Expressions Exploring the geological character of two distinct clusters of rock art in Ireland has highlighted the complex ways in which prehistoric communities responded to the world around them, and several of these points are worth summarising here:

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’ there is a strong relationship between the frequency and form of rock art in certain, geologically distinct regions, suggesting that changes in the attributes of stone (colour, texture, inclusions) were responded to in prehistory; rock art in the landscape was often produced in characteristic places, including large domed outcrops, ridges, breaks in slope and so on, which were distinct from their wider surroundings; and finally, at a micro scale, the surface-scapes of individual rock art panels were often as distinctive and characteristic as their wider contexts. The significance of places in the landscape and the stone surfaces themselves may have enhanced the production of rock art, and the aim of the remainder of this paper is to synthesis the processes and decisions behind production (carving) in order to explore the ideology behind rock art. Ideas including artefact biographies, chaîne opératoire sequences and ethnographic considerations will also be drawn together to explore process, performative narratives, and the continued longevity of some site localities. Archaeologies of Art Archaeological approaches to the study of rock art, and of ancient art more generally, have frequently focused on symbolism, symbolic systems and the social consumption of visual properties, often at the expense of the processes or ideology behind art production (discussed by Jones 2006: 212-5; Ouzman 2001). Treating art as a form of ‘visual communication’ assumes that the intent of art in the past was to passively communicate ideas or knowledge (Corbey et al. 2004). ‘As a text metaphor, rock-art can be viewed as a mute, physical externalization of knowledge’ (Goldhahn 2002: 32), and so if we simply treat images as analogies or cues for stored information, we are being overly reductive in regards to their potential reference to cosmologies and mythologies, social circumstances and even the agency of the carvers (or artists) themselves. Within the framework of rock art studies, it is becoming apparent that rock art did not simply rely on visual properties, and the representation and incorporation of natural geological features within carved panels discussed in this paper (and further afield), certainly supports this. The visual can be immediately consumed, but imagery may obtain hidden meaning through processes of application, and more ephemeral rites, which remain unseen in the archaeological record today. For instance, Gell (1998: 3) has argued that an ‘anthropology of art’ must primarily consider production, circulation and reception of art to be viable. In a similar vein,

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Archaeology with Art Nash (2002) has likened ‘art activities’ to performances, composed of acts bound in rituals, and has drawn upon Munn’s analogy of the symbolic organisation and process of canoe production on the island of Gawa, located in the Massim region of Papa New Guinea (Munn 1977, 1982), in his interpretation of prehistoric rock art practices.  

The process of Gawa canoe production sees the transformation of inanimate materials (i.e. natural, static andMotifs Present heavy) to animate vessels (i.e. mobile, animated and Regional  Rock Art  Use of Natural Features Observed? 1 alive) various  stages of design, construction and exchange. Interestingly, it Geology through Lithology is with the application of painting and mobile attachments that the canoe’s surface Cuilcagh –  is transformed49 – sandstone  within Gawan society. The emerging6 sites have a worked lip or other  visual images and adornments 26 – cupmarks                        modification, while an additional 30 sites  (Fermanagh/  erratics –  include representing birds and their ‘buoyanthave no ‘rock art’ but other modification qualities’ (images incorporate 2  18 – cup‐and‐ring                  Cavan  figurespreference for  5 – rosettes with cup/  birds, meandering and spiral-like motifs), whichRosettes and penannular rings are  further add to the thematic Limestones)  large erratics next  Carboniferous   to Cuilcagh  common in the region.  properties of motion and light.ring  The additional adornment of kula shells (a powerful item of exchange) act to further transform, and even humanise the surface. The 12 – cupmarks/ disc              At Carrowreagh, radial motifs tend to  Doagh Island –  Carrowreagh  canoe takes onDonegal:  20 –  anthropomorphised properties andfollow the direction of slope (only  is identified with the human Argyll and  4 – cup‐and‐ring/ disc           body, becausepsammite/ quartz  of their shared4 – cup‐and‐ring with  beautification with applicable to 4 sites) At Magheranaul, 15  adornment/ decoration (Munn Appin Groups  schist  sites incorporate natural features  Psammitic &  radial  1982: 145-147).  

pelitic schists, 

Magheranaul 

26 – cupmarks/ disc3            

including the incorporation of natural 

hollows and the use of fissures to  quartzite and  Through its production, encodes the 3 identity of its producer, and the Donegal:  64 –  the canoe 20 – cup‐and‐ring/ disc       truncate, elaborate or divide motifs. The  Gneiss  producer’s relationships with others. Nash (2002) has argued that the rock surface schist/ schistose  12 – including enclosure/  incorporation of natural features is most  3   psammite                   5 – with each itself is similarly mediated andradial transformed stage of rock art production striking at surface which incorporates  3   cartouche or enclosure motifs.  and associated interaction withincluding cartouche rock art surfaces and/or sites. From surface choice and its preparation, to the production and use of a site, meaning (and ritual) is   applied and the surface is reinterpreted with each stage of interaction (Nash 2002: Table 00.1: Regional preferences for surfaces and motifs in the survey area. Note:  188-189; see Table 2). With reference to the rock art sites 1Indicates the lithology of the  presented within this actual carved surfaces, as opposed to the character geology of the area.  2Burren natural carvings ‐ an  paper, however, it is argued that the natural surface cannot be treated as inanimate. additional set of modifications include, but are not exclusive to: splitting and repositioning boulders, the  For instance, Jones (2007) has argued that material culture, including inscription definition of a rim or lip around the boulder’s edge, and the elongation of natural cracks and hollows to create  3 and rock art, is much more than a symbolic device or unit of information. Rather, anthropomorphic forms.   Data compiled from field observations where possible and van Hoek (1986, 1988,  and 1993).  the treatment of artefacts (i.e. colour, texture and design), acts as a form of multisensory mnemonic trace: for rock art, this is the difference between art being laid   upon a blank surface, and the surface offering the artist cues for action and response   (Jones 2007: 197-198).

Rock Surface 

 

                                →→→       Natural 

 

Preparation   

 

       →→→ 

     Synthetic 

 

Application   

 

Use and reuse 

      →→→ 

  Humanising 

 

Creating a history 

 

Table 2. The rock surface is mediated and transformed with each stage of use and reuse in Table 00.2: The rock surface is mediated and transformed with  each stage of  use  and reuse in  the  the production ofart.  rock art. Likened to the symbolic process ofcanoe  Gawan canoe production, production  of  rock  Likened  to  the  symbolic  process  of  Gawan  production,  meaning  is  meaning is applied to the surface with each stage of interaction, transforming the applied to the surface with each stage of interaction, transforming the natural to the animate (after  natural to the animate (after Munn 1976, figure 4 and Nash 2002, figure 9.7). Munn 1976, figure 4 and Nash 2002, figure 9.7).   

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’ Objects with History Recognition that cultural objects obtain dynamic biographies, which are gained through their explicit link to people and consequential social interactions, has been variously demonstrated by Gosden and Marshall (1999), Kopytoff (1986) and Munn (1976, 1982). A very tangible example of the way in which objects can collect significance and meaning, comes from the tabua (whale’s teeth) which are strung and worn around the neck in Fiji. Darkening with age through successive handling and exchange, ‘many owners become incorporated into the ivory, and the power of successive chiefly owners accumulates within the substance of the tooth’ (Gosden and Marshall 1999: 171). As a ritualised commodity, the tabua’s value is based on the longevity of exchange, which is physically indicated through colouration: the passage of time is visibly indexed (Gosden and Marshall 1999: 170-172; also discussed in Enlander 2014). The potential reuse of rock art sites in Ireland could be proposed in instances where motifs are crowded, or border and/or occasionally superimpose each other. Rock art panels including the cluster of carvings at Doagh Island, and the Culcaigh region, may have acted as a focal points in their respective regions: in both cases, the rock art in the surrounding landscape is certainly more dispersed, and these dispersed surfaces are less densely carved. The clustering of motifs (which may suggest discreet, successive events), demonstrates the longevity of carving events at these sites. The significance of place is emphasised through inscription in the first instance, and explicit reference to the naturally occurring forms through the positioning and appearance of the rock art. In reference to the rock art of the Kilmartin Valley, Jones (2007) has explored the possibility that already ancient marks at rock art sites (including natural cracks and mineral inclusion) were treated as marks of past agency. In other words, these were places with history, which were recognised due to the presence of natural features (i.e. natural striations, polishing, bruising, colouration); through the carving of rock art motifs upon such surfaces, the passage of time was being indexed. If rock art (like the tabua) indexed past human contact and communication, then interaction with these surfaces allowed the carver to constitute themselves in the present, while resonating deeply with those agents of the past. Through site reuse, these carved surfaces became indicators of their own lengthy biographies and testaments of past human interaction. Stone Places Natural places in the landscape, which were the focus of long term activities in the past, may have possessed specific qualities, which distinguished them from their

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Archaeology with Art surroundings (Bradley 2000). With reference to the distribution of Aboriginal rock art in Australia, Taçon (1999: 36-37) has suggested that ‘certain landscape features invoke common responses in human beings’, and has proposed four types of natural place where these responses are commonly invoked. These places include 1) parts of the landscape where ‘great acts of natural transformation’ are evident, 2) intersections in local geology or vegetation boundaries, 3) distinct or unusual landmarks, and 4) viewpoints which afford extensive and varied views of the landscape (Taçon 1999: 37). If areas of high carving activity present within the north of Ireland represent genuine clusters of rock art, then we might expect them to stand out in the ways Taçon has proposed. Both topographic forms and geological features have been argued to have played a role in structuring rock art distribution at Doagh Island and the Cuilcagh region, and these sites are often at, or around, distinct topographic features and landmarks. Carvers drew upon both macro and micro points of reference in the production of rock art. Macro features include the repeated selection of distinctive surfaces or places (i.e. rocky knolls, domed outcrops, hillocks, ridges or conspicuous boulders) and their selection suggests that individual topographic features were points of significance, even veneration in the prehistoric landscape. Micro features include elements of the rock surface itself (i.e. colour, texture, hollows, cracks and inclusions), features which may have been treated as traces of past agency. In Inishowen, carving activity is principally represented at Doagh Island, a restricted area of low-lying land quite separate from Inishowen itself. This tract of land is visibly bound by water, and the mountainous interior of Inishowen. In addition, the geological character of Doagh Island influenced the form and organisation of rock art, especially at Magheranaul, where tailed and grooved motifs are reminiscent of glacially derived striations. Other centres of carving activity include the Cuilcagh region, where the area’s geological history has given rise to a karst landscape, dotted with caves, sinkholes and spring resurgences, and large sandstone erratics which cap areas of the exposed limestone pavement. Processes of Interaction Phenomenological insights might allow us to explore the features of specific landscapes that may have moved people in the past, but we cannot hope to do more than grasp at the potential ideologies and emotive responses of prehistoric communities to the world around them. The physicality of carving motifs, however, must have reinforced very personal relationships with these locations. Rock art production (as with all such interactions with stone, clay and other materials) must have been a highly tangible undertaking, even a

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’ deeply sensory encounter (Ouzman 2001), and may have impacted upon the personal memories of those producing rock art and of the wider social memory of audiences. From the selection of a surface, to the ways geological features informed the rock art carved upon them, to the sensory experiences of production itself, the identity of surface and place, and to some extent the identity of communities (through personal memories and the impact of performance), are potentially open for consideration. Through the application of the principles of the chaîne opératoire technique to rock art sites, the stages or processes of individual site biographies (from conceptualisation to abandonment) might be considered. The chaîne opératoire sequence, most commonly applied to lithic technologies and systems of lithic reduction, is attributed to the French anthropologist LeroiGourhan (1993), and was devised as a means of highlighting the significance of process and cultural acts in the production of material culture. Actions are argued to be determined by cultural traditions and physical constraints, so that actions including bodily movement and artefact production are at once bound by cultural and physical acts (Table 3). By applying chaîne opératoire sequences to rock art analysis, the processes involved in mediating landscape through the creation of rock art could be explored. Natural places in the landscape may become significant over time through repeated human interaction, including visual interaction (where a feature attracts attention), bodily interaction (where a feature is physically traversed), and social interaction (where a feature becomes incorporated into social memory through storytelling, for instance). These natural places could also include individual stones and the natural features of stones. Through processes of interpretation and material engagement (including ephemeral acts which might not leave evidence in the archaeological record), individual places become socialised (Table 3). These stages of processes fit well with Bradley’s proposal that stone surfaces selected in the production of rock art did not necessarily become important with the addition of carving (1997: 213). Similarly, Alexander’s (2009) analysis of the superimposition of rock art in Valcamonica, Italy, suggests that more heavily inscribed stone surfaces were more likely to be revisited and re-inscribed, ultimately becoming recognised places through visibility and repeated interaction. Rock art production could then be categorised as an expression of both physical qualities and social knowledge, whereby motifs were informed by the physical qualities of individual stone surfaces, but carvings were also constrained by cultural traditions, and possibly by social identity and experiences.

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Table 3. simplified diagrams demonstrating (left) the dual importance of physical Table 00.3: simplified diagrams demonstrating (left) the dual importance of physical and cultural  and cultural acts in the production of material culture, whereby processes are acts in the production of material culture, whereby processes are bound by material qualities,  bound by material qualities, personal ability, cultural norms and social identity, personal ability, cultural norms and social identity, and (right) the stages involved in socialising the  landscape, whereby natural features become places over time through visual, physical or verbal  and (right) the stages involved in socialising the landscape, whereby natural interaction, and natural places become socialised through engagement.   features become places over time through visual, physical or verbal interaction, and natural places become socialised through engagement.  

Reference, Repetition and Re-use The two case studies presented within this paper have sought to demonstrate the ways in which humans interacted with stone surfaces in an animated way, through the production of rock art in the north of Ireland. By exploring the often subtle differences in the choice of specific sites and rock types, a long-term relationship between local communities and their local landscapes may have been present. Local communities were influenced by distinctive local geologies in the production of rock art, with rock art feeding back into the social memory of these very communities, giving rise to the gradual development of equally distinct rock art hubs. Through the interpretive methods presented above, a number of distinct processes or sets of behaviours have arisen and include practices of reference, repetition and reuse, which are summarised below. Reference - the manner in which motifs make reference to the qualities of stone or surface-scape in some way. This could include the division or arrangement of motifs across different areas of the surface (the carver responds to changes in surface level or jointing zones), the use of natural hollows, cracks or joints as integral design elements (cracks act as radial tails), or perhaps more subtly, the direction or aspect of the surface slope is incorporated (tails follow the slope), or motifs cluster around visible quartz veining or mineral inclusions. Rock art production also makes reference to parts of the local and distinct landscape through site selection, the acquisition, use and subsequent discard of stone tools, and through the use of images with wider cultural currency, which may make reference to distant places.

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’ Repetition - the process by which certain surfaces and/or sites become focal points or ‘centres’ of carving activity, and, at the same time, motifs and panel compositions are more likely to become regionally distinct. The longevity of individual sites is apparent where different carving events can be identified. Sequential events are particularly evident in instances of motif superimposition, but generally, few rock art panels appear to have been carved with one overall composition in mind. Surface attributes and previous carvings are referenced with each phase of rock art production, often giving rise to distinct motifs. Further surfaces in the immediate area may be decorated as a result of repeated engagement with a specific site, and more dispersed panels in the landscape could have functioned as extended elements of carving hubs. Reuse - the continual process of reuse results in specific sites having extended life histories. The use of sites over extensive periods of time gives rise to the idea of social or collective memory. On subsequent occasions of reuse, performative acts may be repeated (including carving and other ‘unseen’ rites) and surfaces are reinterpreted. Intermittent processes of reuse may result in the superimposition of motifs with stylistically different imagery, the quarrying of surfaces to reveal ‘fresh’ faces, and the incorporation of rock art in different contexts, including burials. Processes of reuse may occur naturally over the course of the Neolithic period, whereby the nature of repetition over extended periods of time, results in inconsistencies in carving form, depth and meaning. Alternatively, processes of reuse may mark the deliberate transformation of sites as a result of ideological change. Conclusions At a macro scale, this paper has explored the characteristics of the local landscapes associated with rock art sites in two distinct regions in the north of Ireland, and has demonstrated a strong correlation between rock art clusters and particular geological and topographic formations. Outcrops were the predominant surface selected in topographically restricted areas of north Donegal, where clustered rock art sites occur within the boundaries of the Termon Formation. Geological influences in north Donegal are particularly pronounced at Magheranaul, Doagh Island, and Mevagh, Donegal, where distinct surfaces were selected, and the natural topography and character of the stone-scape was incorporated into and informed the nature of carved motifs. At Cuilcagh, the unique karst terrain and equally unique pedestal boulders were referenced through carving practices at individual surfaces (where engagement with the rock took on a number of forms, all of which suggest the creation of space). Through the accumulation of rock sculptings and rock art, the Cuilcagh panels reflect a discrete centre of carving in the landscape.

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Archaeology with Art A combination of elements including particular geological formations and distinct outcropping or erratic surfaces and topographic features informed the recognition of distinctive landscapes. These places were selected as being unique within their regional surroundings, and these parts of the landscape became gradually important by virtue of repeated interaction and engagement. A range of mechanisms must have underpinned such choices, not least the social significance of these intimate landscapes. It seems likely that the identity of the local landscape feed into the identity of the rock art, with subsequent episodes of carving drawing upon the distinct nature of previous carvings, over time. The case studies presented have sought to demonstrate the ways in which humans interacted with stone surfaces in animated ways. At a basic level, the rock art motifs encountered across the areas investigated were, at the very least, informed by naturally occurring features on the rock surface. Through time, reference to both natural and cultural form was significant in the creation and maintenance of regionally specific traditions. Just like the tabua of Fiji, successive interactions were indexed on the rock surface, acting as physical indicators of their own biographies. Through the development of distinct rock art hubs, complete with characteristic geologies and carved motifs, the assertion of local identities could be negotiated. Additionally, rock art production itself must have been a highly tangible and profoundly sensory experience which, through the repeated use of surfaces, drew upon images of the past. Repetition in experiencing and interacting with these places must have had an acute effect in forming and transforming personal identities, the expressions of which were heightened, perhaps even legitimised through the carving process itself. References Alexander, C. 2009. Power in place: the case of superimposition of rock-art images at Pià d’Ort, Valcamonica. In, G. Nash and D. Gheorghiu (eds), The archaeology of people and territoriality: 269-85. Budapest, Archaeolingua. Bradley, R. 1997. Rock art and the prehistory of Atlantic Europe: signing the land. London, Routledge. Bradley, R. 2000. An archaeology of natural places. London, Routledge. Bradley, R. 2009. Image and audience: rethinking prehistoric art. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Burns, G. and Nolan, C. 2007. Prehistoric rock art in the Burren/Marlbank area. Archaeology Ireland, 21(2): 26-30. Corbey, R., Layton, R. and Tanner, J. 2004. Archaeology and Art. In, J. Bintliff (ed.) A Companion to Archaeology: 357-79. Oxford, Blackwell.

Enlander - The rock ‘artist’ Enlander, R. 2013, Prehistoric rock art and the cultural landscapes of the north of Ireland: a contextual and interpretive study. Unpublished PhD thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast. Enlander, R. 2014. Reference, repetition and re-use: defining ‘identities’ through carved landscapes in the north of Ireland. In V. Ginn, R. Enlander and R. Crozier (eds) Exploring prehistoric identity in Europe: our construct or theirs?: 125-38. Oxford, Oxbow. Evans, E. and Dawson, T. 2004. Rock art, identity and death in the early Bronze Age of Ireland and Britain. In V. Cummings and C. Fowler (eds) The Neolithic of the Irish Sea: materiality and traditions of practice 103-12. Oxford, Oxbow. Gell, A. 1998. Art and agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Goldhahn, J. 2002. Roaring rocks: an audio-visual perspective on hunter-gatherer engravings in northern Sweden and Scandinavia. Norwegian Archaeological Review, 35(1): 29-61. Gosden, C. and Marshall, Y. 1999. The cultural biography of objects. World Archaeology, 31(2): 169-78. Holland, C. and Sanders, I. (eds) 2009. The geology of Ireland. Second Edition. Edinburgh, Dunedin Academic Press. Jones, A. 2006. Animated images: images, agency and landscape in Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland. Journal of Material Culture, 11(1/2): 211-25. Jones, A. 2007. Memory and material culture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Jones, A., Freedman, D., O’Connor, B., Lamdin-Whymark, H., Tipping, R. and Watson, A. (eds) 2011. An animate landscape: rock art and the prehistory of Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland. Oxford, Windgather Press. Kopytoff, I. 1986. The cultural biography of things: Commoditization as process. In, A. Appadurai, (ed.) The Social Life of Things: 64-94. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Kytmannow T., Mens, E., Kerdivel, G., and Gunn, J. 2008. Creating Sacred and Secular Spaces. A study of the Glacial Erratics and Early Human Settlement in the Cavan Burren Landscape. Unpublished report for Cavan County Council. Mitchell, I., Cooper, M., McKeever, P. and McConnell, B. 2010. The classic geology of the north of Ireland. Belfast, Geological Survey of Northern Ireland. Munn, N. 1977. The sociotemporal transformations of Gawa canoes. Journal of the Society of Océanistes 33(54-55): 39-53. Munn, N. 1982. The fame of Gawa: a symbolic study of value transformation in a Massim (Papua New Guinea) Society. Durham, Duke University Press.

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Archaeology with Art Nash, G. 2002. The landscape brought within: a re-evaluation of the rockpainting site at Tumlehed, Torslanda, Göteborg, west Sweden. In G. Nash and C. Chippindale (eds), European landscapes of rock-art: 176-94. London, Routledge. O’Connor, B. 2006. Inscribed landscapes: contextualizing prehistoric rock art in Ireland. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University College Dublin School of Archaeology. Ouzman, S. 2001. Seeing is deceiving: rock art and the non-visual. World Archaeology 32(2): 237-56. Sharpe, K. 2007. Motifs, monuments and mountains: prehistoric rock art in the Cumbrian landscape. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Durham University. Sharpe, K. 2012. Reading between the grooves: regional variations in the style and deployment of ‘cup and ring’ marked stones across Britain and Ireland. In A. Cochrane and A. Jones (eds) Visualising the Neolithic: abstraction, figuration, performance, representation: 47-63. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 13. Oxford, Oxbow. Shee Twohig, E. 2012. Inside and outside: visual culture at Loughcrew Co. Meath. In A. Cochrane and A. Jones (eds) Visualising the Neolithic: abstraction, figuration, performance, representation: 125-139. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 13. Oxford, Oxbow. Taçon, P. 1999. Identifying ancient sacred landscapes in Australia: from physical to social. In W. Ashmore and B. Knapp (eds) Archaeologies of landscape: contemporary perspectives: 33-57. Oxford, Blackwell. van Hoek, M. 1987. The prehistoric rock art of County Donegal (part 1), Ulster Journal of Archaeology 18: 11-32.

J. Valdez-Tullett

Art, Materiality and Creativity: understanding Atlantic Rock Art Joana Valdez-Tullett,1 University of Southampton (UK) / CEAACP/ FCT (Portugal) Introducing the Case-Study: Atlantic Rock Art Although the term ‘Atlantic’ can be traced back to the mid-20th century, used by a number of authors (e.g. Lorenzo-Ruza 1951; MacWhite 1946) to describe a certain type of prehistoric artistic manifestations, it is Richard Bradley who in the 1990s consolidates the expression ‘Atlantic Rock Art’ (e.g. Bradley 1997). Even though it may not be universally used by every rock art researcher, it is generally accepted that it refers to a specific style of prehistoric carvings characterized by its curvilinear-based iconography. Cup-and-ring motifs, cup-marks, circles, spirals, rosettes, pennanulars, wavy lines, labyrinths, are amongst the most wellknown designs included in this type of iconography (Figure 1). Imagery such as this can be found in a number of modern countries that share borders with the Atlantic Ocean, from which the rock art takes its name, namely southern Scotland, western and northern England and southern Ireland, western France, north-western Spain and Portugal. Despite the apparent similarities, and the fact that many authors consider this to be a unitary phenomenon, there are differences across these regions, including the morphologies of the motifs themselves. For example, in Iberia circular configurations such as cup-and-rings or concentric circles share the area with iconographic figures of animals (Figure 2), like horses and deer, weapons (mostly halberds and daggers) and even depictions of humans, usually represented in riding scenes. Occasionally this overlap of images also occurs on the rock surfaces themselves with animals and abstract motifs appearing side by side. Imagery of animals and weapons is more widespread in the modern province of Galicia (Spain), although some examples can be found in the north of Portugal, to the south of the river Minho, which today separates both countries. It should be noted, however, that currently the southernmost evidence of Atlantic Rock Art sits in the river Vouga basin, c. 300 km to the south of that watercourse. In this area, depictions of animals and weapons are yet to be identified, and the predominant figures are mostly circular configurations of large proportions. 1

[email protected]

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Figure 1. General view of Penedo dos Sinais, located in the outskirts of Citânia de Briteiros (Guimarães, Portugal). This example can be considered a ‘classic’ Atlantic Art composition. Photograph by CNART.

Virtually unknown to areas such as the British Isles, some authors establish comparisons between the carved animals and weapons of Iberia with the imagery of Scandinavian countries and the European Alps, where weapons, labyrinths and idols are also known (Fredell 2013:33). However, there are no hard evidences for these associations and further studies are required to fully understand the possible connections between the rock art traditions of these regions. Furthermore, there seems to be chronological discrepancies between these groups of carvings. In general, Atlantic Rock Art is depicted on open-air outcrops and said to be located halfway up slopes, on platforms, often commanding extensive west-facing views, associated with areas of good pasture and potentially overlooking areas for settlement (e.g. Alves 2003; Bradley 1997). The microtopography of rocks often allows the free circulation of people and authors tend to describe the proximity of watercourses as an important element to have in mind (e.g. Bettencourt 2010). The Atlantic Rock Art tradition consists solely of carvings, since paintings have yet to be found. Motifs are often organised in complex compositions but a large number of surfaces bear isolated figures, amongst which cup-marks are probably the most common.

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity

Figure 2a and 2b. Example of an animal depiction on Laje das Fogaças (Lanhelas, Portugal). Photographs by Joana Valdez-Tullett.

Although in some cases carved rocks may seem to be isolated, they can be part of larger clusters of decorated outcrops. The general characterization of Atlantic Rock Art described above is accepted by a majority of researchers. Having been identified since early stages in the mentioned countries (e.g. Martin Sarmiento 1750; Sarmento 1878; Simpson 1867; Tate 1865), the biography of Atlantic Rock Art research is long, but nonetheless fragmentary and disconnected. In fact, the history of investigation reflects a series of political and cultural issues. This is evident, for example, in the terminology used to refer to this tradition of prehistoric carvings, which varies considerably depending on geographical, political and chronological context. In the British Isles the most common term by which the phenomenon is know is ‘Cup-and-Ring marks’ or ‘British Rock Art’ (e.g. Beckensall 1999; Sharpe 2007), whereas in Galicia the regional importance ascribed to the carvings is evident in designations such as ‘Galician Petroglyphs’ or ‘Group of Galician rock Art’ (e.g. Peña Santos and Rey García 2001; Sobrino Buhígas 1935 [2000]). These are demonstrative of a sense of regionalism, neglecting to include occurrences just outside of their borders. In fact, this absence is only complemented in the 1980’s by Portuguese scholars who, recognising similarities between the evidence in Galicia and in their own territory, adopt the expression ‘Galician-Portuguese Group of rock art’ Baptista 1980). Following this example, other issues continue to hinder our understanding of Atlantic Rock Art. In this sense, this paper is the result of a combination of research projects. On one hand, it springs from a much needed redefinition of the concept of Atlantic Rock Art, but also directed to the understanding of art in the past through its practice, process and gestures (Valdez-Tullett and Chittock 2015).

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The nature of Rock Art: Initial remarks The category of ‘art’ is problematic (DeMarrais and Robb 2013:5) and rock art is a difficult subject to investigate. Due to its nature it has been kept separately from mainstream archaeology for a long time and rarely included in broader studies. The inability to ‘read’ the signs that are depicted on the walls of caves or outcrops leads to a great amount of inferences that authors put forward, sometimes with very little archaeographical validation. For this reason, many interpretations have been developed about rock art but only recently have these sites begun to be seen as potential sources of information about past societies. Traditional studies of rock art were mostly concerned with the description of the motifs and further typological classification, more often than not ignoring the material media upon which these were depicted and the general environment. Today we acknowledge the importance of the landscape and the fact that typologies contribute very little to the understanding of rock art. Current research attempts to be more careful and systematic, inasmuch as there are efforts to ensure that methodologies used are in accordance with archaeological rigour. As a result, studies have been taken more seriously and the investigation of rock art is growing. Along with other types of material culture, rock art is an element created by humans in their process of enculturation of the environment. Whether performed during Prehistory or today, there seems to be an inherent need for the human species to use visual markers. The reasons for this are varied and often unknown. However, the presence of rock art in most corners of the world, dating from every chronological period, is demonstrable of this desire to create symbols, of countless natures, inscribed upon various types of media (e.g. Clottes 2002). Unlike the anthropologist, often with direct access to oral sources of information about their study object, to the archaeologists the cognitive processes that lie behind acts of creation of artefacts or other types of material culture are sealed. Nonetheless, what anthropologists and archaeologists often understand as ‘art’ includes a set of images and artefacts produced for a number of uses, that surpasses our current understanding of art (DeMarrais and Robb 2013:5). This paper concerns the process that gave life to symbols on the rocks, the movement, the actions and the gestures involved. I disagree with Paul Klee (1973:268 cit. Ingold 2008) in that ‘Form is the end, death’, once something

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity is done and the performance that made it into being is over. Even if this is the most important stage of the process, the object - in this specific case rock art - has a life of its own, and often a long biography, or even itinerary (DíazGuardamino 2015). In fact, motifs carved on rocky surfaces often prevail through a lifetime of generations, with which they interact. A Work of Art: the metaphor Although new methodologies are being developed and applied, authors agreeing that more holistic approaches should be taken, efforts are still not enough to understand rock art. In the specific case of Atlantic Rock Art, it is yet to be known who depicted the motifs, when and why. Whilst the answers to these questions probably lie in a broader and more complex approach to the subject, in this paper I propose that we look into it in the light of art theory. The aim being to explore the engagement of people and the act of creation, in this case, the making of rock art, in an attempt to capture the Humanity behind it. In fact, too often does Archaeology forget that behind its study objects lie the hidden hands of humans. I will attempt to assess rock art ‘reading it backwards’ (Ingold 2008:17) in what Gell called ‘abduction of agency’, the analysis starting from the outcome of the artistic process and ending with the idea in the mind of the agent who produced it (Gell 1998). Although Ethnography and Anthropology have demonstrated that the concepts of art, artist and artwork are absent in a number of societies, it is a fact that creation are creativity are human characteristics. Therefore when studying rock art, or any other type of archaeological evidence, data should not be reduced to plain numbers or a set of statistical characteristics. In this sense, far from desiring the establishment of a direct analogy, for the purpose of this paper, I will develop a metaphor in which rock art is portrayed as a work of art. Mostly inspired by Dewey’s (1934) and Kupfer’s (1984; 2003) work, this entails a relationship between art and experience, composed by three different objects: the work of art (physical), the performance of the work of art (phenomenal), and the aesthetic object (phenomenological) (Kupfer 2003:61). In this perspective, the final physical object is important, but equally so is the experience as a whole yielded by the act of creation. This implies performance: of the artist, of the object and of the audience that perceives the physical object. In fact, Kupfer (2003:62) tells us that ‘...even the plastic arts must be performed. Ir is just that their performance tends to be more subtle and less noticeable than the performance of such temporal arts as music and dance’. He continues explaining that ‘we perform paintings, sculptures, and buildings by deciding where to place them as well as how to perceive them’, and therefore the performance of an artwork is not limited

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Archaeology with Art to its maker. Following on from this idea, it seems plausible to consider that rock art can experience a never-ending performance, since natural and biological processes affect it throughout its existence, but also because most sites are constantly being experienced by people who randomly pass by. In many cases rock art sites may be unknown to the scientific community but have, nonetheless, been appropriated and incorporated into the lives of current populations. Often they become landmarks with associated narratives and legends that are created and passed on in oral tradition. Kupfer draws an analogy between these thoughts, memories and other intangible objects that persist within individuals and physical works of art which are performed when passed on from one generation to the next (Kupfer 2003:63-64). It is then easy to understand why I chose this metaphor as an approach to explore the nature of rock art. What emerges from this discussion is that even if made to oneself, rock art is the result of a creational process that eventually was experienced by a sole or a number of contemporary and/or subsequent individuals. In fact, it is still experienced by different types of audiences today. As such, the making and the performance of rock art can be assessed by the viewpoint of the artist, the audience, and indeed as the final physical object as well. This perspective accords somewhat with Ingold’s definition of thing, influenced by Heidegger, to whom the object is a ‘fait accompli’ (1971:167) as opposed to the thing, a ‘going on’. A thing, therefore, is never finished and kept alive. Although rock art may appear to have a static character, in fact, since its creation, has also been in a constant state of transformation: not only does it suffer natural processes of erosion, cultural transformations and additions, also its interpretation changes depending on the social and cultural background of the audience. The making of Rock Art: a process Rock art is a visual and tactile manifestation created by humans and, although often associated with past societies, it has been performed all over the world since very early periods until today. It is characterised by the inscription of images, typically through the techniques of painting and/or carving, on hard surfaces such as rocks. At this point, something must be said about the expression ‘rock art’ as, by definition, it limits the ascription of the depiction of these motifs to rocky surfaces. However, one should recognise that the same imagery could have been applied to other types of surfaces such as trees, leather, skin, etc., although we lack archaeological confirmation for this suggestion. The earliest representations to be (re)found, recognized and reported for their ancestry were the paintings of the Cave of Altamira in the 19th century. Confronted by the accuracy and anatomical perfection of the animal depictions various authors

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity doubted their prehistoric authenticity, which is hardly surprising at a time when the concept of Evolution was in the process of acceptance and prehistoric populations were seen as under-developed. The high quality of images led to the idea that they were the work of artists and the cave their art gallery. Today we know that cave paintings were probably not made as ‘Art for Art’s sake’, despite the fact that we still call it ‘rock art’. This term bears a heavy baggage and although there have been attempts to use other expressions, no other suggestions seems to fully encompass what we mean by ‘rock art’. In general, carvings do not provoke such awe in observers. Clearly, the use of painting or carving will determine the final product, being constrained by the limits of each technique’s nature. The different practices will produce different phenomenal experiences for the artist during the creation of their work. Although not everyone has the talent to paint well, it is undeniable that most of us are capable of producing scribbles when given the necessary tools, such as pigments, brushes, fingers, hands, an empty surface. Painting something specific is, indeed, a different challenge, requiring a certain asset of skills that may be more or less developed within each of us. Several editions of an outreach activity of Cave Painting conducted at the University of Southampton, in which audiences of all ages took part, have shown this to be true. Similarly, pecking randomly with a stone (or other) against a rocky surface may leave a mark, but carving a specific motif implies skill, time and a deep knowledge of the appropriate tools to use. We do not know whether Atlantic Rock Art was painted as well as carved. There are evidences in other styles of prehistoric art suggesting the use of a combination of techniques (e.g. Baptista 2008:72;2 López Sáez et al. 2010: 42;3 Silva 2003: 273).4 Whilst this is certainly a possibility, the assumption is also hard to prove. Although we cannot confirm the use of both techniques simultaneously in open-air contexts, since the pigments would have disappeared due to exposure to the elements, the option of engraving the motifs was certainly a deliberate and calculated act. Whilst generally this option is interpreted as a desire to produce something that would endure in time, Ingold (2013) suggests that perhaps this preference is not necessarily due to the hardness and durability of the stones, but quite the opposite, to make use of its fluidity and mutability. This assumption is also true for Megalithic Art, in which examples of motifs depicted with both techniques are known. Baptista refers to the Palaeolithic painted and carved aurochs of Faia. Madorras 1 is another megalithic monument located in the north of Portugal (Sabrosa, Vila Real), known for having a combination of the two techniques on its orthostat 7. 4 Silva refers to the megalithic monuments of Chão do Brinco and Afife, both located in Viana do Castelo (north of Portugal), with carvings and paintings simultaneously depicted on the orthostats. 2 3

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Archaeology with Art To carve on a rocky surface implies a prior knowledge and experience of the behaviour of the media whilst being worked upon as well as the appropriate tools. However, to paint or to be a painter, certainly during Pre-history, also implied an intricate knowledge of natural components that once mixed would become pigments with the right hue, texture and density, to use on wall paintings. The mastery of this knowledge was most certainly what allowed the paintings to endure for thousands of years. The Material Medium There are probably many reasons underlying the choice of why a certain place and a certain type of rock was used for painting and/or carving. Most of these reasons are hidden from us. One can speculate about what kind of characteristics attracted Prehistoric artists towards an outcrop where they wished to deploy their art: the colour, texture, roughness, smoothness, heat, cold, brilliance (Bradley 2009:45; Tilley 2008:39), etc. Features such as these seemed to have been significant in the selection of raw materials for the making of certain kinds of artworks, some authors adding that other qualities like the sounds produced by the different materials would influence the choice as well (Bradley 2009:45). The final product of a painting performed on a schist or limestone surface is also arguably different from another depicted on a rugged texture such as granite. Examples of such differences can be found amongst the Côa Valley5 Upper Palaeolithic6 rock art. Thousands of motifs on the river banks of this watercourse were carved, between the Upper Palaeolithic, the Iron Age and historical periods, on smooth, vertical schist surfaces, notwithstanding the fact that this is the main natural geology of the region. However, in Faia, located in the southern stretch of the valley, a geomorphological change develops into a rather inaccessible granite canyon where eighteen panels were also decorated with prehistoric images (Baptista 1999). Most of these bear Palaeolithic figures such as aurochs, but Faia also holds some of the best examples of the Côa’s Late Prehistoric rock art with red In the northeast region of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro in Portugal, the river Côa running from a south – north direction flows into the Douro river. The margins of this watercourse are well known for their schist outcrops with vertical surfaces facing each side of the river banks. From c. 25 000 BP onwards these panels were used as canvases where thousands of images were carved. Not only were they used during the Upper Palaeolithic, but the ‘artistic cycle’ (Baptista,1999) of the Côa Valley includes imagery carved and painted during the Neolithic as well as the Iron Age but also throughout modern periods until the 20th century. The 17 km of open-air rock art have been studied since the 1990s, when the first rocks were discovered, and the area was declared a World heritage Site by UNESCO in 1998, after the creation of the Archaeological Park of the Côa Valley (PAVC). 6 In this paper I will not be debating the controversial definition of ‘Upper Palaeolithic’. Here, the expression will be used indiscriminately to refer to the European period extending from c. 45 000 to 10 000 BC. This period incorporates the following cultural divisions: Chatelperronian (~40 000 – 34 000 BP), Aurignacian (~45,00029,000 BP), Gravettian/Upper Perigordian (29,000 - 22,000), Solutrean (22,000 - 18,000 BP), Magdalenian (17,000-11,000 BP), Azilian/Federmesser (13,000-11,000 BP). These are based on stone and bone tool assemblages and technologies, corresponding to regional variants. 5

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity coloured paintings of humans and other schematic motifs (Baptista 1999; 2008). Although the majority of the Palaeolithic depictions in the valley are made with very fine incisions, these are absent from the Faia rocks, where pecking prevails. In fact, to obtain such detailed images with fine incisions as the ones that can be found in this region seems virtually impossible to accomplish on a surface such as granite. The peculiarity of Faia lies on some of its most noticeable carved aurochs, some of which are facing the observer and others painted with red pigments. These have been interpreted as evidence to support the suggestion that the Palaeolithic images spread across the valley could have been simultaneously engraved and painted (e.g. Baptista 1999). The hypothesis is valid, especially since examples of this combination are known to Palaeolithic cave art. However, in this specific case it is more likely that this is a case of appropriation in which the Neolithic artists, having identified the ancient carvings, painted their own symbols alongside these, and occasionally on top of, the aurochs, as well as tracing them with red pigments, making the images more visible. It seems obvious that the type of rock chosen for decoration would greatly influence the outcome of the practice and therefore the selection of the media was an important decision to be made by the practitioner. Ultimately, this choice could be conditioned by the local geology. Granite is naturally different and usually motifs depicted on such rocks tend to have been made with larger grooves that were perhaps deeper in their origin. This also means, as we have seen previously, that granite is not very amenable to keeping images with many details, such as the ones mentioned for the Côa Valley where, in some cases, specificities of the animals’ anatomy were carved, such as the snouts and hooves (i.e. aurochs on rock 3 and horse on rock 12 of Canada do Inferno; several animals on rock 3 of Penascosa; ibex on rock 3 of Quinta da Barca). Many of the engravings depicted on schist convey a sense of dynamics and movement which is mainly achieved due to the characteristics of the rock, allowing for details. Such is the case of the Palaeolithic Cavalo do Mazouco (Freixo de Espada-à-Cinta) (Jorge et. al. 1981), the first image of this kind ever to be found in Portugal. This horse was carved with great detail. The mane is well defined and according to early interpretations its eye is also depicted. Whilst the rest of the snout has been truncated by an interruption on the surface, the prominent lower jaw is still visible. Its pronounced belly is highlighted by a double line and the anterior legs, one in front of the other, demonstrate the movement of the animal. One of the hoofs on the posterior legs has also been represented and the depiction of the genitalia elucidates the gender of the horse. His tail is large although the groove is faint in this area and lacks completion (Jorge et al. 1981:6). Granite, even when fine grained, would be too rough for carving with this type of precision. Atlantic Rock Art can have a particularly striking three-dimensional character. As suggested by Ingold it seems as though the artists would make use of the

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Archaeology with Art malleability and the form of the outcrops to carve their circular imagery (2013). In this case, however, the hylomorphic model of creation (Ingold 2008), in which form come to be seen as imposed by an agent while matter, passive and inert, is imposed upon (Ingold 2008:3), does not appear to apply. In Atlantic Rock Art matter has an active role in the determination of the form, although there seems to be a compromise between agent and matter in order to obtain the desired final result. The three-dimensionality was often successful through the use of concave and convex features of features of the natural surfaces, that the images seem to embrace. In some cases the final result resembles that of a sculpture, as seen in Penedo dos Sinais (Guimarães, Portugal) where a complex composition of circles and other circular motifs embrace a protrusion of the outcrop’s nearly flat surface (Valdez & Oliveira 2005/2006). The regularity of the Atlantic Rock Art shapes suggests that the motifs were well adapted to the media. The practitioner, however, would have to be very familiar with the character and morphology of the surfaces to carve and be able to envisage the motifs, as well as the final result and pre-determine the process to achieve it. A previous petrographic study of an outcrop carved with the so-called Atlantic motifs in Portugal (Monte da Saia, Barcelos, Portugal) demonstrated that the core of the rock was very altered and therefore the hardness of the granite in reality did not correspond to its solidity suggested by the surface (Valdez-Tullett and Chittock 2015). Could the authors of the carvings have been aware of this and deliberately chosen this outcrop amongst all others because it would be potentially easier to carve? The Setting Rock art as an archaeological evidence comprises a number of particularities. One of the most striking, and probably the one that influences most of the perception we have from it, is the fact that, in most cases, it endures stable and steady in the landscape. This characteristic enables rock art to remain on display for all those travelling the landscape, even today (Fowles and Artenberry 2013:71). Although rocks can be broken and decorated blocks can be moved around, a great number of these decorated surfaces still stand on the same places in which they were created. Almost certainly, their environs have changed over time, with natural and cultural processes affecting their local environments. Although rock art is generally static, apart from the occasions when it is deliberately moved, landscape dynamics change its topographic characteristics. For example, the blockage of one cave entrance with the opening of a new point of access can change the location of a decorated panel, from near the entrance to one that is deeper and more restricted. Similarly, some sites created in coastal areas are today submerged, such as the rock art

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity discovered in the banks of the rivers Douro and Tagus (Portugal), flooded due to the construction of hydroelectric dams. There are even examples of prehistoric carved rocks embedded in modern urban fabrics (e.g. Castriño de Conxo, Galicia, Spain). The landscape setting is currently acknowledged as an important feature in rock art studies. Apart from the motifs carved on stones, the landscape is the only other element in direct association with rock art. In many cases the imagery seems to be placed in locations with some kind of significance and some authors have suggested that the proximity of archaeological sites of other typologies, but also natural features such as waterlines, pastures, specific geomorphological elements such as mountains or fertile valleys, may have prompted the decision to place the images on a specific outcrop (Figure 3). Landscape approaches also allow inferences about rock art’s social role attending to the location of the outcrops. Furthermore, rock art setting will influence the perspective of the site’s audiences. The way a certain place is perceived is obviously affected by the features of its neighbouring elements, being them cultural or natural. The personal experience of a site also depends on how we choose to perceive it: the pattern of circulation, the distance we decide to look at it from, the time of the day, etc. (Kupfer 2003:62). All

Figure 3. A large cup-and-ring motif embraces a granite boulder at Monte dos Fortes (Valença, Portugal). Photograph by Joana Valdez-Tullett.

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Archaeology with Art these personal decisions, however, will be determined by the initial positioning of the artwork, or in this case, where the artists decided to carve and paint their symbols. Rock art located inside a cave or in open-air contexts by a river bank will provide completely different experiences, even if the portrayed motif is similar. A good example of this is Palaeolithic Art, in which the same types of motifs are depicted both in deep dark caves but also in the wider landscape. This difference provokes a completely different perception of the images, even if they are morphologically alike. The same can be said of motifs of Atlantic Rock Art repertoire, found in open-air outcrops as well as some examples of similar Megalithic Art. Not only does location influence the audience’s perception, it affects the experience of the artist as well. As seen above, the gestures of painting and carving are essentially different due to the type of tools implied in the practices, but also the physical engagement necessary to perform these actions. The duration of each process was probably different as well. Painting inside a cave would involve logistics, for example, regarding carrying the necessary materials into the chosen gallery and managing light conditions. In some cases individuals would not be able to stand up and perform their actions, obviously limiting the way they painted or carved. Even when making rock art in open-air environments the artists would encounter constraints caused by the location of the panels chosen for carving. Surfaces located in steep slopes, flat on the ground, nearby watercourses, would influence their movements and gestures. Occasionally some of the most inaccessible places were chosen. Whilst this selection could have been related with accessibility ‘rules’ for audiences, it would have greatly affected the logistics involved in performing the rock art. In the Côa Valley it is common to find perfectly accessible and smooth surfaces available to carve that were ignored in determent of the top of panels or others difficult to reach, leading researchers to wonder how did artists managed to carve in such detail on those places. Finally, the setting of a decorated rock influences not only performance, but also interpretation. This is evident on the examples for the Comanche rock art, where places for depiction would be carefully chosen depending on the final purpose of the artworks. In this case, the act of carving held important social roles, used to praise the military actions of Comanche warriors, to bestow prestige and honour for their bravery or depict battle scenes. In some cases the representations cut onto the rocky surfaces were accompanied by narrations and performances presented to small audiences. Other examples refer to the motion of galloping horses or as an extension of the Plains Signs Language (PSL)7 tradition (Fowles and Artenberry 7 Plain Signs Language (PSL) tradition was a lingua franca. It would be used to facilitate the trade, alliances and the circulation of information across the plains in a period of transition in which the use of horses was transforming mobility and contributing for an increase of frequency of encounters amongst groups that would speak different languages (Fowles and Artenberry 2013: 75).

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity 2013:73-79). In all cases, the act of carving seemingly had an important function in the communication of relevant information for the Comanche communities. In conclusion, the setting of a decorated rock is a fundamental feature to take into consideration along with the material medium in which the images are depicted, as one cannot be understood except in relation to the other (Tilley 2008:20). The addition of landscape analysis in rock art studies opens important avenues of investigation that contribute for a wider and comprehensive understanding of rock art in its natural, but perhaps more importantly social and cultural places. Creating Rock Art: the gesture and the performance The original motivations behind the creation of rock art are not available to the archaeologist. However, other strategies may enlighten us regarding the essence and the underlying nature of prehistoric depictions. Such is the case of the reconstruction of the gestures used to produce paintings and carvings, occasionally recovered from the archaeological record. Experimental Archaeology, in particular, has been widely used as a means to understand the processes through which artefacts were made, food was consumed and structures were built, in the past. With regards to rock art, Experimental Archaeology can contribute to identify the tools that were used to carve, to paint, to sculpt; to recognise which tools were used to attain specific results; the intensity and energy expenditure needed to perform each of these actions (see Skoglund, this volume). In general, Experimental Archaeology is very useful not only for providing an idea of the degree of difficulty involved in creating art, but also offering an insight into tools and techniques, contributing for a better understanding of the material media. Furthermore, by re-enacting the making of rock art, it is also possible to recover gestures. Traditional methods of recording rock art gradually brought the archaeologist into a greater physical involvement with the material media in which motifs are depicted leading, in turn, to the development of more sophisticated questions concerning gestures and performances. The study of rock art involved many hours of attentive observations. The motifs are often weathered and therefore difficult to perceive visually. What we see varies according to the time of the day, sunlight conditions or the use of artificial lighting systems (especially when used at night) to create a ‘game of shadows’ that highlight the shapes on the stones, making them more visible. Due to the nature of the study object the student of rock art engages deeply with the carved rocks using not only their eyes, but often the tips of their fingers. Indeed, often motifs are not visible, but slight depressions can be felt, tactile exploration being the only way to trace some prehistoric images. Nevertheless, ‘tracing the outline of an image with the hands may be as significant as seeing it’ (Tilley 2008:45).

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Archaeology with Art During this course of investigation the researchers in a way re-enact the movements of the artist, by trying to decipher shapes, depths, techniques, superimpositions. There are several aspects that will influence the degree of difficulty in reading rock carvings: 1) Time. The older the carvings, presumably the more difficult it will be to identify the grooves due to long lasting weathering processes. Often these have heavy patinas that camouflage the motifs against the surfaces; 2) Material Medium. Some types of rocks suffer more from erosion than others and this will also influence the conservation of the carvings; 3) Technique. Pecked carvings are necessarily more visible than fine lined scratches due to their inherent morphology, regardless of their age. It should, however, be noted that perhaps there was an intentionality in keeping the motifs less visible by portraying them with a minimum impact technique, when other more intrusive ones could be used. This last point is particularly important. Fowles and Artenberry argue that the Comanche’s would create their rock art with fine lines that ‘move in very horse-like way across the rock surface’ (2013:74) as opposed to pecking, ‘since this technique with its “repeated staccato impact”, does not have any quality of the horse about it’ (Ibid.: 74). Similarly, in the Palaeolithic rock art of the Côa Valley, most of the surfaces were carved with very fine lines, which could be singular or multiple, creating an array of motifs. This can be interpreted as a matter of preference or need, since a number of figures were pecked onto other surfaces, demonstrating that the artists were capable of performing both techniques. Today, most of the images both composed of fine lines and peckings can be difficult to decipher by an inexperienced eye, but the former are often quasi invisible. The thorough analysis of surfaces, occasionally enables the identification of various moments of creation with the establishment of a vertical stratigraphy. This implies the identification of the order in which the grooves were inscribed. In 2010 a shelter (Figure 4) in the mouth of the river Tua (a subsidiary of the Douro, alike the Côa river) was scrutinized and documented in detail. The site is profoundly decorated and various types of rock art, from several periods, were identified (see Valdez-Tullett 2013). The first motifs to be acknowledged in this shelter were the red schematic paintings, a few years before. During the recording campaign, researchers initially started by identifying a number of panels with ‘devil’s claws’ motifs, present in almost every surface, namely inside the shelter. These are characterized by a fuse-like morphology and despite the controversial chronological ascription, can be situated within the the 3rd millennium BC (Valdez-Tullett 2013:364). The scrutiny of the shelter led to the much unexpected discovery of Palaeolithic motifs, one of the most important finds of this type of rock art in Portugal in recent years.

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity Not only is this the only known Palaeolithic rock art (so far) in this quite inhospitable valley, the motifs themselves are highly original, since the same body is being shared between different species (Figure 5). In Palaeolithic art it is common for an animal to have more than one head or too many pairs of legs, but usually these features belong to the same species. Whilst tracing the carved grooves we were able to identify three different moments of action in the Tua shelter. The first animal to be engraved was an aurochs, but with a very faint scratched groove. Using the body but adapting it slightly, and carved on top of its head, a horse was depicted, this time more evidently. Lastly, the Figure 4. Landscape setting o Monte dos same body was again adapted Fortes I (Valença, Portugal). Photograph by and on top of the horse’s head, by reusing some of its Joana Valdez-Tullett lines, a stag was carved, with excessively long antlers (Valdez-Tullett 2013). The reading and interpretation of this specific surface was only possible through a thorough observation of the motifs under different types of light and a detailed tracing of the gestures. While studying the Tua Valley shelter we often had to move from the inside to the outside of the shelter, kneeling and crouching to examine some of the panels, sometimes climbing up improvised ladders in order to observe the motifs carved on the higher surfaces. To record the Palaeolithic images we used a plank platform to support our bodies. This was necessary because some of the figures are depicted on the upper parts of the panel and it was difficult to look at them in detail from a lower position, and keep our arms extended to trace the grooves accurately (Figure 6). Having to manage the positions of our bodies thus is very suggestive of just how difficult it would have been to carve the motifs. Perhaps the artists were also using some kind of support, or the floor of the shelter could

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Figure 5. Location of the shelter in the mouth of the river Tua. Photo: by the author.

be higher at the time, although uncovered in later periods, a fact attested by the many fusiform motifs that cover these surfaces. The Audience and the Audience’s Experience The discussion, so far, leads us to the idea that rock art is the result of human performance and it can be phenomenologically perceived both by its maker and the audience. Ultimately the signs and images were made by people for people, whether a collectivity or an individual, although each observer interprets the work of art according to their own experience (Kupfer 2003) and cultural background. The study of rock art audiences is as pertinent as it is difficult to assess. It is also true that as prehistorians we cannot know who was allowed to visit, view, and understand the symbols on the rocks. Social determinations or rules could have been applied, regulating access to the carved rocks and mediation could have varied according to social status, gender and age (Bradley 2009:45). Further limitations of information could depend on the art itself, since not only abstract motifs would require interpretation, but figurative images can also have metaphorical meanings (Bradley 2009:45), but also on the people for whom it was destined. It seems likely that not all people were equally able to decode or appreciate the designs (DeMarrais and Robb 2013:16) and therefore art would have the capacity to unite, divide or reposition society (Bourdieu 1984). The

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity

Figure 6. Drawing of Panel 31 in the Tua shelter. Palaeolithic depiction of three different species sharing the same body. Drawing by Joana Valdez-Tullett and Joana Castro Teixeira.

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Archaeology with Art information conveyed by the iconography would be fully available for some individuals, whilst others would only have partial access to it. Some individuals would only have a superficial understanding of the images and to others meanings would be completely blocked. (Bradley 2009:45). The assessment of the location and landscape position of decorated sites may enable some conclusions regarding audiences (Bradley 2009). Depending on the setting, one can question whether the sites were supposed to be accessible to all, secluded on the landscape or visited only by those who had previous knowledge of their existence. The characteristics of the surroundings will often give clues on the type of audiences to whom the decorations were destined. However, it should be noted that even if the locations of the rock art allow for an ample audience, it does not mean that they were supposed to be visited by more than an individual, or an individual at a time. Even when located in the wider landscape, accessibility questions can be asked since some decorated rocks are apparently available to all by being placed near living features such as settlements or paths, whereas others would be difficult to reach and in positions that would not accommodate large

Figure 7. Moment of discovery and first examination of the panel with Palaeolithic rock art at the Tua shelter. The motifs are depicted on the top of the rocky surface demanding specific body positions for its observation. Photograph by Alexandre Lima.

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity numbers of people in their surroundings (Ibid:45). Examples from Comanche rock art in the Rio Grande Gorge (Taos, New Mexico), made in the 18th century, illustrate this variety of locations and associated purposes. The majority of panels were carved with very fine lines, making the motifs difficult to see but also to argue that they were meant to be viewed by wide audiences, since the only way to observe the figures would be to stand very close to the surfaces (Fowles and Artenberry 2013:72). Above all, the interaction with and understanding of a rock art site by its viewer depends greatly on their previous knowledge and cultural background. This would determine the degree of interpretation that the individual could draw from the symbols. Although some authors have suggested that the Palaeolithic rock art from the Côa Valley was a kind of ‘Public Art’ (Baptista 2008), since it is spread over numerous flat surfaces on the landscape, one should question just how public the engravings actually were, if most of them were made with very fine scratches, difficult to see? Even accepting that carved motifs were once more visible before the grooves suffered millennia of weathering, and taking account the development of patina that now disguises the potential contrast with the rock, the technique used still suggests an intimate performance. In fact, should the artists want, they could have carved with more invasive and robust techniques such as pecking and abrasion, then certainly making the motifs more visible. Are some rocks supposed to be seen by a wider audience whilst others were only intended to be visited or indeed simply observed by a restricted number of people that had privileged knowledge or, or access to, their locations? Furthermore, although the vast majority of carved panels in the Côa Valley are located in the wider landscape, the topography of the valley itself restricts access to the rocks, making it difficult to wander across the landscape from one carved outcrop to another. In general, Atlantic Rock Art outcrops are located in the wider landscape, in plateaus half-way up the slopes. Although reaching them may not always be easy, these rocks will often allow for at least a small audience to congregate around it. While there are exceptions, decorated panels tend to be flat and in horizontal positions close to the ground. This means that to observe the motifs the viewers have to be on top of the rock, moving from one side to the other, leaning downwards and following the micro-topography of the outcrop to perceive the shapes carved onto the surface. This bodily experience is probably different from the one acquired whilst looking at the rock art depicted on the orthostats of an enclosed prehistoric tomb. It would be very difficult, in many cases, to reach the interior of the monument, should the inside allow enough space. This also supposes that in these cases the decorations would have been made before the conclusion of the construction of the tomb. Viewers would

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Archaeology with Art probably never be standing and, being so secluded, the engravings would not be illuminated by sunlight. Possibly they were only seen through the use of artificial light. Of course, the same could happen at open-air carved rocks, which could have also been observed at night, using artificial light. The flicker of torches may have provided quite a spectacular demonstration of the carved motifs, ‘dancing’ in a game of moving shadows. Furthermore, Atlantic Art iconography or variations were used in a multiplicity of contexts such on open-air outcrops, tombs or standing stones. It is then possible that different combinations of motifs were assigned to specific types of places and monuments, which could also determine the types of audiences to which they were destined. For example, certain combinations of imagery could have been used in contexts for the living, such as those depicted in open-air outcrops, whilst others conventions could have been specific for the dead, used in megalithic tombs (Alves 2009:412). Each of these contexts would provide distinct experiences while being observed and even carved. In any case, it seems that movement and mobility are essential in the experiencing of rock art. In fact, the journey of the observers begin with a cruise through the landscape to reach the sites, often having to move from one carved rock to another (Tilley 2008:38). Once there, movement from panel to panel or from one side to the other of the surfaces is required to look at the motifs. Often images show different details depending on the perspective adopted by the audience to look at them. Motion is therefore essential to our perception of rock art. Interpreting rock art: the reflection of thought As we have seen so far, the process of creation is complex and it involves the practitioner’s theoretical and practical points of view. From the distance of thousands of years we can only assume that the physical outcome of the production of rock art was very important. The process of making, however, could have been just as important, according to ethnographical and anthropological studies (e.g. Gell 1998) of societies who do not necessarily hold the concept of ‘art’ or ‘artist’. This realisation led to the idea that prehistoric art was probably not just an object of aesthetic contemplation. Nevertheless, the making of certain art objects would require specialised expertise and skills, despite their impact deriving partly from their aesthetic, even if the final purpose was their destruction (DeMarrais and Robb 2013:5, 12). Throughout this paper examples were given in which rock art is intimately related to everyday life, mediating power relations, routines, encounters. These are more obvious in the case of Comanche rock art (Fowles and Artenberry 2013), studied not only through Formal but also Informed

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity Methods of analysis (see Taçon and Chippindale 2008). The ability to interpret the symbols provides invaluable information regarding their involvement with society. Fowles and Artenberry’s research highlights the important role played by rock art in the military sphere of Comanche society through the recounting of narratives of battles and perhaps organization of battle strategies, honouring of warriors, but also in a more domestic sphere with the representation of the tipis (Fowles and Artenberry 2013). Following this example, one can extrapolate the idea that rock art could have been used as a tool involved in communities’ daily lives, used to mediate social relationships, connections to the environment but also to represent, at times in a coded way (Fernandes, this volume), life experiences. These coded signs along with the gestures required to perform them may comprise parts of performed narratives (DeMarrais and Robb 2013:11). Summing Up The making of the art may be as (or more) important as the final product, seen for example in the collective endeavour of sewing a handmade quilt. E. DeMarrais and J. Robb 2013:11 In this paper, rock art as an artwork is considered to be a thing rather than an object. In Ingold’s terminology, a thing is a ‘going on’ (following Heidegger) or something organic that is alive and keeps evolving (Ingold 2008:10). A thing is a gathering together of the threads of life, surrounded by a specific environment (Ibid: 18). Rock art is deeply embedded in society’s life since the moment of its creation. The examples explored in these pages showed that art, and specifically rock art, is inherent to society and relates with the everyday life but can also be an integral part of special occasions of ritual spheres, political or biographical importance (DeMarrais and Robb 2013:20). Even if the initial emphasis is the process and the gesture, it maintains an active afterlife that is incorporated in the cosmogonies of the generations to come. In the Côa Valley, for instance, the oldest examples of rock art date from the Gravettian period. Throughout the rest of the Palaeolithic other motifs were added on the rocky surfaces and this trend continued until today. In fact, the latest engravings from the valley date to the 20th century and there are accounts of how the last artists were influenced by the Palaeolithic figures that they did not necessarily understand or know the antiquity of, but were aware of the existence (A Valdez-Tullett, this volume; García-Diez and Luís 2002-3). It is then obvious that the images exert some kind of influence on whoever sees them, perhaps materializing Gell’s concept of ‘Technology of Enchantment’ (1992) and

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Archaeology with Art art’s Agency (Gell 1998). Not only were these figures relevant to the communities with which they would interact directly and frequently, but also did they influence the occasional transients and the archaeologists who now devote their time studying the evidence. With this paper I intended to analyse the creation of rock art and draw a trial methodology of study, moving away from the traditional typologies and categorizations that often compose the approaches to this kind of archaeological evidence. My primordial objective was to look at the designs and try to see beyond what was depicted, inferring on the knowledge that would be needed to produce such images. In order to explore my hypothesis, I used Atlantic Rock Art, my main study object, whose making and experiential characteristics I contrasted with other types of carvings and paintings of different periods and geographies. The point was not to establish a direct comparison between them, but to analyse the practical possibilities within the making of rock art. I concluded that the artists would need specific skills of various types. Not only would they need to know the local geology in order to choose the appropriate media, but also the tools, the process of making pigments and in the case of carvings they should also have the ability to pre-determine the final product and the best way to achieve it. The final result is a combination of the artist’s creativity and his/her knowledge of the media, techniques and skills used to create/perform upon the environment. A bundle of threads that create the experience of rock art a complex whole. References Alves, L. B. 2009. O sentido dos signos. Reflexões e perspectivas para o estudo da arte rupestre do pós-glaciar no norte de Portugal. In Rodrigo de Balbín Behermann (Ed.) Arte Prehistórico al aire libre en el Sur de Europa. Baptista, A. M. 1980. Introdução ao estudo da arte pré-histórica do noroeste peninsular. As gravuras rupestres do Gião. Minia 2ª Série 3 (4): 80-100. Baptista, A. M. 1999. No tempo sem tempo. A arte dos caçadores paleolíticos do Vale do Côa. Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Parque Arqueológico do Vale do Côa. Baptista, A. M. 2008. O Paradigma Perdido. O Vale do Côa e a Arte Paleolítica de Ar Livre em Portugal. Lisbon, Edições Afrontamento. Beckensal, S. 2002. British Prehistoric Rock Art. Stroud. Gloustershire, Tempus Publishing. Bettencourt, A. M. S. 2009. Entre os montes e as águas: ensaio sobre a percepção dos limites na pré-história da faixa costeira entre o Minho e o Lima (NW português). In A. M. S. Bettencourt and L. B. Alves (eds.). Dos montes, das pedras e das águas. Formas de interacção com o espaço natural da préhistória à actualidade: 131-162. Braga, CITCEM, APEQ.

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity Bradley, R. 1997. Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe. Signing the Land. London and New York, Routledge. Bradley, R. 2009. Image and Audience. Rethinking Prehistoric Art. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: a social critique of the judgment of taste. London, Routledge. Clottes, J. 2002. World Rock Art. Los Angeles, Getty Publications. DeMarrais, E. and Robb, J. 2013. Art makes society: an introductory visual essay. World Art 3:1, 3-22. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21500894.782334 (Accessed on 27th February 2015). Dewey, J. 1934. Art as Experience. New York, Perigee Books. Fredell, Å. 2013. The European context of late prehistoric figurative rock art. In Criado-Boado, F.; Martínez-Cortizas, A.; García Quintela, M. V. (eds.) Petroglifos, paleoambiente y paisaje. Estudios interdisciplinares del arte rupestre de Campo Lameiro (Pontevedra): 28-34. TAPA (Traballos de Arqueoloxía e Patrimonio) 42. Santiago de Compostela, CSIC. Fowles, S. and Artenberry. 2013. Gesture and performance in Comanche rock art. World Art 3(1):67-82. García-Diez, M and Luís, Luís. 2002-3. José Alcino Tomé e o último Ciclo Artístico Rupestre Do Vale Do Côa: Um Caso De Etnoarqueologia. Estudos pré-históricos X-XI: 199-223. Gell, A. 1992. The technology of enchantment and the enchantment of technology, In J. Coote and A. Shelton (ed.) Anthropology, Art and Aesthetic: 40–66. Oxford, Clarendon. Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency: an anthropological theory. Oxford, Clarendon. Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between Humans and Things. Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell. Ingold, T. 2008. Bringing things to life: creative entanglements in a world of materials. Conference paper originally presented at ‘Vital Signs: Researching Real Life’, 9 September 2008, University of Manchester. Ingold, T. 2013. Making. Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. London, Routledge. Jorge, S. O.; Jorge, V. O.; Almeida, C. A. F.; Sanches, M. J. and Soeiro, M. T. (1981) Gravuras rupestres de Mazouco (Freixo de Espada à Cinta). Arqueologia 3: 6-12. Kupfer, J. 1984. Experience as Art: Aesthetic in everyday life. New York, University State of New York Press.

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Archaeology with Art Kupfer, J. 2003. Experience as Art. In A. Ch. Sukla (Ed.) Art and Experience. Westport, Praeger Publishers. López-Sáez, J. A; Cruz, D. and Gonçalves, A. A. H. B. 2010. A Mamoa 1 de Madorras (Sabrosa, Vila Real, Portugal): análises polínicas e datações de Carbono 14. In A. M. S. Bettencourt; M. I. C. Alves and S. Monteiro (Ed.) Variações Paleoambientais e evolução antrópica no Quaternário ao Ocidente Peninsular: 39-52. Braga, APEQ-CITCEM. Lorenzo-Ruza, R. S. 1951. Petroglifos e labirintos. Revista de Guimarães 61 (34): 378-393. MacWhite, E. 1946. A new view on Irish Bronze Age rock-scribings. Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 76: 59-80. Santos Estévez, M.; Criado Boado, F. 2000. Deconstructing Rock Art Spatial Grammar in the Galician Bronze Age. In George Nash (ed.) Signifying Place and Space. World perspective of rock art and landscape: 111-222, British Archaeological Reports International Series, Archeopress. Sarmiento, M. [1754-1755] (1950) Viaje a Galicia (1754-1755). Peña Santos, A. de la and Rey García, J. M. 2001. Petroglifos de Galicia. Oleiros: Via Láctea, Perillo. Sarmento, F. M. 1878. Sinais Gravados em Rochas. A Renascença. Lisboa, Órgãos dos Trabalhos da Geração Moderna. Sharpe, K. 2007. Motifs, monuments and mountains. Prehistoric rock art in the Cumbrian landscape. Unpublished Ph.D thesis, Durham University. Silva, E. J. 2003. Novos dados sobre o Megalitismo no Norte de Portugal. In Vitor S. Gonçalves (Ed.) Muita gente, poucas antas? Origens, espaços e contextos do Megalitismo: 269 - 280. Trabalhos de Arqueologia 25. Lisboa, Instituto Português de Arqueologia. Simpson, J. Y. 1867. Archaic sculpturings of cups, &c. circles upon stones and rocks in Scotland England & other countries. Edinburgh, Edmonston and Douglas. Sobrino Buhígas, R. 2000 [1935] Corpus Petroglyphorum Gallaeciae. Seminario de Estudos Galegos. A Coruña, Edicios do Castro –Facsimilar. Tate, G. 1865. The ancient British sculptured rocks of Northumberland and the Eastern Borders. Alnwick, Henry I lunter Blair. Tilley, C. 2008. Body and Image: explorations in landscape phenomenology. Walnut Creek, California, Left Coast Press. Valdez, J. and Oliveira, L. 2005/2006 A Arte Rupestre da Citânia de Briteiros. O Penedo dos Sinais, um caso Atlântico. Revista de Guimarães 115/116: 51-89.

J. Valdez-Tullett - Art, Materiality and Creativity Valdez-Tullet, J. 2013. O Abrigo Rupestre de Foz Tua. A ampla diacronia de um espaço significante. In J. C. Sastre Blanco; R. Catalán Ramos and P. Fuentes Melgar (eds.) Arqueología en el Valle del Duero. Del Neolítico a la Antigüedad Tardía: nuevas perspectivas: 355-366. Madrid, Ediciones La Ergástula. Valdez-Tullett, J. and Chittock, H. (2015). ‘The unique result of a unique temperament’ (Oscar Wilde). Seeing texture through the making of art. World Art 5 (2): 249-269.

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Images and materials: The making of narrative imagery in rock art and on metalwork Peter Skoglund,1 University of Gothenburg (Sweden) Introduction The Bronze Age of Scandinavia holds a rich tradition of figurative art, which materializes in two different contexts: rock art and metalwork. The occurrence of similar kinds of images in two different materials is appealing; many scholars have used a comparative approach in order to interpret individual motifs and to gain a broader understanding of what these two visual traditions represent (Bradley 2008; Bradley et al. 2010; Kaul 1998a), focusing on the images themselves. In this paper, I will try to add another perspective, emphasizing the processes of making these images (Cornell and Ling 2010; Fahlander 2012). The paper will explore how the use of a diversity of materials may have resulted in images providing people with different experiences. The aim is to highlight how rather similar pictures became part of different kinds of performances when they applied to different materials. In line with the theme of this book I will apply a relational perspective focusing on the process of making, where the materials are seen as important factors that help to structure the way images are experienced by people. Different materials enable different kinds of design and imply different kinds of ‘dialogues’ between subject and object, the maker and the material employed. This is something I will try to elaborate upon later in this paper (Alberti et al. 2013; Conneller 2011; Hodder 2012; Leroi Gourhan 1993; Malafouris and Renfrew 2010). The ultimate aim is to explore whether it is possible to combine an interpretative perspective, where images are seen as signs or symbols (Hodder 1986), with a relational approach reflecting upon the relationships between interpretation, materials and human agency (Alberti et al. 2013). The line of argument will linger around solar symbolism that is a recurrent theme in interpretations of art produced in south Scandinavia during the Bronze Age (Kaul 1998a, Kaul 2004; Kristiansen 2010). I will start by 1

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Archaeology with Art introducing the rock art of southernmost Sweden focusing on the occurrence of narratives which may be related to solar symbolism and thereafter continue to discuss similar phenomenon in metalwork. Eventually, I will reflect on how the differences in making images on rocks and metals resulted in variances in the role these images played in the Bronze Age society. Rock art in south-east Scania – a short introduction The south-eastern portion of the province of Scania centers on the town of Simrishamn in southeast Sweden. (Figure 1). The number of rock art panels found here is limited in comparison to regions like Bohuslän (Ling 2008), Østfold (Vogt 2006) and Uppland (Ling 2013). However, south-east Scania stands out due to the many depictions of axes in its rock art. Significantly, these axes are equal in scale to metal axes found in the archaeological record. This close relation between the images carved on the rocks and metal artefacts may be due to the fact that Scania is situated in southernmost Sweden, which along with present day Denmark, was the core area for metal consumption in the Bronze Age (Larsson 1986). Recently, I studied the rock art of south-east Scania in detail and divided the carving tradition into four chronological phases (Skoglund 2016). The foundation for the dating is a comparative study of axe depictions and metal axes, in conjunction with a chronology of ship motifs as presented by Flemming Kaul (1998a) and Johan Ling

Figure 1. Map of Scandinavia with the studied area indicated by a black dot. Image: Tony Axelsson.

Skoglund - Images and materials (2008). Kaul analysed 419 metal items from Denmark – primarily razors but also various types of bracelets – on which, about 800 images of ships, were found. By comparing representations of ships on metal artefacts and rockcarvings, Kaul was able to develop earlier ship chronologies based on smaller samples (Kaul 1998a). His chronological proposal was later confirmed through studies conducted by Johan Ling, who has related the positions of rock carvings in the provinces of Bohuslän and Uppland in Sweden to the land-uplift process (Ling 2008; 2013). According to the new chronology based on the analyses of ships and other complementary observations, the rock art panels in south-east Scania were divided into four phases. Their spatial distribution is detailed in Figures 2ad. The maps reveal that the number of panels and their spatial dissemination change throughout time. Whilst in early stages the panels are concentrated towards the sea (Figure 2a), in phase 2 they expand inland (Figure 2b). Phase 3 is characterized by a general decline in the number of carved panels (Figure 2c). A small number of surfaces attributed to the latest phase, occur in slightly different locations in the landscape (Figure 2d). Having summarised the chronology of Scanian rock art I will now discuss the nature of the motifs themselves, and the narratives they depict. The earliest Scanian rock art, which dates to the period between 1700-1400 BC, can be described as composed of static, symmetrical and rather noninteractive motifs, with few indications of time sequence relationships. From around 1400 BC there are more complex compositions and combinations of motifs. Images are depicted interacting with each other, in order to create time-sequenced narratives or stories. A similar tendency was documented by Klassen in 19th century rock art of Alberta (Canada), in which static and interactive compositions became more active, as a narrative art (1998:44-45). The depiction of narrative sequences in rock art can be related to a similar phenomenon in metalwork where images like ships, horses, snakes and fish occur on the blades of razors, which date to between 1100 and 700 BC (Kaul 1998a). The images are related to each other and it has been argued that they refer to a story concerning the movement of the sun (Kaul 1998a). Thereby the introduction of narrative imagery in metalwork was preceded by a narrative tradition in rock art. A key question, emerging from this observation, relates to the implications that transferring a tradition of narrative depiction from stone to metal would encompass and how did this change affect the use of the images? Before discussing this matter further, I will add some notes on how to characterize a narrative.

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Figure 2a-d. The spatial distribution of those sites in south-east Scania which can be attributed to a specific phase. a) Spatial distribution of images during phase 1, 1700-1400 BC b) Spatial distribution of images during phase 2, 14001100 BC c) Spatial distribution of images during phase 3, 1100-800 BC d) Spatial distribution of images during phase 4, 800-200 BC. Images: Peter Skoglund.

Skoglund - Images and materials Figurative art and narratives A main concern for all studies dealing with visual narration is how to present temporality. In the study of Greek art this discussion goes back to the late 19th century when various types of narrative schemes were introduced (StansburyO’Donell 1999). Generalizing a complicated matter, we may say that two elements – action and character – are crucial in any attempt to create a narrative. Without action there are pictures but no story. Actions are the verbs that create contact between the separate nouns populating a narrative. In a similar way to the verb, the representation of actions displayed in rock art imagery, sometimes creates relationships amongst the different motifs and therefore produces a narrative. Narratives also require characters. In a comic strip, a character is represented in a number of frames, being viewed from different perspectives. Only when combined do these individual images come to represent a character. This type of illustration requires a certain level of abstraction (Altman 2008: 13). As a result, the character is created through two different images, similarly to the representation of action, for which at least two images are also required. At this point it is useful to invoke another concept relating to the nature of narratives, that is, they are only recognised as narratives when it is possible to follow a character from action to action and scene to scene (Altman 2008:14). Visual narratives may occur in different media and one of these is rock art (Skoglund 2016: 18-21). Below I will discuss some examples from Scania. Narratives in rock art The decorated slabs from the interior of Kivik Cairn display the best-known narrative art in Scania. These are part of a cist situated inside a very large burial cairn, measuring 75 meters in diameter and dating to the 14th century BC (Goldhahn 2009, 2013). On these slabs the motifs seem to be arranged in a timesequence (Figure 3a-b). Ships, humans, wheels, axes and horses are repeated in changing arrangements. This is especially clear when looking at surfaces number 7 and 8, where a group of 8-9 people is repeatedly represented in different settings as if performing ritual acts involving a chariot, a vessel and two omega-shaped motifs. The majority of scholars seem to agree that various parts of the mortuary ritual are depicted on the slabs (Goldhahn 2013). Another example of a narrative depicted in rock art is that of the funerary monument of Villfara, recently discussed by Jens Winther Johannsen (2013). On the slab found in relation to this grave, a chariot, two ships and a horse jumping into the upmost ship were depicted.

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B Figure 3a–b. Slabs No. 7 and 8 from the Kivik grave, Scania. Photographs by Catarina Bertilsson, 2002. Source: Swedish Rock Art Research Archives id: 1368 and 1369.

Skoglund - Images and materials The narratives represented on both the Villfara-monument and the Kivik Cairn are related to death-rituals, but there are also other themes displayed, such as that of solar symbolism. I will elaborate on the latter theme by discussing the images on the Gladsax monument. The Gladsax representations are found on the top of the roof slab of a passage grave. The main motifs are eleven ships, five axes, a horse, circles and cup-marks (Figure 4a) (Broström and Ihrestam 2013). Judging by the type of the axes and the dating of the ship motifs, this panel can be chronologically placed around 1400 BC. The axes resemble palstaves in use during Montelius period 2, 1500 - 1300 BC, and some of the ships are similar to others found in the Sagaholm mound, which date to the same period of time (Goldhahn 1999). The chronologies of the axe and ship motifs, as well as the way the images are related to each other indicate that we are dealing with a composition, a deliberate arrangement of motifs. However, the larger circular image on the top was made with another technique and it is probably a later addition (Broström and Ihrestam 2013). Traces of narrative sequencing can be identified in this site. Among the eleven ships there are five instances in which the direction of sailing can be recognized. Out of that number

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Figure 4a-c. Documentation of the Gladsax 8 panel. a) The original documentation; b) The axes highlighted by red color; c) the horse, the larger cup-mark and the cross in circle highlighted by red color. Documentation by Broström and Ihrestam. From Broström and Ihrestam 2013. Figures 4b and 4c revised by Rich Potter. (1)

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Figure 4a-c. Documentation of the Gladsax 8 panel. a) The original documentation; b) The axes highlighted by red color; c) the horse, the larger cup-mark and the cross in circle highlighted by red color. Documentation by Broström and Ihrestam. From Broström and Ihrestam 2013. Figures 4b and 4c revised by Rich Potter. (2)

Skoglund - Images and materials four ships are sailing to the right and only one is sailing to the left. Based on the representation of the ships there seems to be an overall movement direction from left to right displayed on the panel. A similar motion can be deduced from the five portrayed axes (Figure 4b). Three of these are concentrated on the uppermost part of the panel and one is situated in the bottom left. In addition there is also a miniature axe in the bottom right part of the panel, folding itself into one of the ships. As with the cartoon strip we can follow the movement of the axes, whose sizes and numbers change, from the upper part of the panel towards the bottom right. In the first scene there is a group of three axes in motion, becoming just a single axe and ultimately a miniature axe. The images thus reveal a situation where they are diminishing and disappearing whilst moving from left to right. In order to gain a better understanding of these sequences, one possibility is to turn to interpretations of Bronze Age mythology based on the study of metalwork. Through the analysis of ships on metal objects, mainly razors, Flemming Kaul has concluded that the image of the ship held an important position in a mythology concerned with the movement of the sun (Figure 5) (Kaul 1998a, 2004). According to his interpretation the sun moved across the firmament and after having set it was transported into the underground and back to a position where it would rise again in the morning. In the northern hemisphere the sun moves from left to right in the day-time, and consequently the Bronze Age people would probably imagine the sun moving from right to left at night-time. The ships acted as vehicles for the transportation of the sun. Ships sailing to the right were thus active during the day when the sun was shining, while ships sailing to the left were active during the night when the sun was in the underworld. Even though the ship is thought to have held the most crucial role, other agents like

Figure 5. Razor decorated with a ship and a horse pulling a sun-symbol. From Kaul 1998: 99.

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Archaeology with Art the horse, the axe, the fish, the bird and the snake were also involved in this mythology concerning the movement of the sun. A similar interpretation has been made on an analysis of the Trundholm disc, concerning the depiction of the axe motif. This artefact was found in Sealand, Denmark and is dated to Montelius period 2, 1500 - 1300 BC (Müller 1903). A horse stands on a bronze rod supported by four wheels. The rod below the horse is connected to the disk, which is supported by two wheels. However, originally the horse and the disc were joined together by a rod indicating that the sun was thought of as being drawn by the horse. The two sides differ through ornamentation and color, representing the stages of the day. The day-side has a gold inlay and the decoration of radiant lines resemble the shining sun while the darker night-side is made of bronze. On the darker night-side there is a decoration composed of stylized axes and thereby these are associated to the night (Goldhahn 2013: 554557; Kristiansen 2004). The ships sailing to the right, on the Gladsax panel, may be interpreted as the morning, when the day is about to break, and as the night, when the axes disappear by folding into the boats. This interpretation has been inspired by those of the Trundholm disc, although this may represent a morning scene, when the sun is about to rise (Figure 4c). The sun itself is represented by a cross within a circle on-board one of the ships and there is also an accompanying horse facing right (compare Figure 5). The Gladsax panel is thus an example of an ordered arrangement of images that, through orientation, frequencies and scale, help to create a time-sequence. A similar narrative is also at hand on numerous razors from Denmark and Scania dating to 1100 - 700 BC. This suggests that the theme was of great importance, being on public display on the rocks, for everyone to look at, but also for individuals that would be the keepers the razors and use them privately. Narratives on the razors Bronze razors appear in the Scandinavian record during Montelius’ period 2, 1500 - 1300 BC (Kaul 2013). During Montelius’ period 4 and 5 (1100 - 700 BC) a significant number of these artefacts display decorations, such as representations of sun symbols, ships, horses, axe symbols, fish, birds and snakes. Nevertheless, the great majority is left plain (Kaul 1998a, 2004). The razor was a personal object and, together with the tweezers and the needle, it was part of a toilet set intended for care and beautification of the body, especially the face and hair. These were private objects stored in a leather or wooden case when not in use and later deposited in the grave together with the owner’s dead body (Harding 2008: 192; Kaul 1998a: 148-157; Treherne 1995). In his synthesis

Skoglund - Images and materials Ships on Bronzes (1998), Flemming Kaul studied the ornamentation on the razors and, as discussed earlier, he came to the conclusion that they were related to notions concerning the movement of the sun. An important observation is that the repertoire on the razors is rather restricted when compared to the rock art iconography. There are almost no human images represented on the razors while in rock art there are many examples of people being involved in different kinds of actions. This made Kaul draw the conclusion that while rock art primarily revealed various kinds of rituals, the decorated razors referred to a mythological understanding of the world (Kaul 1998a: 17-35; 258-269). Following the above discussion of the Scanian rock art as a starting point, we realize that narratives related to death rituals do not appear to be reproduced in metalwork. On the contrary, there seems to be similarities between the notion of solar symbolism as expressed in rock art and the solar symbolism expressed on metal razors. Thus, we may conclude that only one aspect of these narratives was transferred to the metalwork: the solar symbolism. I argue that the shift in materials, from stone to bronze, may have been in itself a factor that helped to change the character of the narratives. In order to understand this phenomenon, we must reflect upon how these images were made on the rocks and metals, before attempting to compare the two media. The making of images in rock art and on metalwork Considering how much effort is put into the classification and interpretation of rock art, it seems plausible to say that relatively little research has been done reflecting upon the making of these images. Here, I will briefly refer to an experiment carried out by a group of students at Vitlycke museum in northern Bohuslän, Sweden (von Arbin et al. 2004). This experiment consisted of copying a rock art image displayed on the nearby panel of Fossum. The human image was 45 centimeters high and 9 centimeters wide with adjoining bow, pile and sword. The experiment started with the Figure being marked on a new and clear surface with a water proof pencil and thereafter the rock was knocked with hammer stones. The image was produced by a group of five people working in shifts. During the process, time was measured and it was concluded that it would have taken almost 13 hours of non-stop work for an individual to produce the image. Furthermore, it was established that the task was demanding, and if only one person was in charge of the work, several longer breaks would have been needed. In this case the job rotated between groups of five people – when one was getting tired another person continued the work (von Arbin et al. 2004). This experiment emphasizes the fact that making rock art is a physically demanding experience and it involves the body as much as it does the mind.

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Archaeology with Art To a certain extent, the production of a rock art image can be compared to the making of images in metalwork. Until the early 1990s the prevailing opinion was that the decoration on objects from the Nordic Bronze Age was usually achieved through punching. This view was based on early experiments in the 1870s, when it was demonstrated that it was possible to make typical Bronze Age motifs, like spirals, with the help of punches. However, this interpretation did not acknowledge the fact that the spirals on Bronze Age objects were all identical, something that the punching technique does not achieve. This was noted by Preben Rønne, who argued that motifs on Nordic Bronze Age items were neither punched nor engraved onto the metal-objects themselves, but produced through the use of the lost wax method (1991). During this process the decoration was produced on a wax model using stamps and various sticks, allowing each element to be copied with precision whenever needed. These conclusions have been confirmed by practical experiments, demonstrating that decoration made by stamps on a plate of wax can be transferred to the bronze item through the lost wax method (Rønne 1991; Rønne and Bredsdorff 2008). But what about figurative motifs such as ships, horses and other animals and objects, which are not part of repetitive patterns, and could not have been made using stamps? Many of these too were probably accomplished through the lost wax technique. Motifs often occur on both sides of thin bronze objects, without the decoration on one side of the artefact having affected the decoration on the reverse; indicating that these were made by freehand engravings onto a waxmodel. However, a recent study by Heide Wrobel Nørgaard, demonstrates a more complicated pattern. Based on the use of metallographic analysis, and leftover crafting traces on the artefacts, a complex picture has emerged where both techniques were seemingly used simultaneously, during the Scandinavian Bronze Age. The lost wax method remains an important method which can be identified in many cases; but an important outcome of this study is that similar kinds of decoration could be obtained by using different techniques (Nørgaard 2015). In the following paragraphs, the direct relationship between the metalwork itself and the development of metalwork decoration through the use of wax models will be considered. Contrasting with the making of rock art, which involved intense physical activity, the making of images on wax would instead comprise a high degree of precision work, requiring a different set of skills. Discussion and conclusions In recent decades there has been a material turn across the social sciences. In archaeology, focus has shifted from the study of objects through the typological

Skoglund - Images and materials analysis of form and shape, towards a greater consideration of the properties of materials themselves (Alberti et al. 2013; Conneller 2011; Hodder 2012). These are no longer regarded as passive media from which objects with different shapes are created. Rather it is acknowledged that materials will exert agency and help to structure the outcome of human action. In what ways can these insights be applied to the discussion of making images on rock panels and on wax models? From the above discussion we may conclude that there was a great contrast between the physical processes of making the images on rock panels and on wax models. Rock art images were made on hard materials while many images on metalwork were made on a soft material (wax) and thereafter transferred onto the metal object. The making of the actual image on the wax model was thus much less physically demanding than the making of a rock art image. However, it would involve a higher degree of mentally-demanding precision work to apply the fine lines on the limited wax surfaces. Another difference concerns the possibility of remodeling an existing object. The making of a decorated razor would represent a dead-end for later additions and modifications, unlike rock art, which was open for public transformations. Because the decoration was produced during the making of the instruments themselves it would therefore not be possible to add motifs after its completion. Consequently it is unusual to find unfinished images on the razors. However, due to limited available space on these objects, the images may be broken up, and various pieces spread on the different parts of the item, resulting in the razor having to be rotated in order to visualize the whole image (Kaul 1998b). Due to this way of applying motifs to razors, images are occasionally rather difficult to interpret for those who are not aware of their design principles. Nonetheless, they are mostly difficult to read because of their small scales and the applied design principles, not because of images being left unfinished. Contrarily, the making of images on the rock surfaces has multiple endings and can be described as an ongoing dialogue between images, humans and materials. A main difference between the two materials is that the rock surface as opposed to the wax model will provide a resistance, forcing the person to use strength in order to inscribe the panel. When making rock art images the craftsperson will be physically affected; pausing and coming back to the same site many times may have been an integral part of the working process. The images as we seen them today may be the result of re-shaping over several visits to the same site. For example images found below burial cairns are sometimes very shallow (Skoglund 2006), while images found outside the graves are deeper as a result of re-pecking. When Joakim Goldhahn excavated a Bronze

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Archaeology with Art Age cairn at Törnsfall in eastern Sweden, he noted that even though the rock art continued underneath the cairn, the motifs were much shallower and more difficult to identify under the cairn than outside the cairn. While the carvings outside the cairn could be seen in daylight, those underneath the cairn were only visible in artificial light. This indicates that in this instance the rock art that was not covered by the cairn was re-pecked several times (Goldhahn 2012: 227-229). The act of sharing is another characteristic of the production of rock art. By being preserved through time images could be shared amongst many generations. Furthermore by being exposed in the landscape there was the potential for images to be shared with other different people. In fact, the rock art format offers the possibility for individuals who have never met, to communicate (Nilsson 2012). The panel has the potential to become the arena for a dialogue where images are added by different groups of people at different times. New representations may serve as a kind of remark or comment to already existing images. The depictions on the razors worked rather differently. These were fixed images, displayed on small personal objects, intended for personal use and hidden away from public in a leather or wooden case. When their owner died the razors were often deposited in the grave and thereby definitely withdrawn from the community (Harding 2008). Razors often occur together with tweezers and from an analysis of excavated cemeteries in south and eastern Scania we learn that these items are not related to children and youths. Even though bronze items are well represented in graves where the person is under 20 years of age; razors and tweezers are restricted to male graves where the buried person is at least 20 years old. To become the owner of a razor was therefore something that happened rather late in life. Moreover, razors and tweezers are associated with the best-equipped graves, indicating that they may have belonged to individuals of a specific social stratum (Arcini et al. 2007: 142-145). Some of the razors have traces of re-sharpening and the decoration is sometimes worn as a result of use. The use of razors suggests specific self-care, the tools being used perhaps to maintain a well-shaved face or some specific beard-style. Through the practical use of the razors, we can assume that a link was established between a specific look and certain images, which in turn were related to a wider narrative concerning the movement of the sun helped by the ships, etc. We may relate rock art (Cornell and Ling 2010), but also the making and use of metal razors, to specific social contexts where interactions with certain materials are of key significance. Recently it has been argued that intelligence exists primarily as an active relation, between and amongst people and things, rather

Skoglund - Images and materials than an abstract mental phenomenon. To penetrate certain cognitive domains the human mind relies heavily on things and materials: much of human religious thinking is difficult to imagine without the help of purposefully designed things and places (Malafouris and Renfrew 2010: 4). In line with this we may argue that the making of a ship on a rock surface with the help of a hammer stone would have defined a certain way of conceptualizing a ship. What the ship stood for would be closely related to the quality of the rock, the landscape setting and the labour invested in the making of that ship. Image, practice and materials would act together in the creation of the concept of the ship. As mentioned previously, the nature of rock art was open for modifications, potentially open for different participants and grounded in physically hard work. When narratives ceased to be produced and were transferred onto metal they were affected on several different levels. Even though the images partly remained the same, the narratives they were part of became integrated into a new ‘closed’ setup, where the images could not be changed or altered by later additions, and were now depicted on small, private objects in formats that were sometimes difficult to read. Also important is the fact that the ongoing dialogue between the body and the material which was an integrated part of the rock art tradition ceased to exist. Acknowledgement I´m grateful to Joana Valdez-Tullett for inviting me to the TAG conference in Bournemouth and for the possibility of publishing in this volume. References Alberti, B., Jones, A. and Pollard, J. (eds). 2013. Archaeology after interpretation: returning materials to archaeological theory. London, Routledge. Altman, R. 2008. A theory of narrative. New York. von Arbin, S., Dahnberg, J., Hellervik, K., Mellquist, F., and Molander, L. 2004. Knacka hällristning med forntida teknik – ett arkeologiskt experiment. GAST, 38: 10-17. Arcini, C., Höst, E. and Svanberg, F. 2007. Gravar, bålplatser och två bronsåldersfamiljer i Gualöv: studier av en gravmiljö. In M. Artursson (ed), Vägar till Vætland : en bronsåldersbygd i nordöstra Skåne 2300-500 f. Kr: 107-169. Lund. Bradley, R. 2008. Ship-settings and boat crews in the Bronze Age of Scandinavia. In J. Goldhahn (ed.), Gropar & monument: en vänbok till Dag Widholm:171-184. Kalmar.

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Archaeology with Art Bradley, R., Skoglund, P. and Wehlin, J. 2010. Imaginary vessels in the Late Bronze Age of Gotland and South Scandinavia: ship settings, rock carvings and decorated metalwork. Current Swedish archaeology, 18: 79-103. Broström, S.-G. and Ihrestam, K. 2013. Hällristningar i Simrishamn 2. Gladsax Raä nr 8 och 9. Botarkrapport 2013: 40. Conneller, C. 2011. An archaeology of materials: substantial transformations in early prehistoric Europe. New York, Routledge. Cornell, P. and Ling, J. 2010. Rock Art as Social Format In J. Goldhahn, I. Fuglestvedt and A. Jones (eds), Changing pictures: rock art traditions and visions in Northern Europe: 73-87. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Fahlander, F. 2012. Articulating stone. The material practice of petroglyphing In I.-M. Back Danielsson, F. Fahlander, and Y., Sjöstrand (eds), Encountering Imagery. Materialities, Perceptions, Relations: 97-116. Stockholm,. Fredell, Å. 2003. Bildbroar: figurativ bildkommunikation av ideologi och kosmologi under sydskandinavisk bronsålder och förromersk järnålder. Gothenburg. Goldhahn, J. 1999. Sagaholm: hällristningar och gravritual. Umeå: Umeå Universitet. Goldhahn, J. 2009. Bredarör on Kivik: a monumental cairn and the history of its interpretation. Antiquity 83: 359–371. Goldhahn, J. 2012. In the wake of voyager In A. Jones, J. Pollard, M. J. Allen and J. Gardiner (eds), Image, memory and monumentality: archaeological engagements with the material world: a celebration of the academic achievements of Professor Richard Bradley: 218-232. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Goldhahn, J. 2013. Bredarör på Kivik - en arkeologisk odyssé. Simrishamn. Harding, A. 2008. Razors and male identity in the Bronze Age. In F. Verse and B. Knoche, B. (eds), Festchrift für Albrecht Jockenhövel Zum 65. Geburtstag: 191-195. Rahden. Hodder, I. 1986. Reading the past: current approaches to interpretation in archaeology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things. New York, Wiley and Blackwell. Johannsen, J. W. 2013. The Villfara Monument: Rock Carvings, Death, Cosmology and Rituals in Early Bronze Age Scania. Lund Archaeological Review, 19: 19–34. Kaul, F. 1998a. Ships on bronzes: a study in Bronze Age religion and iconography 1, Text. Copenhagen. Kaul, F. 1998b. Ships on bronzes: a study in Bronze Age religion and iconography 2, Catalogue of Danish finds. Copenhagen.

Skoglund - Images and materials Kaul, F. 2004. Bronzealderens religion: studier af den nordiske bronzealders ikonografi. Copenhagen. Kaul, F. 2013. The Nordic razor and the Mycenaean lifestyle. Antiquity, 87: 461– 472. Klassen, M. A. 1998. Icon and narrative in transition: Contact-period rock-art at Writing-At-Stone, southern Alberta, Canada. In C. Chippindale and P. S. C. Taçon (eds), The Archaeology of Rock-Art: 42-72. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Kristiansen, K. 2004. Kivikgraven, Wismarhornet, Simrisristningerne og den nordiske bronzealders begyndelse. In G. Milstreu and H. Prøhl (eds), Prehistoric pictures as archaeological source: 69-84. Gothenburg. Kristiansen, K. 2010. Rock Art and Religion In Å. Fredell, K. Kristiansen and F. Criado Boado (eds), Represenations and communications: Creating an archaeological matrix of late prehistoric rock art: 92-115. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Larsson, T. B. 1986. The Bronze Age metalwork in southern Sweden: aspects of social and spatial organization 1800-500 BC. Umeå. Leroi-Gourhan, A. 1993. Gesture and speech, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Ling, J. 2008. Elevated rock art: towards a maritime understanding of Bronze Age rock art in northern Bohuslän, Sweden. Gothenburg. Ling, J. 2013. Rock art and seascapes in Uppland. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Malafouris, L. and Renfrew, C. (eds), 2010. The cognitive life of things: recasting the boundaries of the mind. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Malafouris, L. and Renfrew, C. 2010. The cognitive life of things: Archaeology, Material Engagement and the Extended Mind. In L. Malafouris and C. Renfrew (eds), The cognitive life of things: recasting the boundaries of the mind: 1-12. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Melheim, L. 2013. An epos carved in stone: three heroes, one giant, and a cosmic task. In S. Bergerbrant and S. Sabatini (eds), Counterpoint: essays in archaeology and heritage studies in honour of professor Kristian Kristiansen: 273-282. Oxford, British Archaeological Reports. Müller, S. 1903. Solbilledet fra Trundholm. Nordiske Fortisminder 1.6. Nilsson, P. 2012. The Beauty is in the Act of the Beholder. South Scandinavian Rock Art from a Uses of the Past-Perspective. In I.-M. Back Danielsson, F. Fahlander and Y. Sjöstrand, (eds) Encountering Imagery. Materialities, Perceptions, Relations: 77-96. Stockholm. Nørgaard, H W. 2015. Metalcraft within the Nordic Bronze Age: Combined metallographic and superficial imaging reveals the technical repertoire in crafting bronze ornaments. Journal of Archaeological Science 64: 110-128.

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Archaeology with Art Rønne, P. 1991. Forsøgsarkeologi og broncealderens ornametik. Studier i teknologi og kultur 1: 31-49. Rønne, P. and Bredsdorff, T. H. 2011. Cire perdue støbning bronzealderen. Hvordan laver man en voksmodel?. Aarbøger for nordisk oldkyndighed og historie, 2008: 59-76. Skoglund, P. 2006. Hällristningar i Kronobergs län: motiv, myter och dokumentation. Lund. Skoglund, P. 2016. Rock-art through time. Scanian rock carvings in the Bronze Age and Earliest Iron Age. Oxford, Oxbow books. Stansbury-O’Donnell, M. D. 1999. Pictorial narrative in ancient Greek art. New York. Treherne, P. 1995. The warrior´s beauty: the masculine body and self-identity in Bronze- Age Europe. Journal of European Archaeology, 3(1): 105–144. Vogt, David 2006. Helleristninger i Østfold og Bohuslän: en analyse av det økonomiske og politiske landskap. Oslo.

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Categorising the Iron Age: Similarity and Difference in an East Yorkshire Assemblage Helen Chittock,1 University of Southampton/ The British Museum (UK) This paper aims to engage with current discussions surrounding the categorisation of archaeological material culture, and suggest the involvement of art practice as an additional mechanism for exploring complexity within categories through the human experience of making things. I will put forward the idea that an understanding of art practice and the production of contemporary art can add another dimension to our considerations of archaeological categorisation. The focus will be remaking; the reproduction of artworks and wider mimesis in contemporary art, and the adherence to aesthetic traditions in the past. I will propose that examining the processes that artists undergo might help us to further understand the differences between things that look visually the same, and provide a new way of looking beneath the visual and stylistic appearances of objects. Art Practice and Archaeology The purpose of this book is to explore a new approach to the working relationship between art and archaeology. The relationship itself, however, is by no means new. The practitioners of both art and archaeology have, at many points in time, sought inspiration from one another and the disciplines share many fundamental elements. Both archaeologists and artists work with objects and materials and both use these to produce unique narratives as a means of exploring the human condition. A recent flurry of activity in the space where archaeology and art cross over as disciplines has proven particularly fruitful and has served to blur the boundaries between the two disciplines in unpredictable and exciting ways. In their 2007 manifesto, Andrew Cochrane and Ian Russell begin with a series of queries questioning the fundamentals of archaeology: ‘Is archaeology a science? Is archaeology a humanity? What are the politics of spectatorship and archaeological representation?’ (2007: 3), citing artists such as Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Banksy among those scholars who have influenced their ‘free-thinking’ approach to the junction between archaeology and art. Colin Renfrew’s volume, 1

[email protected]

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Archaeology with Art Figuring it Out (2003), places artists and archaeologists alongside one another as researchers of the human condition, and uses sculptural works and archaeological artefacts to examine what it means to be human. Tilley, Hamilton and Bender bring art practice into their archaeological research in a different way, by producing their own art installations during fieldwork on Bodmin Moor to better understand and experience its prehistoric landscape (2000: 60). The Creativity in The Bronze Age (CinBA) project, led by Joanna Sofaer of the University of Southampton involved the responses of six artists to Bronze Age objects, and the display of these responses alongside the original objects as part of an exhibition. More traditional modes of archaeological research were enriched through conversation with the artists present, who, in turn were inspired by Bronze Age material culture (see cinba.net). This list of collaborations between artists and archaeologists contains just a few examples, but illustrates the varied ways such collaborations have been pursued. The idea of a conversation between artists and archaeologists has been taken up in Andrew Cochrane and Ian Russell’s, Art and Archaeology: Collaborations, Conversations, Criticisms (2013), which brings together a diverse range of papers on the harnessing of art practice in archaeological research, demonstrating the breadth of current work on the topic. Similarly Tim Ingold’s recent volume, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture (2013) illustrates the relevance and value of interdisciplinary collaboration between these fields. I will return to the relationship between archaeology and art practice later in this paper. Categorising Archaeology Categorisation forms one of the cornerstones of archaeology. This section of the paper will describe briefly the development of some of the best-known early chronological systems in north-west European archaeology, and the roles of categorisation within these. The process of categorisation has provided a way of imposing order on the ‘unruly chaos of excavated material’ (Jones 2012: 100) generated by archaeological fieldwork over the past centuries. The 19th century saw a series of advances in the transformation of Archaeology from a pastime of the wealthy to a respected academic discipline, many based upon the organisation of the archaeological record through categorisation. Of these advances, the development of the Three Age System by Christian Thomsen, is arguably, the furthest reaching and longest enduring. In 1816, The Danish Royal Commission for the Preservation and Collection of Antiquities invited Christian Thomsen to organise and catalogue a collection of antiquities in preparation for exhibition. The resulting Three Age System placed the use of three materials, stone bronze and iron, into a chronological sequence and gave their names to three ‘ages’, The Stone Age, The Bronze Age

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age and The Iron Age. The conceptualisation of a chronological sequence involving these three materials was not entirely new. Lucretius had mentioned a similar scheme and the concept had been referred to by a number of Scandinavians from the sixteenth century onwards (Rowley-Conwy 2007: 38). Thomsen, therefore, considered the concept of a technological progression from stone to bronze to iron an old idea (Rowley-Conwy 2007: 38), but he applied it in a way that was new and radical for archaeology. He considered not only the materials themselves, but the combinations in which different objects of different materials appeared in archaeological contexts, in addition to their stylistic properties. The scheme was published in the second chapter of a volume entitled Guide to Scandinavian Archaeology (1836) and was rapidly taken up by archaeologists in Scandinavia, who began to refine the chronology on a regional basis. The Three Age System may seem almost self-evident to today’s archaeologists, but it was not the only chronological model, or way of categorising archaeological material culture, that existed at the time of its emergence. Its take-up in Britain and Ireland is described as ‘variable and patchy’ by Peter Rowley-Conwy, with some British scholars openly rejecting it (Rowley-Conwy 2007: 1-2). Over several decades however, the Three Age System became dominant and has become the fundamental underpinning of prehistoric archaeology throughout Europe and beyond. The latter half of the 19th century also saw an expansion in archaeological activity in Europe, resulting in a rapid increase in the numbers of artefacts available for study. Individuals such as Augustus (Lane-Fox) Pitt Rivers working in Britain, pioneered formalised, methodical ways of excavating and, importantly, recording sites, and did so on a growing scale (Cunliffe 2005: 4). The types of site targeted by this new breed of archaeologist were also changing. While barrow sacking had been popular in Britain during the earlier 19th century (Marsden 1999), interest was now beginning to be focussed on settlement sites, leading to a great shift in the types and proportions of material culture being made available for study (Cunliffe 2005: 4). Thomsen’s system and the regional chronological typologies derived from it provided a way of neatly categorising and organising this material. The ordering of the past reflected and appealed to more general views of intellectuals developing during the early 20th century: a belief in empiricist science, a rational and systematic epistemology, linked to a mistrust of religion as part of a wider socialist outlook (Jones 2012: 3-4). This neat and systematic approach was also taken up in terms of the wider archaeological syntheses being produced at this time. Culture historical and diffusionist perspectives on later prehistoric Europe became dominant

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Archaeology with Art as rapidly growing volumes of archaeological evidence were combined to produce over-arching grand narratives by scholars such as Montelius, Reinecke and Déchelette. The first sites to have provided significant evidence for the Three Age System outside Denmark were Hallstatt and La Tène in Switzerland (Morse 2005: 140) and demonstrate very well the way these syntheses were produced. Georg Ramsaur Bergmeister had begun the systematic excavation of the Hallstatt salt mines in Austria during the 1840s. The discovery of the La Tène site at the northern end of Lac Nauchatel in Switzerland in 1857 was more accidental, occurring during the lowering of the lowering of the lake’s water level. Neolithic and Bronze Age lake dwellings were also discovered, alongside many Iron Age objects deposited in the lake and adjacent rivers (Collis 2003: 75). The stylistic similarities between the objects from Hallstatt and La Tène and those across the rest of Europe incited the suggestion by Swedish scholar, Hans Hildebrand, that the finds represented a pan-European phenomenon in 1874. Based on this, the Swiss prehistorian Desor first proposed the chronological division of the Iron Age into an earlier Hallstatt period and a later La Tène period. The concepts of the stylistic evolution of artefacts, stratigraphy and cross-dating were then used to further refine the chronology (Collis 2003: 7578) and suggest the movement of cultural groups across Europe from east to west. Christopher Hawkes’ ABC scheme illustrates the limitations involved in of producing narratives of the past based on rigid stylistic classification. Hawkes divided the British Iron Age into phases that he linked into European Hallstatt and La Tène cultures (Hawkes 1931; 1959). The scheme seems, at first, simple, detailing a series of mass migrations into Britain from the continent and dividing the British Iron Age thus into three periods; A, B and C (Hawkes 1931). This solidified earlier thought relating to the continent, but made a break from continental terminology and set Britain apart. Hawkes later re-theorised the scheme (1959) catering for a need for geographical distinctions brought by increases in available archaeological material. Britain (south of the Tyne) was divided into five provinces and subdivided into thirty regions, forming the vertical bars on a theoretical frame, while a series of fixed phases formed the horizontal bars. Material culture, still described within the ABC scheme, could then be applied to the relevant parts of the scheme, thus solving the problem of regional and temporal disparity. A, B and C were divided into First A, Second A, etc. The increasing division and subdivision of Hawkes’ archaeological categories to deal with new objects led to a scheme that was both hugely complicated and rigid. This provoked comments that summarised the issues with the model as they appear today, such as Hodson’s description of ‘a rather algebraic approach to an archaeological problem’ (1960: 138) and led to a general shift in ideas towards more insular development in Iron Age Britain.

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age Hodson’s comments (1960: 138) could be seen as the first to begin to deconstruct the idea of archaeological categories. The categorisation of the archaeological record, however, has been taken forward in different ways within successive archaeological paradigms. The next section of this paper will discuss ways recent developments in archaeological theory are changing the ways categorisation is considered. Dealing with ‘Mess’ in Archaeology In 2004 the sociologist John Law published a book entitled After Method: ‘Mess’ in Social Science Research. The idea behind the book is that simple accounts are inadequate when describing complex situations; in fact describing something messy in clear and simple terms makes it messier still. Traditional academic modes of description do not account for the ‘texture’ present in the world (Law 2004). Furthermore, Law writes that ‘method is not, and could never be, innocent and purely technical’ (2004: 143). Carrying out ‘methods’ in the context of research is not the reporting of a reality, rather it is the reconstitution or re-making of reality. The ideas of Law and other like-minded social scientists and philosophers (e.g. Derrida 1988; Law and Mol 2006) on academic methods have been taken up by archaeologists in recent years. Jones writes in 2012 that ‘archaeological method and theory deals poorly with the unique or unusual’ (2012: 2), and argues that difference is actively suppressed in archaeological analyses in order to maintain stability and order (2012: 105). The process of archaeological categorisation could be seen, through the lens of Law (2004) as both an attempt to simplify mess, and the performance of a method that re-crafts the realities of the objects in question. Other related strands of recent research in the social sciences have also contributed to the gradual undermining of archaeological categories. The attention given to the ontological turn in the social sciences during the past decade has led to new relativist positions where differing cultures are no longer treated as differing systems of belief existing in one world, and where instead many ‘worlds’ are seen to exist (e.g. Alberti et al. 2011). In parallel with this, the material-cultural turn (see Hicks 2010) has led to the questioning of the fixed nature of what objects are. An example of the results of these changing perspectives is the body of literature looking at materiality in archaeology and anthropology (Conneller 2011; Ingold 2007; Jones 2012). Archaeological and anthropological research on the nature of materials themselves has demonstrated that the fundamental properties of materials differ vastly according to culture, instantly and fundamentally uprooting the idea of the Three Age system that is so integral to the understandings we hold of prehistory. Archaeologist Chantal

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Archaeology with Art Conneller begins the book An Archaeology of Materials with the question ‘what is a material?’ (2011: 1) and goes on to state that archaeological thought, and Western thought more generally, have failed to realise both the complexity of materials and the benefits that could come from an analysis of materials. Archaeologists have been constrained by two common assumptions that scientific analysis is able to characterise and define the properties of materials, and that the material categories used by archaeologists reflect those in the past (Conneller 2011: 2). Conneller illustrates the ontological variation of material properties, using the example of gold. An example from the work of Nicolas Saunders describes the value of gold in the pre-Columbian Americas, which was increased through the addition of copper. This added to its redness, an indication of fertility. The alloying of gold with copper was bemoaned by Columbus upon his arrival, along with the fact that Amerindians could not distinguish between gold and pyrites (Saunders 1999: 243). Saunders has also worked on the properties of other materials in the pre-Columbian Americas. Reflective surfaces were seen as being infused with a spiritual light, and emphasis was placed on sensory experiences not usually considered in Western definitions, such as smell (Saunders 1999, 2001, 2004). The case study on gold provides a starting point for Conneller’s in-depth discussion of material agency. Here, it destabilises the material categories used by archaeologists and begins to uproot some of the fundamental bases of our discipline, namely the Three Age System, paving the way for more specific interrogation of archaeological categories based on materials (e.g. Chittock 2014; Jones 2012). More specific theoretical discussion of categories has also informed archaeological research. Jones (2012: 101-2) defines the sources of some of the problems with archaeological categories. The treatment of artefacts as ‘natural’ entities, like zoological specimens, has led to the assumption that the categories in which archaeologists place them are predetermined and self-evident (Jones 2012: 101). Furthermore, categories themselves are inherently ‘fuzzy’, always including cores and peripheries. Jones uses the example of ‘birds’, of which robins are a core member, while ostriches occupy a peripheral place (2012: 102; Lakoff 1987). The neat and bounded categories of objects and materials envisaged by archaeologists, therefore, can never truly exist. Jones (2007, 2012) draws on the work of gender theorist Judith Butler (1993) on the concept of citation to aid his re-conceptualisation of archaeological categories (Butler (1993) has written on the performance of gender categories and citation of norms in Western culture.). He deploys these ideas in an archaeological approach focussed on the animacy of materials to suggest that repetitive material performances serve as mnemonic activities, reinforcing the significance of previous ones, and whilst also creating new memories (Jones 2012: 20). Other archaeologists have utilised similar concepts in viewing identities (which can be viewed as categories in some cases)

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age as being built up through performance and encounter, rather than inherited from previous generations (e.g. Giles 2007, 2012; Ingold 2011). Many archaeologists today readily admit that some archaeological categories owe more to our desire to categorise than to any tangible connection in the past. Gosden and Hill, for example, begin a volume on Celtic Art by stating that ‘the material known as Early Celtic Art represents an odd collection of objects which owes as much to archaeologists’ categories as it does to any mode of grouping the material in the Iron Age’ (2008: 1). This admission opens up new ground for discussion and exploration. Rather than weaken the archaeological categories on which the discipline is built, it provides an opportunity to use them as tools for the study not only of archaeology but of archaeologists themselves. This self-reflexivity is reflected more generally in recent archaeological theory, which has begun to question and redefine the archaeological process as a whole, and the places of archaeologists within it. The meaning of ‘interpretation’, for example, is under scrutiny by Alberti and Jones (2013: 15-16). They point out the current shift among archaeologists from looking at interpretation as a post hoc activity within a linear archaeological process, to viewing all practices as “relational and constitutive” (Alberti and Jones 2013: 15). Chris Fowler has presented a new conception of ‘assemblage’, which places archaeologists at its centre, rather than looking in from outside, bringing a new perspective on the reality of archaeology (2012). Remaking: Copying and Reconstruction in Art and Archaeology So far, this paper has been largely focussed on realising the potential limitations of archaeological categories, and the theoretical devices archaeologists are developing to deal with these limitations reflexively. Discussion will now return to the fruitful relationship between contemporary art practice and archaeology, which was outlined at the beginning of the paper. I will suggest that consideration of art practice might provide another way to think through archaeological categories in light of newly emerging ideas on the subject. The experiences of the artists engaged in art practice provide valuable windows into the design and production of objects. I argue that the inherent messiness of these processes may help archaeologists to better understand the varied performances involved in the production of what we see as categories of objects. The remainder of the paper will bring the strands discussed above together to focus on a particular project carried out by two artists, Ian Dawson and Louisa Minkin. It will look at the experiences of the artists involved and look at how these might be applied in understanding an archaeological category of ceramic vessels from Iron Age East Yorkshire known as Shapeless Jars.

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Archaeology with Art The project was carried out over the course of four years by Dawson, Minkin and undergraduate fine art students at Winchester School of Art, also involving the wider Digital Humanities community of the University of Southampton, in particular the Archaeological Computing Research Group. The project comprised a series of copy projects, the first of which saw the remaking of historic art objects, including Anthony Caro’s Early One Morning (1962) and Jean Tinguely’s Homage to New York (1960). This practice was an ‘object lesson’, a ‘practical or concrete illustration of a principle’ through working with materials and objects (Dawson and Minkin 2014: 20). Dawson, Minkin and their students then went on to remake devices used in the past to record 3D objects, such as Francois Willeme’s photosculpture apparatus, a 19th century method of capturing and reproducing 3D images. Dialogues with members of the Archaeological Computing Research Group (ACRG) and experiments with laser scanning and 3D printing put this process into context. The final part of the project involved collaboration with a small group of archaeologists from the University of Southampton, including the author, in a making project. The aim was to reproduce Neolithic carved stone balls, which are found largely in Scotland without archaeological contexts, and are of unknown function. The balls were originally made from granite, but were remade in clay, and then in plaster, which was challenging due to the complex geometry of the many-noded balls (Jones, this volume). The project as a whole was designed to be discursive, promoting communal working and skill sharing, and making constructive use of mistakes and difficulties. It was also designed to explore changing image culture, which reflects digital technology in moves towards the ‘swift transfer of data’ and the culture of copying and pasting; painstaking transcription replaced by dragging and dropping (Dawson and Minkin 2014: 20). The discussions behind the remaking project are similar to parallel discussions in archaeology. As with artists, the concept of reconstruction is in no way new to archaeologists. Archaeologists, however, are also taking part in discussions relating to digital technologies and exploring both the possibilities and limitations of new tools for recording and reproducing, as well as wider implications surrounding the meaning of reproduction (e.g. Earl 2013; Jeffrey 2015; Perry 2014; Watterson 2015). These parallel strands of discussion have made this project an ideal starting point from which to think about the reproduction of objects in the past. My archaeological case study for this paper is a group of ceramic vessels from Iron Age East Yorkshire, known as ‘shapeless jars’. These jars are small, hand-built vessels, generally in local fabrics. The name ‘shapeless jars’ was coined by Ian Stead (1991: 100-1) in reference to vessels included in graves in so-called ‘Arras Culture’ cemeteries in the region. Association with involuted brooches in these graves has allowed for a date range of 350-50BC to be suggested for shapeless

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age jars (Rigby 2004: 38), although this paper will also discuss their existence outside this range. My attention was first drawn to these vessels by the negative descriptions I found in archaeological literature. For example: ‘… ceramic vessels that have been crudely made, have little formal variety and are completely undecorated’ (Sharples 2008: 209). ‘… little effort was made to finish surfaces and mask the inclusions’ (Rigby 2004: 47). The fact that the plainness of these vessels was such a defining characteristic led me to investigate further the question of why they are so plain, using a dataset collected during a project led by Val Rigby and published in Pots In Pits: The British Museum Yorkshire Settlements Project 1988-1992 (Rigby 2004). Rigby excavated pits at 12 sites across East Yorkshire, which she dates through a series of ceramic typological groupings. Shapeless jars are listed as being present in grouping g. (400-100BC) and are the only type within this category. Through re-analysis of Rigby’s data I was able to uncover Figure 1. A Shapeless Jar from Hanging complexity, hidden by simple Cliff, Kilham (Pit HA29), the author typological groupings. Although after Rigby (2004), graphical scale it is not reflected in her typological added by author. groupings, Rigby alludes to the fact that shapeless jars are present outside the period 400-100BC, to which she designates them (Rigby 2004: 38). The implications of this, however, had not been elaborated upon. I examined the ranges of different ceramic forms present during the periods 900600BC, 600-400BC and 400-100BC. Although shapeless jars were listed by Rigby as characterising typological grouping g. (400-100BC), I found they were actually present within contexts dating to within all three of these date ranges. It

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Archaeology with Art seems that the presence of shapeless jars in earlier contexts was obscured by the presence of other, fancier forms. Although it seems, at a glance, that ceramics in East Yorkshire become plainer over time, this is not the case. The range of forms present decreases over time while shapeless jars remain a constant presence and come to characterise the ceramic assemblage as fancier forms cease to be produced. (A full analysis can be found in Chittock, in prep.). Re-analysis of Rigby’s data has shown that shapeless jars appear in contexts across East Yorkshire dating to between 900 and 100BC (production of these vessels also continues for more than a century after this), but that their presence during 400-100BC is simply highlighted by a decline in the frequency of other forms. Rather than representing a technological weakness or a lack of concern for aesthetics, as archaeologists have often argued, shapeless jars seem, therefore, to specify the presence of a long standing and robust tradition and the repeated reiteration of objects over at least a millennium (Chittock, in prep.). The copying of shapeless jars over this lengthy period of time brings the process of learning into focus here, as we consider the process of the observation and copying of the pot making procedure. Budden and Sofaer (2009) have used the differing levels of skill exhibited in the making of pots present at the Bronze Age tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary, to explore the transfer of non-discursive knowledge: learning through doing, much like the concept of the object lesson given by Dawson and Minkin (2014). Budden and Sofaer are able to identify, for example, a decline in the quality of clay preparation and a thickening of vessel walls, although the same forms are produced (2009: 12-14). Shapeless jars, however, are not suitable for this type of analysis due to the lack in variation of the levels of potting skills indicated. As Rigby writes they are ‘minimum input pots’ (2004: 38), referring to the supposed lack of effort put into their production. Melanie Giles has written that the poor quality of the firing of the vessels leads to distortion and fragmentation in the graves where they are deposited (2012: 133). While the production of shapeless jars must have been learnt, whether through discursive or non-discursive knowledge, the lack of obvious skill variation means the process is difficult to trace archaeologically. It is necessary to turn instead to other means of understanding the reproduction of very similar vessels over a long period of time. I propose that in order to gain any further understanding of the vessels known as shapeless jars, consideration is needed of the human-scale experience of reproduction over many generations. Referring to the Remaking Project described earlier (Dawson and Minkin 2014) allows a window into the experiences of a group of individuals undergoing just one single episode of remaking. It begins to reveal the complexities of the experiences of just two of the participants, arising from social and material interactions. Dawson and Minkin write, for example, on their own speculations of the functions of Neolithic carved stone

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age balls as throwing stones, which arose as they carved them. The physical act of carving was a catalyst for their imaginations (2014: 27). As Dawson and Minkin describe, the Remaking project was not without its difficulties and set-backs, but the spirit of an improvised approach to the process meant that mistakes provided learning experiences and led to better understandings of the materials and objects being manipulated (2014: 23). ‘Difficulties and mistakes produced some curious outcomes, objects produced within this enquiry were novel, a misapplied camera setting for example, would generate new implications that were shared and discussed by the group’ (Dawson and Minkin 2014: 23). Echoing this, Hallam and Ingold (2007: 1) have written that ‘there is no script for social and cultural life’. People are constantly improvising and experimenting in whatever they do and, as in the Remaking project, these experiments lead to acquired knowledge and experience. David Turnbull (2000) gives an account of the ‘messy’ practices underlying the construction of Chartres cathedral. While there will have been intentionality on the part of the master mason of the cathedral as he instructed labourers, there was no solid design for the project inscribed on paper, and Turnbull describes the construction site as a ‘laboratory’ (2000: 69). The site was a series of experiments and a ‘locus of powerful social transformation’, a space where local knowledge was tested and transformed into a more coherent tradition of techno-scientific knowledge. Understanding processes of improvisation and remaking may begin to shed light on shapeless jars, reproduced over a millennium but using methods that are seen as lacking technical skill and could be considered improvised. The process of remaking in the context of shapeless jars, however, cannot be seen as singular. As Jones writes, ‘copying or repetition is not a simple mechanical process of replication but instead entails a complex and ongoing alignment of observation of the model with action in the world’ (Jones 2012: 103). This is evident in the work of Dawson and Minkin (2014), who write about remaking Francois Willeme’s photosculpture apparatus, a 19th century device for reproducing a 3D image of a subject, in the context of a world where 3D laser scanners and 3D printers are now readily available. Similarly, the repetitive production of shapeless jars must be viewed in the changing context of the whole 1st millennium BC. The production of other ceramic forms was in flux throughout this time. The carinated forms of the Late Bronze Age decline in frequency during the early Iron Age (Rigby 2004); everted and lid-seated forms are popular in East Yorkshire between 600 and 400BC (Rigby 2004). East Yorkshire was, of course, also a permeable entity (if, indeed, it was considered an entity during the Iron Age). A sherd of East Midlands scored ware found at Easington (Richardson, unpublished report), a middle-late Iron Age settlement site, alongside shapeless jars, for example, demonstrates a dialogue with other potters working outside the tradition of

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Archaeology with Art shapeless jars and outside the region of East Yorkshire. Evidence also exists for more fundamental societal change in East Yorkshire during the 1st millennium BC. Most notably, the move towards constructing large square barrow inhumation cemeteries with adjoining settlements at around 350 BC suggests a major shift in social organisation, land-use and the relationship between living and dead. Another major episode of landscape reorganisation occurs from 100BC when use of the cemeteries ceases (e.g. Giles 2007a, 2007b, 2012; Rigby 2004). Although shapeless jars all look similar, therefore, they are different objects, embodying different experiences of making characterised by contemporary society and material culture. .

Shapeless Jars as a Category The findings discussed in this paper have highlighted several major issues with the framework of archaeological categories within which shapeless jars exist. The typological groupings of ceramic forms used by Rigby (2004) were imposed upon the material culture, and served to obscure and silence objects that did not fit within them. This privileged ability to manipulate data is something that new approaches to the relationship between archaeology and the archaeologist are wary of, arguing for a more transparent, bottom-up approach (e.g. Alberti, Jones and Pollard 2013; Fowler 2012). It seems necessary to question whether Shapeless Jars should exist as a category of objects. Tracing the origins of the category highlights its almost accidental growth, from Stead’s (1991: 100-101) reference to the jars found within Arras culture graves, to the vague category of ceramic vessels of various ages that are not visually distinctive enough to belong in other categories. Indeed, Rigby (2004: 38) describes them as ‘a varied range of small pots’, almost a miscellaneous category. Jones asks the question: ‘how do we describe things that are messy, unusual or odd?’ (Jones 2012: 2). Shapeless jars seem to be a ‘messy’ group of simple yet slightly variable vessels, spanning a long time period and, as yet, an unbounded geographical area. The ways they have been described in the past have shown a lack of consideration of how and why they are a group of objects. I do not propose that archaeologists stop referring to or considering shapeless jars as a category, but I do suggest that the acknowledging the complexity contained within it will increase understanding. As I’ve demonstrated, a consideration of remaking in art practice can provide a window on the unexpected experiences and improvised methods reported by the artists involved, and can provide an analogy for the complicated process of remaking shapeless jars over a whole millennium.

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age Concluding Points Process has become a key feature of artistic display during the last century. Artistic movements such as Performance Art, Action Painting and Earth Art developed during the 20th century, and all include dynamism and flux as defining elements of their artworks. The ephemerality of Andy Goldsworthy’s outdoor work with materials such as leaves, stones and even snow and water implies an imminent process of decay, the work being brief and temporary. The action painting of Jackson Pollock, for example, conversely serves as a representation of the performance and gestures made during its creation. Collaboration between artists and archaeologists during recent years has provided the opportunity to introduce this same concern for process into the field of archaeological interpretation. This paper has used the Remaking project by Dawson and Minkin (2014), a window on the complexities of reproducing objects, to better understand the reproduction of shapeless jars in East Yorkshire during the 1st millennium BC. The discursive and experimental nature of the remaking project illustrated the fact that, even when given an object to imitate, unexpected challenges will arise, just as when producing a newly designed object. It also reflected the contemporary situation of the artists involved, acting as a reflective activity through which to think about changing image culture in the face of new digital technologies. Shapeless jars are a group of objects that are resistant to regular processes of typological study, due to their similar visual appearances over the 1st millennium BC. By applying the lessons of the remaking project to the process of remaking these vessels, it has been possible to understand more about them. Although the copying of similar forms constitutes a process of citation, societal change and personal experience means that each remaking episode is different. This paper has discussed archaeological categories and their short comings in accounting for ‘mess’ in archaeology, and has questioned the appropriateness of considering Shapeless Jars as a single category of objects. As an assemblage of objects their designs remain similar over a whole millennium but, as I’ve argued, the differing experiences of potters over that time, occurring across a thousand years of social and technological change, make them a very varied and complex group. I’ve suggested that art practice can provide a way of seeing beyond the similar appearances of multiple objects to acknowledge the complex myriad of personal and communal experiences that can be embodied within a simple category. As I wrote earlier in this paper ‘categorisation forms one of the cornerstones of archaeology’. Considering individual and communal experiences through art practice as I have done may allow archaeological categories to become more flexible, resilient and dynamic.

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References Alberti, B., Fowles, S., Holbraad, M., Marshall, Y. and Witmore C. 2011. “Worlds Otherwise”: Archaeology, Anthropology, and Ontological Difference. Current Anthropology 52(6): 896-912. Alberti, B., Jones, A. and Pollard, J. (eds) 2013. Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory. Walnut Creek, Left Coast Press. Alberti, B. and Jones, A. 2013. Archaeology After Interpretation. In B. Alberti, A. Jones and J. Pollard (eds) Archaeology After Interpretation: Returning Materials to Archaeological Theory. Walnut Creek, Left Coast Press. Bender, B., Hamilton, S. and Tilley, C. 2007. Stone Worlds: Narrative and Reflexivity in Landscape Archaeology. Walnut Creek, Left Coast Press. Budden, S. and Sofaer, J. 2009. Non-Discursive Knowledge and the Construction of Identity: Potters, Potting and Performance at the Bronze Age Tell of Százhalombatta, Hungary. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 19(2): 203-220. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that Matter: On the discursive limits of sex. London, Routledge. Chittock, H. 2014. Arts and Crafts in Iron Age Britain: Reconsidering the Aesthetic Effects of Weaving Combs. Oxford Journal of Archaeology 33(3): 313-326. Chittock, H. (in prep.). Technological Weakness or Cultural Strength? Shapeless Jars in Iron Age East Yorkshire. In G. Erskine, P. Jacobsson; P. Miller and S. Stetkiewicz (eds), The Proceedings of the 17th Iron Age Research Student Symposium. Oxford, Archaeopress. Cochrane, A. and Russel, I. 2007. Visualizing archaeologies: a manifesto. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(1): 3-19. Collis, J. 2003. The Celts: Origins, Myths, Interventions. Stroud, Tempus. Conneller, C. 2011. An Archaeology of Materials: Substantial Transformations in Early Prehistoric Europe. London, Routledge. Cunliffe, B. 2005. Iron Age Communities in Britain: An account of England, Scotland and Wales from the Seventh Century BC until the Roman Conquest (4th ed.). London, Routledge. Dawson, I. and Minkin, L. 2014. Object lessons: copying and reconstruction as a teaching strategy. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education 13(1): 19-29. Derrida, J. 1988. Limited Inc. Evanston, Northwestern University Press. Earl, G. 2013. Modeling in archaeology: computer graphic and other digital pasts. Perspectives on Science, 21(2): 226-244.

Chittock - Categorising the Iron Age Fowler, C. 2012. The Emergent Past: A Relational Realist Archaeology of Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Giles, M. 2007a. Refiguring rights in the Early Iron Age landscapes of East Yorkshire. In C. Haselgrove and R. Pope (eds) The Earlier Iron Age in Britain and the Near Continent. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Giles, M. 2007b. Good fences make good neighbours? Exploring the ladder enclosures of Late Iron Age East Yorkshire. In C. Haselgrove and T. Moore (eds) The Later Iron Age in Britain and Beyond. Oxford, Oxbow Books. Giles, M. 2012. A Forged Glamour: Landscape, Identity and Material Culture in the Iron Age, Oxford. Windgather Press. Gosden, C. and HILL, J.D. 2008. Introduction: Re-integrating Celtic Art. In D. Garrow, C. Gosden and J.D. Hill (eds.) Rethinking Celtic Art. Oxford, Oxbow. Hallam, E. and Ingold, T. (eds) 2007. Creativity and cultural improvisation. Oxford, Berg. Hamilakis, Y. 2013. Archaeology and the senses: human experience, memory, and effect. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Hawkes, C. F. C. 1931. Hillforts. Antiquity 5/17: 60 – 97. Hawkes, C. F. C. 1959. The ABC of the British Iron Age. Antiquity 33/131: 170 – 82. Hicks, D. 2010. The Material-Cultural Turn: Event and Effect. In M. Beaudry and D. Hicks (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Hodson, F. R. 1960. Some reflection on the ‘‘ABC’’ of the British Iron Age. Antiquity 34/134: 138 – 40. Ingold, T. 2007. Materials Against Materiality. Archaeological Dialogues 14(1): 1-16. Jeffrey, S. 2015. Challenging Heritage Visualisation: Beauty, Aura and Democratisation. Open Archaeology 1(1). Jones, A. 2007. Memory and Material Culture. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Jones, A. 2012. Prehistoric Materialities: Becoming Material in Prehistoric Britain and Ireland. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Law, J. 2004. After Method: ‘Mess’ in Social Science Research. London, Routledge. Law, J. and Mol, A. 2006. Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Durham, Duke University Press. Marsden, B. 1999. The Early Barrow Diggers. Stroud, Tempus.

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Archaeology with Art Morse, M. 2005. How the Celts Came to Britain: Druids, Skulls and the Birth of Archaeology. Stroud, Tempus. Perry, S. 2015. Crafting knowledge with (digital) visual media in archaeology. In R. Chapman and A. Wylie (eds) Material Evidence: Learning from Archaeological Practice: 189-210, London, Routledge. Renfrew, C. 2003. Figuring it Out: What are We? : Where Do We Come From? : the Parallel Visions of Artists and Archaeologists. London, Thames and Hudson. Rigby, V. 2004. Pots in Pits: The British Museum Yorkshire Settlements Project 1988-1992, East Riding Archaeologist 11. Rowley-Conwy, P. 2007. From Genesis to Prehistory. The archaeological Three Age System and its contested Reception in Denmark, Britain and Ireland. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Saunders, N.J. 1999. Biographies of brilliance: Pearls, transformations of matter and being, c. AD 1492. World Archaeology 31 (2): 243-57. Saunders, N.J. 2001. A Dark Light: Reflections on Obsidian in Mesoamerica. World Archaeology, 33 (2): 220-236. Saunders, N.J. 2004. The Cosmic Earth: Materiality and Mineralogy in the Americas. In N. Boivin and M.A. Owoc (eds) Soil, Stones and Symbols: Cultural Perceptions of the Mineral World: 123-141. London, UCL Press. Sharples, N. 2008. Comment I: Contextualising Iron Age Art. In D. Garrow, C. Gosden and J.D. Hill (eds) Rethinking Celtic Art. Oxford, Oxbow. Stead, I. 1991. Iron Age Cemeteries in East Yorkshire. London, English Heritage. Turnbull, D. 2000. Masons, Tricksters and Cartographers: Comparative Studies in the Sociology of Scientific and Indigenous Knowledge. London, Harwood Academic Publishers. Watterson, A. 2015. Beyond Digital Dwelling: Re-thinking Interpretive Visualisation in Archaeology. Open Archaeology, 1(1).

Gheorghiu

Imagining and Illustrating The Archaeological Record: The Power of Evocation and Augmentation of Linear Drawing Dragoş Gheorghiu,1 National University of Arts (Bucharest, Romania) Introduction: The Imagination and Visual Representation of the Past As early as the last two decades of the 20th century, archaeology began to seek alternative sources of creativity in order to advance beyond the limits of Processualism. Consequently, new models were explored along the lines of analogical thinking (Genter et al. 2001), with the purpose of enhancing imagination and uncovering new ways of seeing the past. In the theoretical literature of the last decades, one can notice a propensity towards imagining and imagination. Parallel to the approach to image art (image’s exclusive field) was the use of art as a source of inspiration (Shülke 2000; Tilley et al. 2000) and a method of augmenting the archaeological imagination. Imagination is the faculty of mind of creating mental images and is consequently related to vision. In archaeological theory the problem of image as re-presentation was approached by Molyneaux (1997) Smiles and Moser (2005) and Russell (2006), and more recently re-examined by Bonde and Houston (2013). Visualization in archaeology (see Cochrane and Russell 2007; Russel 2006) has become a significant field of research with a significant emphasis on imagination, as illustrated by the examples given above. During recent decades the concept of archaeological imagination started, tentatively at first (see Favro 2006), to appear in the archaeological literature (see Gheorghiu and Bouissac 2015; Sanders 2009; Shanks 1992; 2012; Wallace 2004). A major concept related to the imagination of the past is that of the representation of the real (Bonde and Houston 2013), and today there is a main trend in archaeological reconstructions to search for photorealism (Reinhard et al. 1998). In spite of this propensity for mimesis, there remains a timid tendency against the tyranny of “realism” (see Gheorghiu 2009a, b, c, d; 2012b; Leibhammer 2000: 136). This non-mimetic representation of the past is approached in the present paper by an archaeologist-artist (the author) and an artist-illustrator (Georgina Jones) who present their manner of using linear drawing to imagine the past.

1

[email protected]

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Art and Archaeology The involvement of visual arts in archaeology during recent decades deserves a short explanation in order to find its genuine origins. One explanation for this change of vision could have been the crisis in visual art and anthropology during the last decades of the 20th century. The art critic Hal Foster asserted that the visual arts of the seventies became very ‘ethnographic’ and the artist became an ethnographer (Foster 1996). The artists of that era, however, were not only interested in ethnographic sources. Working in line with the beginnings of the Modern movement, where artists were inspired by the art of ‘Primitives’, children’s art and museum artefacts for example, the artists of the seventies searched for inspiration in archaeology as well. For the Processualist archaeologists of that time the idea that art could have been a source of inspiration for archaeology was unacceptable. It is only with the crisis of representation in anthropology at the beginning of the eighties, when new perspectives in human sciences emerged such as the visual and sensory anthropologies (see Pink 2006: 14), that elements common to art like evocation and sensoriality became permissible. Gradually the crisis of representation in anthropology (Clifford and Marcus 1986), that proclaimed evocation could substitute the ethnographic discourse (Tyler 1986), led to anthropology of the senses (Classen 1993; Howes 2005; Stoller 1997) and reflexivity (Grimshaw 2001). Later this trend became a source of inspiration for alternative archaeologies (Hodder 2000; Houston and Taube 2000; Skeates 2010). Archaeology began to search for a solution to the crisis of representation by using analogy (as it did in ethnoarchaeology), considering art as an analogous model. An early attempt in the year 2000 to use art as an evocative instrument was made by Tilley, Hamilton, and Bender (2000), who positioned different types of land-art on a prehistoric site to enhance the visibility of its stone monuments. In 2003 Colin Renfrew published ‘Figuring it Out’, a book about the analogous or ‘parallel vision of artists and archaeologists’, where he focused attention on the sensory experience of visiting ancient sites and presented artists who were inspired by archaeology. These publications transformed what had been a delicate subject into a viable theme, which was subsequently accessed by other archaeologists (e.g. Russell 2006). Furthermore the new approach has recently been accepted in professional archaeological meetings; to cite the European Association of Archaeologists and Theoretical Archaeological Group conferences in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In these approaches one can discern a propensity to use the visual grammar of contemporary art (see for example http://www. sculptureintheparklands.com/ian_andrew.htm, or Gheorghiu 2014), but the main trend in visual art representations continues to favour photorealistic 3D images.

Gheorghiu - Imagining and Illustrating The Archaeological Record Linear Drawing as a Technique for Representation and Evocation Despite the advantages of photographic volumetric reconstructions (Barceló 2001; Forte and Siliotti 1997; Higget et al. 2012; Niccoluccu 2002), whose degrees of resemblance to reality permit efficient perceptions of (recreated) space, one must also acknowledge the advantages of linear drawing in that it can, not only represent, but also evoke the imagination. An additional advantage could be its rhetoric quality, i.e. the possibility to mentally reconstruct the whole shape when the line-drawing of objects is degraded (see Humphreys and Bruce 1995, 76), this being the reason why it was considered to be ‘part of a creative design process’ (Massironi 2002; Ware 2008: 153). Furthermore linear drawing allows the expression of non-mimetic forms of order (Dirmoser 2011), which is why it has been used to produce diagrams of the world (Barber 2005) for example. One can conclude that linear drawing is the highest minimalistic form of artistic expression, possessing a wide spectrum of possibilities. Modern and contemporary art have exploited it, to cite only the works of Robert Smithson, Christo or Richard Long, who have produced evocative linear artworks. Our Artworks with Lines In our archaeological visualizations Georgina Jones and I were not interested in iconic representations (i.e. photographical realism), but in analogies and metaphors (i.e. evocation). Subsequently we used the two-dimensional space of linear drawing. In the linear land-art that I created, inspired by my archaeological experiments and by the archaeological record, I often tried to augment the power of evocation by creating metaphors and allegories that could influence the sensoriality of the experimenter, or of the public: ‘Since visual augmentation is an allegorical method, which can lead to a more complex vision of the reality of the past, I have attempted in my experiments to identify methods of investigation that are less technological and more creative. If a material metaphor overlaps an existing object, or if that object is introduced into an allegory, then we can augment the information about it’ (Gheorghiu 2012b: 178). As James Clifford once wrote: ‘Allegory draws special attention to the narrative character of cultural representations, to the stories built into the representational process itself’ (Clifford 1986: 100). Augmentation represents an overlapping of images and data, forming a palimpsest. The palimpsest became more significant for my worldview when I approached the world as a stratigraphy (Gheorghiu and Stefan 2013), a concept I developed in

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Archaeology with Art the Time Maps Project, which is detailed in the following section of this paper (also see www.timemaps.net). Georgina Jones was recommended by Professor Timothy Darvill to contribute to this project due to her work as an artist and archaeological illustrator. About her art work she stresses that: ‘The aim of this project was inspiration as opposed to conclusion. As an artist I am an advocate of keeping a creative idea simple and clear, so that it translates easily into the symbolic medium. I find similarities between our two disciplines, where both archaeologists and artists must uncover and represent the symbolic language of our species when we set about creating things. As both an artist and a human being, I record my memories as well as my understandings of human experiences.’ (G. Jones, pers. comm.) Time Maps Project The collaboration was carried out within a research project whose main goal was to make visible archaeological sites and their specific technologies. Time Maps was designed to mix science and art, and is based on a methodology that uses both experiments and experience. It does this by approaching prehistoric and ancient technologies from both of these perspectives in order to expand first the imagination of the experimentalists, and then that of the public at large. The artistic instruments used by the project to create a visual rhetoric (i.e. metaphors and metonymies) were land-art, performances (i.e. re-enactments), collages or hybridizations between different media (i.e. between reality and Virtual Reality): ‘I believe the use of artistic metaphors could create an augmentation of reality through the generation of emotion (see Matravers 2001), which is a key element to understanding human behaviour (Kovach and De Lancey 2005), especially during rites of passage. My objective is to develop through various experiments the sensoriality (see Fahlander and Kjellström 2010) of the performer so as to be aware of the materiality and rituality of the past. It is my hope that this approach will expand the level of understanding of the material culture of the past.’ (Gheorghiu 2012b: 180). Since we believed that the sensorial experience, or experientiality (in the sense given by Katz and Csordas 2003: 277), and images could act as efficient instruments with which to expand the imagination of the individual, our art works tried to combine phenomenological experience (Gheorghiu 2011a) with the potentiality of linear drawing. I tried this mix when creating various linear land-art in Romania and Portugal,2 and Georgina Jones also tried when she designed a book-palimpsest.3 2 3

See http://timemaps.net/timemap/velho_da_zimbreira/ http://timemaps.net/timemap/abrantes/?page_id=1552 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DIPeq3YanE

Gheorghiu - Imagining and Illustrating The Archaeological Record All the phenomenological experiences produced by the physical engagement (Pink 2006: 45; Seremetakis 1994) of the archaeological investigations, or by the works of art, were conveyed as images/illustrations by the actor illustrator. They complemented the scientific research with the visualisation of the experientiality of the performer. Land Art as Linear Drawing [Dragoş Gheorghiu’s Art Work] Visual tropes, like metonymy and metaphors, were implemented in built contexts, to augment the experientiality of the experimentalist, as well as of the artistillustrator. In my experiments I increased the sensorial experience of both the actor and the observer, as the textures of the materials were emphasized (Gheorghiu, in press) and highlighted by the use of minimalist backgrounds. Moreover, I employed a minimalist approach when using land-art as a form of drawing on archaeological landscapes, reducing to single lines different architectural structures (such as walls and ditches) or less tangible ritual features. In visual arts such a type of visual expression appeared in the seventies, to mention only the work of Christo and Richard Long. The difference between our works is that theirs had as its final goal an aesthetic image, while mine exploited the potential of linear drawing to express material and non-material archaeological traits, some of them not measurable, like ‘ritual’ or ‘space’. Using linear drawing I augmented the reality of the archaeological record, while at the same time making invisible archaeological data visible. The first land-art piece, employed to visualise the place of an ancient village in Câmpulung (Romania), I designed in 1983; two decades later I reused the technique when I visualised the rites of passage in Vădastra, a Chalcolithic settlement in the south of Romania (Gheorghiu 2009a, b, c, d; Gheorghiu and Ştefan 2013), and the walls of a castro, a Chalcolithic stronghold in Monte Velho, Portugal (Gheorghiu 2012). To visualise ritual gestures I also used linear drawings, for example when I attempted to reproduce the diagram engraved into a rock placed into the passage grave at Barclodyad Y Gawres in Anglesey (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2014/june/anglesey-art. html), which I interpreted as being a ritual binding of the rock. Finally, linear drawings succeeded in making visible some ceremonial pathways (Gheorghiu 2011b) at Abrantes Castle (Figure 1) and Barclodyad Y Gawres (Figure 2). Experience and Linear Drawings [Georgina Jones’ Artwork] Within the Time Maps Project, Georgina Jones’ involvement centred on the representation of experientiality, using 2D techniques, after she took part in a series of archaeological experiments designed to build clay vases using the coilbuilding technique, under the coordination of a ceramicist, Ion Cojocariu. She also took part in several re-enactments of the Neolithic daily life.

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Figure 1. Dragoş Gheorghiu, Land art: The visualization of the watch guard’s path, Abrantes Castle, Time Maps Project, 30 June 2014 (photograph by Dragoş Gheorghiu).

Figure 2. Dragoş Gheorghiu, Land art: The drawing on a rock inside the funerary chamber drawn on the surface of the chambered tomb, Barclodyad Y Gawres, GestART Project, 21st May 2014 (photograph with drone by Andy Beardsley).

Gheorghiu - Imagining and Illustrating The Archaeological Record All this sensory fieldwork (Pink 2006: 46), resulted in an interconnectedness of seeing and touching (MacDougall 1998: 51) involving the utilization of the corporeal memory, allowing Georgina Jones to produce a nuanced interpretation of reality. The archaeological representation of her sensory experience resulted in a book that presented her experiences in context, or in other words her personal journey to the Past. The book she produced attempts to replicate the experience using a series of narrative illustrations inspired by a scientific linear style of drawing. She was able to use semiotic principles to turn traditional scientific illustrations into allegories of her subjective experience (Figure 3). In the images created the artist was presented in an iconic mode (the whole body in photography) and in a metonymic one (the hand that models the clay (Figure 4)). The overlapping of the linear drawings on tracing paper on other linear drawings or photography of people, or the context, could be perceived as a metaphor of the way the artist transformed into an archaeologist. For Georgina Jones, ‘the book presents the ancient artefact as a subjectively realised process. The aim of the book is not to present facts about the Neolithic pot; instead it presents the pot as an event and as a personal experience. Here,

Figure 3. Georgina Jones, Drawing of Vădastra landscape, Time Maps Project, June 2013 (Drawing by Georgina Jones).

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Archaeology with Art artistic imagination has been used to explore the potential of an artefact, its environment, the process by which it is made and the materials that make it. It also explores the methods and modes by which archaeologists can present ideas to their audience. The tracing paper, for example, was used to manipulate the spatial sensation of the book allowing the readers to look through a series of images and across the breath of the pages. The book thereby introduces ideas of multi-dimensional visual narrative by way of a traditional material used by archaeological illustrators.’ (G. Jones, pers. comm.) The stratigraphy she produced with the tracing paper, which could be considered to be an augmentation of the reality of the context, illustrates her experientiality in context (Figure 5), helping her to imagine a part of the prehistoric site. Compared to the effect produced by current illustrations, the ones resulting from the aforementioned experientiality have the advantage of generating a more profound understanding of the archaeological site, seen as a result of agency and mingling between humans, objects and animals. Conclusions A lesson from Time Maps project could be the enormous potential of the action of hybridization between science and art, where art, due to its analogous character of sensitive knowledge, helps science overcome some of its barriers in visualizing concepts and results. We believe that art, due to its analogical character, could help the hermeneutical process of the interpretation of material culture, by developing the capacity of imagining the past. As experiments demonstrate, the capability of the archaeological imagination could be augmented with the evocative contribution of art even when simple linear drawings were employed. In a time marked by photorealism, an approach to the reality of the archaeological record using allegories, metaphors or metonymies, could represent a creative alternative approach to the human presence hidden beyond the material culture of the past. All the phenomenological experience generated by this attitude towards the archaeological record could lead to more sensitive interpretations, and in this respect the graphic illustration, land art and installations could act as complementary instruments for the archaeologist. Visual art could allow an augmentation of reality through different methods; it can transmit the corporal memories of the ‘sensuous body, respectively smells, tastes, textures and sensations’, that added to vision ‘are central to the metaphoric organization of experience’ (Stoller 1997: XVI).

Gheorghiu - Imagining and Illustrating The Archaeological Record

Figures 4 and 5. Top, The hands of the artist modelling clay, Georgina Jones. Bottom, Modelled clay transformed into a pot, Georgina Jones. Time Maps Project, June 2013 (Drawings by Georgina Jones).

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Archaeology with Art With this paper we wanted to highlight the augmentative and evocative character of the linear drawing in land arts that can visualise invisible information in the archaeological record, and also develop imagination. A similar role was also played by the art of illustration, which can reach a more subjective and more sensitive level of interpretation of the archaeological record and of the reconstructed contexts. Both techniques allow experimentalists and observers to attain a high degree of immersion, when imagining the past. Acknowledgements The author’s gratitude goes to Georgina Jones for her imaginative and efficient contribution to Time Maps Project and to Joana Valdez-Tullett and Helen Chittock for the kind invitation to contribute to the book. Many thanks to Professor Tim Darvill, film makers Adrian and Octavian Şerbănescu, and potter Ion Cococi for helping to plan and carry out the experiments in Vădastra. Thanks also to Professor Luiz Oosterbeek and Dr. Davide Delfino for their support during the experiments in Monte Velho and Abrantes, and to Professor George Nash for support during the experiments in the GestART Project in Barclodyad Y Gawres. Last but not least thanks to Mr. Bogdan Căpruciu for his useful comments and to the reviewers who improved the readability of the text. This paper is dedicated to the Time Maps collaborator ceramicist Ion Cojocariu (1958-2015) who worked with Georgina Jones in 2012 in Vădastra village. The project Time Maps was financed by a PN II IDEI UEFISCDI grant. Photo Abrantes: Dragoş Gheorghiu; Photo Barclodyad Y Gawres: Andy Beardsley; Photos of illustrations: Georgina Jones. References Barber, P. (ed.), 2005. The Map Book. London, Weldenfeld and Nicholson. Barceló, J. A. 2001. Virtual reality for archaeological explanation beyond “picturesque” reconstruction. Archeologia e calcolatori: 221-244. Bonde, S. and Houston, S. 2013. Re-presenting the Past. Archaeology through text and image. Oxford and Oakville, Oxbow. Classen, C. 1993. Worlds of Sense. Exploring the Senses in History and Across Cultures. London and New York, Routledge.

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Archaeology with Art Gheorghiu, D. 2012a. eARTh Vision (Art-chaeology and digital mapping), World Art 2(2): 211-217. Gheorghiu, D. 2012b. Metaphors and allegories as Augmented Reality. The use of art to evoke material and immaterial subjects. In I-M. Back Danielsson, F. Fahlander and Y. Sjöstrand (eds), Encountering imagery. Materialities, perceptions, relations: 177-185. Stockholm, Stockholm Studies in Archaeology 57. Gheorghiu, D. 2014. Review Archaeographies: excavating Neolithic Dispilio. Antiquity 88: 671-672. Gheorghiu, D. (in press). Lighting in reconstructed contexts: Archaeological experiments and experientiality with pyrotechnologies, In C. Papadopoulos, and G. Earl (eds), Archaeology and the language of light: Interdisciplinary studies in experience and perception. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Gheorghiu, D. and Ştefan, L. 2013. In between: Experiencing liminality. In L. Aceti and R. Rinehart (eds), Not here, not there. Leonardo Electronic Almanac 19.1: 44-61. Gheorghiu, D. and Bouissac, P. (eds) 2015. How do we imagine the Past? On metaphorical thought, experientiality and imagination in archaeology. Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Grimshaw, A. 2001. The Ethnographer’s Eye. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Higgett, N., Baines, E., Everitt, D., Saucedo, G. and Tatham, E. 2012. Virtual Romans: Virtual Reconstruction of Roman Leicester (Ratae Corieltauvorum) 210 AD. In D. Arnold, J. Kaminski, F. Niccolucci, and A. Stork (eds), The 13th International Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural Heritage VAST (2012): 37-40. Hodder, I. (ed.) 2000. Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: The Example at Çatalhöyük. Cambridge, The McDonald Institute of Archaeology. Houston, S. and Taube, K. 2000. An Archaeology of the Senses: Perception and Cultural Expression in Ancient Mesoamerica. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 10.2: 261-294. Howes, D. 2005. Empire of the Senses. The Sensual Culture Reader. Oxford and New York, Berg. Humphreys, G. W. and Bruce, V. 1995. Visual cognition. Computational, experimental and neuropsychological perspectives. Hove and London, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Katz J. and Csordas, T.J. 2003. Phenomenological ethnography in sociology and anthropology, Ethnography 4: 275-88. Kovach, A. and De Lancey, C. 2005. On emotions and the explanation of behavior. Noús 39.1: 106-122.

Gheorghiu - Imagining and Illustrating The Archaeological Record Leibhammer, N. 2000. Rendering realities. In I. Hodder (ed.), Towards reflexive method in archaeology: the example at Çatalhöyük: 129-142. Cambridge, The McDonald Institute of Archaeology. MacDougall, D. 1998. Transcultural cinema. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Massironi, M. 2002. The Psychology of Graphic Images: Seeing, Drawing, Communicating. Mahwah, New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Matravers, D. 2001. Art and emotion. Oxford, Clarendon Press. Molyneaux, B. L. (ed.) 1997. The Cultural life of images. Visual representation in archaeology. London, Routledge. Niccolucci, F. (ed.) 2002. Virtual Archaeology. Proceedings of the VAST Euroconference, Arezzo, British Archaeological Reports International Series. Oxford, Archaeopress. Pink, S. 2006. The Future of visual anthropology. Engaging the senses. London and New York, Routledge. Reinhard, E., Chalmers, A.G., and Jansen, F.W. 1998. Overview of Parallel Photorealistic Graphics. In A. De Sousa and B. Hopgood (eds), State-of-the-Art Reports, Eurographics Conference ‘98, Lisbon, September 2-4, 1998: 1-25. Renfrew, C. 2003. Figuring it out. What are we? Where do we come from?, The parallel visions of artists and archaeologists. London, Thames and Hudson. Russell, I. (ed.) 2006. Images, Representations and Heritage. Moving beyond Modern Approaches to Archaeology. New York, Springer. Sanders, K. 2009. Bodies in the Bog: And the Archaeological Imagination. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Seremetakis, C.N. 1994. The Memory of the Senses: Historical Perception, Commensal Exchange, and Modernity. In L. Taylor (ed.), Visualizing Theory. London, Routledge. Shanks, M. 1992. Experiencing the Past. London, Routledge. Shanks, M. 2012. The Archaeoological imagination, Walnut Creek, Left Coast Press. Shülke, A. 2000. Archaeology and art. In C. Holtorf and H. Karlsson (eds), Philosophy and archaeological practice. Perspectives from the 21st century: 171-273. Göteborg, Bricoleur Press. Skeates, R. 2010. An Archaeology of the senses. Prehistoric Malta. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Smiles, S. and Moser, S. 2005. Envisioning the Past. Archaeology and the Image. Oxford, Blackwell.

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A. Valdez-Tullett

Moving, changing, becoming: applying Aristotle´s kinesis paradigm to rock art Andy Valdez-Tullett,1 Historic England (UK) Movement is an essential characteristic of the Universe and everything within it. The study of movement is termed kinesthetics, drawing an origin from the work of Aristotle who considered that movedness (or the ability of things to move) was a fundamental aspect of things and beings. Aristotle lived and worked during the 4th century BC and despite their antiquity, his ideas continued to influence European philosophy, science and theology through the Middle Ages. These ideas, backed by the Catholic Church, were widely unchallenged and he has been cited as one factor that held back scientific advance during this period (Russell 2004). Whilst many of his views, such as the Earth’s central, pivotal location in the universe, have failed to survive scientific advance, he often provided the starting point for a serious understanding of the world around us. In this paper, I explore Aristotle’s concept of kinesis and the four causes of kinesis that lead to change and movement. I do not intend to present a semantic debate on Aristotle’s philosophy as an academic philosophical exercise, nor consider that his ideas are unquestionable but aim to provide an account for the nonphilosophically adept. Kinesis as a concept is investigated to show how such ideas can be developed to provide a useful cognitive framework. I explore the concept through application to rock art as it allows us to approach the wide range of questions that rock art raises, such as technical, spatial, expertise, mediums and composition. As a universal principle, kinesis is equally applicable to archaeology, art and everything. Kinesis In his works ‘Physics’ and ‘Metaphysics’, Aristotle seeks to explore the nature of the world. He believes that everything within the universe possesses the ability to move, and the process of movement is termed kinesis. Here is the first part where we experience issues with translation and interpretation. Having initially undergone Latinization and then translation into modern languages, the modern meanings of the words often fail to carry the same connotations as their Ancient Greek originals. For kinesis the translation of movement only goes partway to establishing a meaning. In the modern western mind, movement is considered in terms of spatial and temporal displacement. If you are in one place at one time 1

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Archaeology with Art and in another place at another time, you have moved. For the Ancient Greeks movement was a broader concept and instead could be thought of as moving from one state to another and hence covered changes in substance, quality and / or quantity as well as location. Thus when we reflect on kinesis, in addition to movement, we should consider it as interchangeable with change. Aristotle defined the process of kinesis (χίνησις) as the actuality / actualization (entelecheia -ενδελέχεια) of that which potentially (dunamis - δύναμις) is qua such (Aristotle, Physica III.1). This definition has received criticism primarily as it can cause confusion over something that at first thought may appear to be straightforward. Thus we see statements such as: ‘Great God! Is there any stomach strong enough to digest that? The explanation of a familiar thing was requested, but this is so complicated that nothing is clear anymore… The need for definitions of the words in the definitions will go on ad infinitum’. (Gassendi – Exercises against the Aristotelians [1624]. Cited by Cohen (2008)). To attempt an understanding of this definition, we must as Gassendi exclaims break the sentence into its component parts and look for clues in their definitions. Entelecheia (ενδελέχεια) is a compound word with contradictory elements including being in a state by continuing effort and having completion that has in a more exact sense been translated as ‘being-at-work-staying-the-same’ (Sachs 1995). In a broader Latinized sense it is usually translated as actualization, however it is best seen as a form of completeness whilst still being at work (Sachs 1995). With this definition it is clear that an object’s thingness (ousia - ούσια), or what is essential about the thing (see below), is a form of work and being in motion. That is, it is the activity within which motion is tied up that makes a thing what it is, i.e. gives it thingness (ousia). It therefore logically follows on that things will have a proper kind of activity that, when achieved, will be a proper end (telos - τέλος) although this will be an ongoing, shifting, thing. Dunamis (δύναμις) has a range of translations including power, capability or force but in the connotation of kinesis is usually translated as potentially or potentiality, where something could happen and may happen or may not. The final part of the definition – ‘qua such’ (potentiality as such potentiality) is also very important to understanding kinesis. It suggests that the potentiality of the object as the object is in its specific motion. That is, the motion of painting is the work (energia ενέργεια) of the potentiality (dunamis) of paints as paints (as opposed to any other possible use) and the actualization of this is painting.

A. Valdez-Tullett - Moving, changing, becoming A broader reading (Brogan 2012; Cohen 2008; Coope 2009; Heidegger 1998; Kosman 1969; Sachs 2005) of the definition of kinesis can however be taken to read as: the emergence, or coming into being, of that which potentially is, where the potentiality possesses pre-sightedness. That is, something that possesses presightedness can be brought into existence, or actualized, where a set of potential conditions can be met. If we think of rock art, it is the symbols themselves that must have a pre-sightedness to what they will be rather than the rock or even the artist. In short, the symbols do not exist prior to their creation even though they can potentially exist but the potential for them to exist exists. The potential and the actualization of the symbols are, however, situated with the material and the producer and their emergence is brought about through four causes. The four causes of kinesis Kinesis can be thought of having four causes (aitia - αίτία) - the material, efficient, formal and final causes - that are always in operation simultaneously (Aristotle, Physica II.3). These are the reasons behind why change happens and the impetus and outcome of the change can be explained within these terms (Heidegger 2011). The material cause covers the limitations and implications to change of the material from which the being or thing is formed. This can simply be the obvious requirement of a bronze statue needing to be made of bronze. More technically it can be the physical strength of a material required to support its weight and stresses, such as the use of steel girder frameworks in construction, which has allowed buildings to exceed the height restrictions of other materials. Likewise, different types of stone have different qualities that vary their suitability for different forms of object, from buildings, decoration or tools. For ‘beings’, the material cause is biological, inbuilt and programmed within its DNA and so the acorn is destined to grow into the oak but it is fated never to metamorphose into the walrus. The acorn however, also holds the potentiality within it to form the wooden sculpture from the oak, as well as charcoal and then ash from firewood. The second cause is termed ‘the efficient cause’. This represents the ability of the thing causing kinesis to effect the change or movement. Elementally, fire is able to burn straw and turn it to ash, it is not however able to freeze it and turn it to ice. It is the chisel carving the stone, the scalpel slicing the flesh, the hammer hitting the nail or the brush applying the paint. More than just the tool effecting the change, the tool itself is moved by the hand and the hand by the brain. The master craftsman can create an intricate work of art as planned. The novice may only be able to produce more basic designs as planned whilst more elaborate designs may be produced with a less perfect, less intended outcome. The level of

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Archaeology with Art skill of the practitioner thereby affects not only what is produced but how close it is to the intended outcome that they were working towards. This intended outcome represents the third cause, the formal cause (eidos εΐδος). That is, what the change represents. It is the plan. There is an intention to follow a plan from which the actual will emerge. This may be an informal plan within the mind of the artist, the formal plan of the architect or the DNA of the being. Although multiple people may work towards the completion of a plan, the outcome itself is not set and the actualization of the form achieved by each will vary as the other clauses shape the emergence. The fourth cause is the final cause (telos). This represents the purpose and meaning of the thing that is being actualized. It could arguably be defined as the essence of the object or as Heidegger would prefer, the ‘thingness’ of the thing or ‘beingness’ of the being (Heidegger 1998). He rejects the notion that either form or substance (material) make the thing what it is, but what gives the object purpose. If the thingness of something is a form of being at work, it can be seen that it is an activity which is particular to them. In this scheme the essence or thingness of an iron axe is not that it is in the shape of an axe or made of iron but that it cuts down trees (Heidegger 1998). This thingness of the axe influences form and material rather than being dictated by them. Thingness determines that the axe is wedged shaped with a handle to allow it to be swung, rather than spherical or flat, and that it is made out of a material that is able to hold an edge and cut into wood. All of these things must have the potential for causing the kinesis to emerge and this suggests that to undergo kinesis there must be a pre-sightedness as to its potential. Therefore the bed is made from wood, but not just any wood; wood that has been prepared and shaped to fit together to form a bed. The painting is not only produced from chemicals, but chemicals that have been fashioned into specific colours to meet the aim of the artist. The artist selects the materials that best meet the goal they aim to achieve, marble for a sculpture, canvas for a painting or a selection of meaningful objects for an installation. The artist’s skills and abilities limit what they can produce and the materials they can produce it from. They may aim to produce something within their abilities and in this case there is a reasonable chance that the outcome matches their expectations, but if they push the boundaries of their talents the consequences may be less predictable. The thingness or essence of art is as wide as the range of answers to the question what is art? The artist can amongst other things decide to make art that is representational, shocking, and thought-provoking or stirring, and this chosen impact will influence the way they chose to design it.

A. Valdez-Tullett - Moving, changing, becoming Movers and the moved In Aristotle’s view, all things in the world possess movedness, that is the ability to move in the four ways mentioned earlier (substance, quality, quantity, location), but he draws a basic distinction between beings and things. Movement for things emerges through the knowhow of producing by an agent. Movedness is therefore not within the artefact itself, but within the being that controls the knowhow and allows the movedness to emerge. This is contrary to beings that have movedness within themselves. Beings are thus movers and artefacts are the movable. Rest Rest is a form of movement, in that only that which is able to move can rest. That is, things possess movedness all the time. They may be moving or they may be resting, but both are forms of movedness. An object or artifact may have the appearance of having fully emerged, to have been fulfilled, or finished by reaching a perceived state of completeness, but this is in fact wrong. Instead Aristotle would suggest that the object is merely at rest, as rest has the character having been completed or produced. It still possesses movedness and retains the ability to change in the future. So bronze may be cast into the statue, but over time the statue may be cut into fragments, melted down and recast into a new object or split into a variety of different new forms. Likewise, the vase may appear to be its ultimate form, but as archaeologists we more normally deal with the fragmented rather than whole pot. Fragmentation of the pot is followed by the individual sherds undergoing their own varied taphonomic, kinetic pathways. Their excavation being just the most recent part of that journey Kinesis can therefore be seen to be a continuous rather than discrete phenomenon that exists between two states. It is a move from potentiality to the potential fulfilled, at which point a new range of potentiality comes into being. When we look at rock art, it is tempting to see its production in simplistic terms of start and finish, the virgin rock and the carved rock. However, there is the potentiality that the rock will inevitably undergo further kinesis. All rocks will be subjected to the unavoidable forces of weathering, as wind and rain wear the surface, softening the edges of the carving and the chemical bonds in the minerals decay, leading to the colour of the grooves fading back into that of its surroundings. Furthermore, there may be human intervention enhancing, adding to or modifying original motifs, or the addition of new images that can immensely alter the ‘thingness’ portrayed by the scene. We therefore have the possibility that the rock can be altered again in the future. We also have the problem of discerning when the original ‘finished’ motifs

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Archaeology with Art themselves have undergone further change. We have a clear modern example of this at Creswell Crags where Paleolithic images are not only surrounded by graffiti but one Paleolithic stag had a beard added to it within living memory, prior to its antiquity being identified (Bahn and Pettitt 2009: 8). Where in our studies we find rocks with a clear palimpsest of images, it is obvious that there must be a time depth to the kinesis that created the scene. Rock number one, Quinta da Barca in the Côa Valley, Portugal with a c. square meter surface, is euphemistically known as the spaghetti rock reflecting ‘its engravings persistently superimposed in an abhorrence-to-emptiness manner’ (Baptista 2009: 168). In other cases however, it is much more difficult to ascertain whether what we are seeing are the motifs as originally intended, or whether other changes have emerged. Site 1n of Stoupe Brow West on Flyingdales Moor, England (Figure 1) consists of a group of six cup marks that are surrounded by single or multiple rings, with several of these motifs being further joined through linear marks (Brown and Chappell 2005: 39). It seems likely that there is a time depth to such a rock and its development could be hypothesized in a number of ways, such as an initial creation with the carving of cup marks followed by rings and then connectors or an initial individual cup and ring motif with further cup and ring marks being added later. Whatever the sequence of development each addition or alteration had its own process of kinesis and was borne through its own four causes. The neatness of some rings compared to the skewed nature of others probably reflecting differences in the efficient causes whilst each change met a different final cause and changed the ultimate interpretation of the imagery as whole for the rock. In many cases, images are taken unproblematically as the finished article with individual motifs fulfilling the role of grammatical elements that together build into a larger narrative, when in fact they may be a composite of several images added over hundreds of years with a variety of messages

Figure 1. Rock 1n - Stoupe Brow West, Flyindales Moor, North Yorkshire, England (adapted and redrawn from Brown and Chappell 2005: 39).

A. Valdez-Tullett - Moving, changing, becoming

Figure 2. Pedra das Procesións, Galicia (adapted and redrawn from Bradley and Fabregas Valcarce 1998: 56).

and meanings. For example, the Pedra das Procesións, Galicia (Figure 2) consists of nine daggers, one large sword, six halberds, eight shield-like symbols and one motif construed as a menhir and as a whole is interpreted as a military parade or march towards a location represented by the menhir (Santos Estévez 2012). However, there is potentially great time depth to such a scene and each symbol may have had its own thingness that was reinterpreted through each addition that brought something new into being. Any interpretation that we are able to draw is based solely upon the thingness of the most recent act of kinetic revolution. Pre-sightedness and rock art For kinesis to occur there needs to be a pre-sightedness to the potential that emerges into the actual. It is apparent though that if we consider rock art as artefact, the movedness is not within the rock itself, but within a being that brings the images into being. The rock and its setting within the landscape must be in symbiosis with the being, and together have the pre-sightedness for the potential of that specific rock art. That is rock, landscape setting and being must meet the requirements of the four causes for the rock art to be created. The materials (rock) must be appropriate, the engraver and their tools must be of the required standard, and there must be a plan or design with an ultimate purpose. This implies that there is a clear choice made by the being for what they are going to engrave, where they are going to engrave it, why they are doing this, with their own ability dictating how the image will actually look.

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Archaeology with Art For the materials only certain rock types may be considered appropriate for engraving even where alternatives exist. Thus in central Portugal during the Palaeolithic there is the tendency for engravers to use schist for their canvas (Baptista 2009), whilst the authors of later prehistoric Atlantic rock art in north western Iberia favour granites (Bradley 1997). These rock types therefore possess the pre-sightedness required for rock art in terms of how it can be carved / pecked / scratched, the level of skill required to work that medium, how the ensuing image looks and weathers, along with the topographical locations of these rock types. Rock slabs may also require other properties such as orientation or declination, whilst landscape setting is also clearly important. Features such as the rock’s proximity to routes of movement, whether it is hidden or visible, easy to access or restricted, or has extensive views may all be factors that affect the location’s potential (Bradley 1997). If we understand that for a rock to be engraved it has to have the potential for the pre-sightedness of the specific rock art with regard to the four causes, we can similarly understand that other nearby rocks may go un-engraved as they did not contain the pre-sighted potential for rock art to be brought into being. That is, that the material, efficient, formal and final causes were not suitable for kinesis. The potential for rock art at a location will vary between different individual engravers, so a site that contains the potential for one engraver may not hold that potential for another engraver who may shun the location or select another nearby rock. Likewise the act of engraving on a rock by one individual can then create the potential for others to engrave it, or could have a negative effect, making it less likely that the rock will be carved. All depends upon the four causes and whether for the pre-sightedness of that particular piece of rock art, the four causes are met by the rock and engraver. The potential of actualization for each motif is therefore informed by the previous motifs, which will guide whether something is carved or not, where it is carved and what is carved. At Fraga Escrevida, Sabor Valley in Portugal, a rock face containing a Palaeolithic Aurochs later had a large number of schematic cruciform figures added to it during the historic period (Baptista 2009: 197). It is not apparent that the carvers of the cruciform figures were aware of the delicately carved image of the aurochs and were attracted to add their crosses in an attempt to Christianise or exercise the rock. It does however, seem likely that once the first cruciform motif was added for whatever reason, that the rock itself assumed some sort of Christian significance and hence continued to attract the addition of further crosses through time. Each new cross becoming a reinforcement of the pre-sighted potential for further future crosses.

A. Valdez-Tullett - Moving, changing, becoming José Alcino Tomé - last of the rock artists The Côa Valley in Portugal is famous for the engravings that grace its rocky sides, with ‘artists’ drawn to leave their marks from the Paleolithic period through to the twentieth century. Amongst the last of the recorded engravings, were a series of images dated in the 1940’s and signed by an individual called José Alcino Tomé. Unlike the other individuals that have left their marks behind, when the rock art of the Côa Valley gained notoriety, José Alcino Tomé was still alive and was interviewed by Marcos García Diez and Luís Luís with the results being published in 2003 (García Diez and Luís 20023). This interview provided an unparalleled opportunity to explore the act of creation for a series of rock art images from the point of view of the producer, rather the usual position of observer. The following is taken, although not directly translated, from this paper. José Alcino Tomé produced an eclectic variety of images including a railway train, a bridge, animals and the sun and moon (Figure 3). All were produced and dated to the 1940’s when he was a teenager working at his parent’s mill in Rêgo da Vide. The mill was situated in an isolated place, miles away from the next nearest point of habitation and his family home. He would often work overnight and in between periods of work, would often have long intervals waiting for his parents to either collect him, or bring more grain for milling. This meant that he frequently had long periods of time to pass on his own in a secluded location, but could not travel far from the mill in case his parents returned. Some of the rocks in this area have carvings from the Palaeolithic period through to the historic period. José Alcino Tomé was aware of some of these images and their antiquity, if not their deep age, and these were an inspiration for the production and location of his own work. He only worked on schist outcrops as the medium of the rock, with its flat surfaces, meant that it was easy to work and the images were highly visible. The images themselves were placed on the rocks in locations where he could easily work whilst standing up. The main impetus for his engraving was to pass his leisure hours in between work, his solitary and isolated situation, demanding some kind of activity. The actual activity itself was guided by the observation of motifs already carved on some rocks, the antiquity of the images provoking the desire to memorialize himself and record his memories. The first cognitive step in the creative process was to decide what he was going to draw and then how to execute it. He would scratch out a rough image and then peck the rock with his hand pick, a tool that he used during the course of his work at the mill for roughing the quern stones.

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Figure 3. A selection of the rock art of José Alcino Tomé at Rego da Vide. Top left rock 2, top right rock 3 and bottom rock 5 (adapted and redrawn from Zilhão 1997).

We can translate this into the terms of the four causes. The material schist usually cleaves along flat planes providing a good drawing surface. Whilst not a soft rock, with the right tool it can be scratched relatively easily to allow beginners to produce basic images and can be pecked to produce bolder forms. As a material, it adequately suited the ability of the engraver and what he intended to carve. His choice of tool was one that he had easy access to and for which he was trained in using to dress other rock. It was therefore also well suited to its task. A young boy and artistic novice, his choice of images were things that similarly aged children might commonly produce on paper. They were things that he had seen previously and which he was able to reproduce in his mind, prior to scratching out an initial physical plan prior to pecking. The final cause was the purpose behind it all. What was the ‘thingness’ of José Alcino Tomé’s rock art? Unlike examples

A. Valdez-Tullett - Moving, changing, becoming given by either Aristotle or Heidegger there is no simple single answer to this question but instead it is a mixture or factors. He personally thought that he was immortalizing / memorializing himself through the creation of these images, and this is probably the main reason that he signed and dated his work. It meant that not only his image would be seen but also his name and dating it meant that as each year passed his antiquity would be exhibited. It did however fulfil a further purpose, that of consuming his many empty hours between the end of his work and the arrival of his family, a time when a young boy being alone in such a wild and isolated spot, might need to keep his mind away from the loneliness of his situation and of what might lurk out there... It is therefore also representative of this empty time, and of the need to stay isolated and perhaps away from the reality of his situation. He stopped engraving when he reached maturity and was sent away on national service, taking him from the location of impetus for his rock art. He never engraved again in other locations. It is clear that location plays a key role in the pre-sighted potential of his work. The isolated location around his family’s mill provided the right kind of rock to suit his carving expertise, pre-existing work to inspire him, ties that kept him there, tools that he was adept at using, available leisure time and a lack of supervision to stop him. Removing him from this location, removed the pre-sighted potential for further rock art to occur here and also the pre-sighted potential for José Alcino Tomé to produce rock art anywhere in the future. Conclusions Aristotle’s ideas of kinesis were an attempt to explain the nature of the universe by someone that lacked our accumulated body of scientific knowledge. With the rise of science and Newton, Einstein and Bohr we have moved to increasingly mechanistic ways of understanding how things move and change. The ideas of kinesis however still permeate science. For example the axioms of Russian mathematician Andrey Kolmogorov have a distinctly Aristotelian feel to them in places (In Our Time 2008) and likewise, in physics (a subject definition derived from Aristotle’s Physics) kinetic energy, the energy of a body in motion, and potential energy, the energy within a body at rest with the ability to undergo some kind of future change, both are ultimately derived from the line of Aristotle’s thoughts on kinesis. Kinesis also remains a valid means of looking at less tangible and Cartesian aspects of change. It is pertinent to take away how much Aristotle’s work has guided the thoughts of later philosophers, especially Heidegger (1962, 1995, 2001, 2009; for a commentary on Aristotle’s influence on Heidegger see Brogan 2012, especially Chapter Two ‘The Doubling of Phusis: Aristotle’s view of Nature’). This becomes

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Archaeology with Art important when seeing how Heidegger’s works, based upon Aristotle, have been taken up by influential archaeological and anthropological theoreticians such as Gosden (1994), Thomas (1998), Tilley (1994) and Ingold (1995, 2011, 2013) who in turn have heavily influenced the work of a range of archaeologists. Hodder (2012:7-8), for example, when discussing what a ‘thing’ is, implies a certain flow and shifting dynamism to its character whilst at the same time noting its ‘being at work’ nature (via Heideggerian theory). The ideas of Aristotle can be pervasive, forming a background or base level of understanding from which we work, as though this was a culturally derived common sense. Additionally, philosophical convergence has meant that some archaeological theory has independently drawn similar conclusions to Aristotle. The concept of affordances looks at the influences of materials and things (Hodder 2012: 48). Different aspects of affordance relate to different aspects of Aristotle’s ideas. This ranges from the idea of materials being selected for certain qualities (the material cause) to the idea that things are shaped in a certain fashion to afford a certain functionality (Gibson 1986) that carries hints of telos. While some formulations on the creative process would start with the producer’s thought process on what they want to create and why, the kinesis paradigm allows us to develop a richer explanation. We can see from the example of José Alcino Tomé that this alone does not explain why rock art was produced in this location by this artist. In this case there are a number of nested reasons surrounding the location and impetus for producing the work in the first place, prior to any cognitive process and it can be illustrated that when these other factors are removed rock art production halts. Acknowledgements Countless thanks are due to William Hutson who gave advice on Aristotle and his influence on Heidegger and who encouraged this work but who passed away before the paper came to fruition. This paper is dedicated to Bill, a remarkable philosopher and a good man who is greatly missed by his friends and family. References Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. (Ed. R.McKeon, 2009.) New York, Modern Library. Bahn, P. G. and Pettitt, P. 2009. Britain’s oldest art: the Ice Age cave art of Creswell Crags. Swindon, English Heritage. Baptista, A. M., 2009. Paradigm lost. Côa Valley and the open-air Palaeolithic art in Portugal. Vila Nova de Foz Côa, Edições Afrontamento/Parque Arqueológico do Vale do Côa.

A. Valdez-Tullett - Moving, changing, becoming Bradley, R. 1997. Rock art and the prehistory of Atlantic Europe: signing the land. London and New York, Routledge. Bradley, R. and Fábregas Valcarce, R. 1998. Arte Rupestre e Sociedade. História da Arte Galega I. Prehistoria, Arte Castrexa, Arte da Romanización. Vigo, Edicións A Nosa Terra. Brogan, W. A. 2012. Heidegger and Aristotle: the twofoldness of being. New York, SUNY Press. Brown, P. and Chappell, G. 2005. Prehistoric rock art in the North York Moors. Stroud, The History Press. Cohen, S. M. 2008. Aristotle’s Definition of Kinêsis: Physics III.1. [Online] University of Washington, at http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/433/ KinesisLecture.pdf (Last Accessed 29th January 2015). Coope, U. 2009. Change and its Relation to Actuality and Potentiality. In G. Anagnostopoulos (ed.), A Companion to Aristotle: 277-291. Oxford, Blackwell. García Diez, M. and Luís, L. 2002-3. José Alcino Tomé e o Último Ciclo Artístico Rupestre Do Vale Do Côa: Um Caso De Etnoarqueologia. Estudos préhistóricos X-XI: 199-223. Gibson, J. J. 1986. The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Hillsdale, Lawrence Erlbaum. Gosden, C. 1994. Social being and time. Oxford, Blackwell. Heidegger, M. 1962. Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, translation.). Oxford, Blackwell. Heidegger, M. 1995. Aristotle’s Metaphysics [theta] 1-3: on the essence and actuality of force. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. 1998. On the Essence and Concept of Φύσις in Aristotle’s Physics B, I (translated by T. Sheehan). In M. Heidegger’s Pathmarks (ed. W. McNeill): 183-230. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heidegger, M. 2001. Phenomenological interpretations of Aristotle: initiation into phenomenological research. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. 2009. Basic concepts of Aristotelian philosophy. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Heidegger, M. 2011. The Question Concerning Technology. In D. F. Krell (ed.), Basic Writings: 213-238. London, Routledge. Hodder, I. 2012. Entangled: an archaeology of the relationships between humans and things. Chichester, John Wiley & Sons. In Our Time - ‘Probability’ (2008). BBC Radio Four, 29th May 2008 [Online]. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bqf61 (Accessed 19 September 2015).

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Archaeology with Art Ingold, T. 1995. Building, dwelling, living: how animals and people make themselves at home in the world. In M. Strathern (ed.), Shifting contexts. Transformations in anthropological knowledge: 57-80. London: Routledge. Ingold, T. 2011. Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. London, Routledge. Ingold, T. 2013. Making: Anthropology, archaeology, art and architecture. London, Routledge. Kosman, A. 1969. Aristotle’s Definition of Motion. Phronesis 14 (1): 40–62. Russell, B. 2004 (first published 1946). History of Western Philosophy. London, Routledge. Sachs, J. 1995. Aristotle’s Physics: a guided study. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press. Santos Estévez, M. 2012. Unha visión diacrónica da arte atlântica dentro dun novo marco cronolóxico. In M. J. Sanches (Coord), Actas da 1a Mesa Redonda Artes Rupestres da Pré-História e da Proto-História. Paradigmas e Metodologias de Registo. Trabalhos de Arqueologia, 54. Lisboa, Direcção Geral do Património Cultural. Thomas, J. 1998. Time, culture and identity: an interpretive archaeology. London, Routledge. Tilley, C. 1994. A phenomenology of landscape: places, paths, and monuments. Oxford, Berg. Zilhão, J. and Carvalho, A. F. 1997. Arte rupestre e pré-história do Vale do Côa: trabalhos de 1995-1996: relatório científico ao governo da República Portuguesa elaborado nos termos da Resolução do Conselho de Ministros no. 4/96, de 17 de Janeiro. Ministério da Cultura/Instituto Português do Património Arquitectónico e Arqueológico.

Govier

Experiential Art and Archaeology: Vital Material Engagements Eloise Govier,1 University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UK) Introduction The methodology of using contemporary artworks as case studies to explore the rich and diverse interactions behind material engagement in the archaeological record has yielded intriguing and innovative approaches (see Last 2005). Following on from Jane Bennett’s call for a move towards ‘vital materialism’ (2010: 111), in this chapter I synthesise experiential artworks with the archaeological evidence found at the Neolithic site Çatalhöyük. By revealing the transforming and emerging qualities of material interactions in experiential artworks I intend to highlight that such engagements are created by artists with the intention to have an impact – in a variety of ways – on another entity and that this is transformational. These engagements are described here as ‘vital’ rather than functional, ethical, aesthetic, emotional or economic; experiential artworks are likely to have some if not all of these characteristics, but for the purpose of this analysis I will explore the vital elements. By considering the vitality of such engagements we shift focus from what materials are to what they do (Ingold 2013: 31). To explore this point further, Ingold (2013) refers to the work of Sheets-Johnstone (1998: 359) and writes that we do not ‘experience ourselves and one another as ‘packaged’ but as moving and moved in ongoing response - that is in correspondence - with the things around us’ (2013: 31) (persons, objects etc. are ‘things’). Lively Matter It is the recognition of our bodily actions as a ‘tumult of unfolding activity’ (Ingold 2013: 94) that will breathe life into stagnant archaeological theory. The addition of ‘lively matter’ (Bennett 2010: 122) means that such transformations should be understood as being ‘governed by an emergent rather than a linear or deterministic causality’ (Bennett 2010: 112). The language utilised by Bennett indicates that this ‘emergence’ is a clear reference to Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of ‘becoming’ (2005); the focus of which is to consider ‘what one is becoming, and through which one becomes’ (Deleuze and Guattari 2005: 272, cited in Beaulieu 2011). Like all becomings that ‘obey no predefinite rule’ (Beaulieu 2011: 76) experiential art rarely has a fixed narrative; artist-agents position materials in space and encourage their liveliness by bringing together 1

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Archaeology with Art materials that have transformative properties such as colour and light. The essence of such artworks is the experience of the agent situated in the role of ‘participant’. It is important to acknowledge that their social position is not that of passive participant, and the same applies to the material agents (Gell 1998; Knappett and Malafouris 2008) utilised by artists. Instead, the experiential genre of art offers both the agent and the material agent an integral role in the artwork by affording them the capacity to influence (even direct) the diegesis of the art experience. As such, these unique material engagements could be understood as co-authored by artist-agent, material-agent and participant-agent, and if we are to accept Bennett’s argument that ‘materiality’ is ‘a term that applies more evenly to humans and non­humans’ (2010: 112), then describing such an event as a ‘vital material engagement’ adequately covers all interacting ‘humans, biota, and abiota’ (Bennett 2010: 112). Experimental Art Experiential artworks are generally formed for and by living bodies; that is to say they are often generated to encourage intellectual, moral and emotional shifts (or transformations) in the agents who engage with them. In light of this, we might think of experiential artworks as microcosms of material interactions, motivated by the desire (on the part of both the artist and visitor) to procure social engagements. These microcosms are useful to archaeology as the relationships formed between these different entities occur not via but with and between materials positioned in space; often without the presence of the artist. Along with ‘experiential’, there is also ‘immersive’ and ‘installation’ art, the popular term in the History of Art discourse being the latter (Bishop 2005: 6). As this chapter predominantly focuses on the experience of material engagement, the term ‘experiential art’ is favoured here. It is the pronounced multi-sensorial engagement of these art experiences - these vital material engagements - that beckon us to think beyond the viewing subject, and to start considering the feeling, experiencing, embodied viewer ‘whose senses of touch, smell and sounds are as heightened as their sense of vision’ (Bishop 2000: 6). In experiential artworks material transformations are carried out ‘live’ and have a trajectory. Thus the experience the agent is afforded in such situations amounts to a journey, and we might consider that that participants engaging with artists in this manner are entering into a form of correspondence (Ingold 2013: 107). Crucially it is the mapping of this journey as a spatiotemporal construct within the artwork that marks the participant – and their transition – as the locus of the art. And it is the movement of the agent through this construct that we could simulate to draw greater understanding of the spatio-temporality we are faced with in the archaeological dataset. Jonathan Last (1998, 2005) has

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology already considered the usefulness of performance art in the analysis of cognitive processes behind structured deposits (2005: 205). He considers the performance art of Josef Beuys and argues that ‘contextual associations [can be] made through deliberate juxtapositions of objects’ (2005: 206). Beuys’ artworks, like structured deposits, are ‘symbolic gestures’ in isolated space (Last 2005: 207). Following his lead, and in light of the theoretical underpinning outlined above, let us explore Çatalhöyük with the aid of experiential art and its practitioners. Çatalhöyük: a Neolithic town In central Anatolia there sits a Neolithic town called Çatalhöyük, an enigmatic and impressive archaeological site; the tell is dated to 7300 - 6200 cal. BC (Cessford 2001) and contained a tightly-packed and intimate community. The buildings, which often shared partition walls, are estimated to have had life-cycles of 60 years (Matthews 2006), after which the houses were ritually closed and the next layer built above. Current research into the microartifactual remains indicates that all buildings were inhabited and used for domestic activities (Düring 2007; Farid 2007; Matthews 2005); however, there is also a distinct and particular type of building (Düring 2001, 2007; Mellaart 1967) that appears through the different generations of houses. The original excavator of the site, James Mellaart, called these spaces ‘shrines’ (Mellaart 1967) whereas the current Director, Ian Hodder, has named them ‘history houses’ (Hodder and Pels 2010: 164). These spaces have lime plastered white walls that are painted with imagery; the paintings emerge at moments during the life-cycle of the house before being routinely covered with further layers of white plaster. There are deliberate juxtapositions of objects, and structured deposits have been likened to contemporary (conceptual) art due to their clear contextual associations and the implied performance of deposition (Last 2005: 206), along with modelled wall-features on the walls and symbolic figurines. These self-contained spaces appear to have had a higher rate of creative material engagements occurring in a single space. Experimantal Art and Archaeology Like all other houses at the Neolithic town, these embellished spaces are entered via the roof-top down a ladder into a darkened space, and the floors are uneven due to the platforms - raised areas which house the remains of the dead and acted as sleeping areas for the living (Hodder 2006). However, unlike the archetypal houses found across the site, in these ‘art’ spaces there is a variety of texture and form, such as the ‘enfleshed’ animal skulls covered in clay, plaster and pigment which are attached to the walls, along with a wide palette of painted colours forming both abstract patterning and figurative images. Large bucrania puncture the corners of rooms or protrude into the central spaces and infringe upon the

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Archaeology with Art inhabitant’s movement. The characteristics listed above mark these particular buildings as the sui generis spaces of Çatalhöyük, and it is this typology of building that shall be explored here in relation to three contemporary experiential artworks: Seizure 2008 by Roger Hiorns, Obliteration Room 2012 by Yayoi Kusama and Richard Wright’s No Title (Wall Painting) 2009. These artworks use light, colour, darkness, space and texture to create an experience and have several features that resonate with the sui generis spaces. By contrasting certain elements of the artworks with characteristics located in the archaeological record we can draw out a nuanced and coherent exploration of the space. Colour, light and darkness (like the paint brush or the palette knife) are tools used by artists to alter space in experiential artworks. Colour has transformative properties which make it a simple but evocative tool to change an environment. From the initial excavation it is apparent that colour was important for the people in the town. From the very first season of excavations the creative techniques employed by the residents have not escaped us; freshwater mussel shells filled with pigment were used as containers to prevent colours from mixing (Mellaart 1962: 56). Lumps of green and red pigment were found (Mellaart 1962:56) and according to Mellaart’s report there seems to be a shift in colour palettes as the years progressed. He notes that in “Level VI we find red, orange red, white, buff and creamy yellow; in Level IV red, white and black and in Level III several reds, pink, mauve, black, white and a lemon yellow” (1962: 58). Colour appears to have been used spatially at distinctive moments in the lifecycle of the buildings. For example, in the ‘Red Shrine’ VIII, 31, one of the major buildings of Level VIII, above the burial of a young female child richly adorned with beaded necklaces, stained with cinnabar and placed in a basket lies an orange lime plaster platform that had been perforated with a circular hole and subsequently covered with greenish clay (Mellaart 1966: 181-2). The ‘shrine’ also contained a red-burnished lime-plaster floor that had been re-laid twice (1966: 181) with no burials beneath it (1966: 182). The presence of distinctive colour-use is a subtle but provocative manipulation of the space. Yayoi Kusama similarly uses colour to re-negotiate domestic spaces and to mark them as transformative areas. This can be seen in her piece Obliteration Room, a participatory experiential artwork that took place at the Tate Modern in 2012. The room began as a contemporary domestic space with sofas, chairs, tables, cutlery and toys, all of which were painted in white; visitors were given a sheet of colourful ‘dot’ stickers and invited to cover the space as they choose. The thousands of visitors who entered the artwork all contributed by placing their dot stickers somewhere – anywhere – in the room, and the environment transformed from a pristine minimalist ‘clean’ space to a heady room smothered in circular spots of pink, orange, blue and so on. True to

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology the title, the artwork ‘obliterates’ the articulation of individual material agents by transforming the content of the room into a seamless mesh of vivid colour. The narrative of the artwork allows us to understand the capacity of colour to transform a space, and the transition of the Obliteration Room resonates with Çatalhöyük’s ‘clean’ white plastered walls that become momentary areas of colour, and suggest that colour was used to indicate the potency of actions within that space. A similar process of creation may have occurred in building E V 15, where fifty-seven handprints were found on the north wall (Mellaart 1963: Plate XVIII); instead of Kusama’s stickers, children were offered paint, and marked their presence on the wall. These were intergenerational experiences, but also open-ended conversations – ‘correspondences’. Richard Wright, a contemporary painter whose approach resonates with these practices, sheds some illumination on this point; whilst explaining how he approaches his practice, he remarked: ‘I imagine a space is a work that has already begun. It’s a conversation [...] that I am entering’ (Wright: 2009). Wright paints directly onto the walls of architectural settings. His piece No Title (Wall painting), a goldleaf painting on a wall in Tate Britain, won the 2009 Turner prize, and at the end of the exhibition the piece was painted over with white paint – the parallels with practices at Çatalhöyük could not be more pronounced. Evidently, the practitioners of painting at Çatalhöyük were part of a cultural practice where paintings had a limited life-span, and an inevitable part of this process was covering the image with white plaster. Wright is familiar with this methodology; he argues that by creating something in an ‘unstable’ position ‘[you] heighten the sense that this art is not for the future, it is for now’ (Wright: 2009). This point resonates with practices at Çatalhöyük; the painters at the Neolithic town similarly knew their work was temporary - ‘unstable’ if we are to use Wright’s description of his work - and that their imagery would become part of the biography of the building hidden behind layers of plaster. A further point to consider is that Wright feels like he is entering a conversation. Due to the life-span of buildings at the Neolithic tell (estimated 50-100 years) it is likely that several painters would contribute to the wall-paintings as the years passed; might they too feel like they were entering into correspondence with other members of the community - perhaps ancestors or other entities that could only be evoked through painting? Contemporary artist Roger Hiorns adapted an abandoned council flat in Southwark, London, in 2008 by spraying 75 000 litres of liquid copper sulphate into the space; the result was a complete interior covered in a vividblue crystalline growth. The artwork, which is called Seizure, is another useful example to apply to the sui generis spaces at Çatalhöyük. Hiorn’s piece, like Kusama’s, also re-negotiates the domestic setting; the bath tub, walls and

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Archaeology with Art ceilings are all covered in bright blue crystals. The shock of the interior is further enhanced by the normal exterior of the building, which formerly resided on 151-189 Harper Street, London, but has been subsequently moved to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. With this scenario in mind, imagine climbing down the ladder into the highly embellished house at Çatalhöyük. Externally, like Seizure, it would appear equally ubiquitous; however, once inside the visitor would see a similar inversion of the domestic occurring. Like the bright blue crystals, the presence of the wall-paintings would be a powerful expression of transformational properties in action – a space marked with vital material engagements. Excavator Shahina Farid reported that there were between 10 and 20 layers of plaster coating a painting in Building 80 and that ‘faint traces of red were revealed 5 layers in but the main design was exposed behind between 1520 layers in’ (Farid 2011: 30). This detail indicates that walls were more often plastered white than painted, and it is the re-occurrence of these momentary appearances of these images that would indicate to the visitor that they had entered a transformational space. Conspicuous in their absence, as the paintings shift between visible and not visible the changes would be apprehended by visitors and would signal emergent qualities in action. Vital Material Engagements Diana Young explores the transformative qualities of colour by explaining how changes in colour can mark the transitory by ‘materializing the transformation in itself’ (2011: 369). In her article ‘Mutable Things’ she describes how the Anangu women she camped with in August 1997 noticed and commented on the changing chromatics of the landscape, Young writes: ‘[the] women note the sky’s capacity to exhibit brilliant colour as a manifestation of Ancestral energy and presence’ (2011: 367). Certain features in the landscape naturally change colour with certain lights. Young cites Uluru/Ayres rock as an example, and such places become more visible in certain lights: ‘a rocky hill becoming startlingly red or pink, for example, before its form is dissolved by the setting sun’ (Young 2011: 367). These are places of sudden vitality, catching our eye and attention. When we engage with light in this manner we acknowledge the ‘impetus as entity’ (Bennett 2010: 119). To dissect a single still from a transformation would be to ignore the experience of the whole; rather, we should think of the changing light as ‘a movement always on the way to becoming otherwise, an effluence that is vital and engaged in trajectories’ (Bennett 2010: 119). The changing chromatics of a landscape are transformative and transitory, and like markers in the day, they become moments to anticipate and schedule. To understand the wall-paintings it is suggested that we consider the trajectory of the environment and the transformations that occur within the space before, after and during the presence of paintings.

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology These ‘vital’ material engagements occur as light, rock and human interact, and it is these interactions that cause the rocks to ‘become animated’ (Young 2011: 367); for the moment while the rock is vividly transforming under the setting sun it is a living material – ‘lively matter’ (Bennett 2010: 112). Like the hundreds of shining globes of coloured light in Kusama’s ‘infinity rooms’ or the tiny sparkles of quartz that can be found in the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc cave or even on the Neolithic monuments found on the Isle of Man (Darvill 2002), light animates and, in the case of the Anangu, is used as ‘revelatory imagery in ritual’ (Young 2011: 367). We might consider the implication of bringing naturally colourful materials into the human-constructed spaces: Mellaart found a group of pink, white, and yellow stalactites and limestone concretions accompanying a black volcanic stone figurine (Mellaart 1964: 75, Fig. 27) and figurines of humans riding animals (Mellaart 1964: 76, Fig. 29) in the ‘Leopard Shrine’ (VIA, 44). Comparatively, in relation to the stone figurine, very little if any attention has been paid to the presence of colourful stalactites (Moyes 2014: 211), nor the clear social significance of their presence at the closure of the building. Perhaps here we might consider the degree of rendering and how, in the case of these two natural substances, the more invasive or obvious the rendering (as seen in the instances of figurines), the more firmly positioned the material in the spotlight of the discourse (see Julian Thomas’s ‘The Trouble with Material Culture’ 2007). Whether it is the place that they were found (see Cooney 2002 on the potential of objects to be used as mnemonic devices recalling important places) or the colour of the objects themselves that marks them as significant objects is debatable. The fact that there are three individual colours indicates that colour may have been used in a complex assemblage of meanings. To explore this point further we might consider the work of contemporary artist Karla Black whose artworks and practice resonate with this discussion. Black creates sculptures using a range of unorthodox materials such as cellophane, lip gloss, baby oil - even toothpaste. She argues that her preference for certain materials is based solely on her interaction with the substance and not the cultural connotations of the materials (the use of baby-pink lip gloss had encouraged some to argue that her pieces were a commentary on gender). By hanging sheets of paper and polythene embedded with pink nail varnish and plaster powder from the ceiling, Black creates cloud-like forms of soft pastel colours floating mid-air. Black talks of the evocative qualities of the materials and how it is the matter itself that calls to her; she describes how she wishes to: ‘free the colour, the form, and the composition from the structure of the painting and to bring it out into the middle of the space’ (Black 2011, ‘Structure and Material’ interview). By selecting materials for their colour, smell, and texture, Black claims materials for their intrinsic and extrinsic properties and not their cultural connotations. Black’s relationships with materials are spotlighted here to emphasise unique processes

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Archaeology with Art and transformations that take place before and during the creation of the artwork. Ingold argues that these informative processes are often overlooked; he explains how: ‘processes of making appear swallowed up in objects made, processes of seeing in images seen’ (2013: 7). By considering the processes involved in material selection we emphasise the vitality of these material engagements and avoid de-contextualising the objects. Other ‘claimed’ but naturally forming objects found at Çatalhöyük include a pink palette that was found lying under the base of a single skull (19500) of an individual who was buried in the socially significant northeast platform (Boz and Hager 2011: 68). The palette itself is dolomitised limestone and the source of this limestone, according to Doherty’s analysis, is 30km north of Konya at Sizme, which Mellaart believed to be Çatalhöyük’s source of cinnabar (Doherty 2011: 92). There is some debate over whether the palette was pink during the Neolithic. Doherty’s analysis found that the palette is not naturally pink; the core is dark brown and it is the outer 1-2mm which has been bleached pink (Doherty 2011: 92). As this bleaching has occurred on all sides he anticipates that the colouring was due to some form of ‘interaction with the grave fill’ (Doherty 2011: 92). If this is the case the palette, during its use-life, may have been a relatively common colour, and was procured and transported to Çatalhöyük for other, more complex reasons, such as its texture and shape or intrinsic links to certain individuals and unique places. Alternatively, if the palette were pink during the Neolithic period, either accidentally or intentionally bleached, then its value may have been a result of its pale pink colour which marked the palette as a unique and possibly valuable item. It is worth noting that Sizme functioned later on as a cinnabar and copper mine, and pinkish debris was found in association with mining that occurred at the site around 2500 BC (Robinson 1927: 33). Therefore, there is a possibility that the palette may have been part of a process that involved the procurement of cinnabar, and that the dolomotised limestone was retrieved and carried back from Sizme because it was pink. By bringing the pink palette into a domestic space human agents attempt to control the transformational properties of the materials; to see the pinkness of the palette there needs to be light, and as the light is limited inside the buildings the agent would need to coordinate the pink palette with the nearest light source. It is the transformative qualities of materials like pigment that have been harnessed in some communities as a means of communicating with other worlds. The San applied pigment to rock faces and in doing so created images that could allow ‘the acquisition of supernatural potency’ (Lewis-Williams 1994: 283). The painted areas become spaces activated when touched; ‘if a ‘good’ person placed his or her hand on a depiction of an eland, the potency locked up in the painting would flow into that person, thus giving him or her special powers’ (Lewis-Williams

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology 1994: 283). Similarly, Mellaart was struck by the repeated covering of the wallpaintings with plaster as an indication of their potential agency. He averred: ‘one has a feeling that all paintings had a magic potency which eventually had to be preserved or hidden, after it had served its purpose’ (Mellaart 1962: 65). The San’s relationship with pigment indicates that in some communities the act of painting goes beyond mere representation or symbolism and becomes a medium of communication – a transitory place that allows movement between the human and spiritual realms. From stalactites to dolomotised limestone, if we imagine these materials in situ we might appreciate that the beholder of such materials is reliant on non-human agents to activate the colourful quality of the objects; light shining, shadows casting, lightning flashes, daylight – like the setting sun on Uluru. Once these objects are brought into domestic spaces human agents attempt to control the environment and the stimuli used to activate such materials. As part of the current excavations at the Neolithic tell, artist Eva Bosch carried out work at the experimental house (a reconstruction of an original building) during the 2007 excavation season. Her work adds a new dimension to the data retrieved from the site as it spotlights the experience of being in a house and how material agents such as smoke, sunlight and shadow can impact upon the ambience inside the building. Bosch’s interactions with these substances create unique correspondences; she presents the building not as a static space, but an atmospheric, becoming-space. Bosch skilfully captures the durational aspect to these experiences and her contribution, in the form of simple pieces such as the film 18th July Sun Clock (which captures the fall of light through the day), document the transformative nature of the environment through sensitive, contemplative film recordings that create intimacy between the audience and the space. The spectrum of her interactions at the site range from sanguine shadow puppet shows to a silent, single angle shot from inside the building that captures a moving ray of sunlight. The latter bears no indication of her presence, and her (implied) absence affords the viewer the opportunity to see and imagine what it might be like to sit alone inside a Neolithic building on a sunny afternoon. Seeing in the Dark The experimental house created on site at Çatalhöyük indicates that there was limited light inside the buildings (for more details about the construction of the house see Tringham and Stevanovic 2012). Last agrees, writing ‘it seems likely that much of the domestic space was gloomy and smoky much of the time’ (2005: 207). The cultural preference for creating wall-paintings along the northern wall at Çatalhöyük goes against the practical use of light present in the building. The hearth would usually be placed along the southern wall along with the rooftop

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Archaeology with Art access point, thus the focus of light would be in the opposite side of the room to the wall painting, along with the spotlight of sunlight that pierces through the hole in the roof created which would move a beam of light from west to east mirroring the sun’s movement from east to west. Eva Bosch’s work captured the haziness of daytime hours through her work in the experimental house, and her work suggested that there would be a significant lack of visibility within the building during the day (see her video ‘Catalhöyük light and dust on a city 9000 years old’, 2008). Mary Ganis, who worked as part of the excavation team in 2011, notes that light on the inside of the buildings would have been ‘an imperative’ (Ganis 2012: 130), but she also observed seasonal changes in light may have impacted upon residents’ experiences inside the buildings; outside the light reflected from the white plastered walls in the brilliant sunshine may have been startling during the summer months when the sun’s rays ‘are perpendicular’ and the rays into the main room may have been ‘relatively strong’ (Ganis 2012: 131). The bright light reflected off the external walls would emphasise the darkness in the room, and would make the transition between external day-lit space to the darkness of inside visually difficult with the eyes taking several moments to readjust between the two states. Thus how the inhabitants would see the painting - along with how the creators painted the image in such low lighting – raises some practical issues. Conversely, while the sui generis spaces have an abundance of visual stimuli, the presence of darkness suggests that visitors to the spaces would engage in an experiential rather than uniquely ocular manner. Physically, low lighting has several implications for the body; depth perception is weakened, people can become spatially disorientated, a blind spot in the centre of the eye might be experienced and slower peripheral vision would be relied on (Van de Water 1943). Whether darkness was consciously used as a tool to manipulate the experiences of the visitors to the spaces is an area open to debate. Experiential artist Courchesne considers darkness a ‘device’ (Courchesne 2002: 8) that invites the visitor’s imagination to fill the space. He considers the implications of darkness for the visitor to be very similar to those created by ‘the hidden’ (Courchesne 2002: 8). The darkness and the hidden are voids in the space, and we could understand these areas as invitations for our imaginations to engage and fuse together the experience: it is via the darkness or the void that we find our path to connect the experience as a whole. Hiorn’s Seizure has areas hit by light and corners left dark, the high contrast creating a chiaroscuro effect that adds further drama to the space. Sensory Engagement We might even take the absence of visual representations of eyes as a further indication that ocular engagement was more complicated than is assumed and perhaps of taboo status. Mellaart, whilst examining the hunting scenes found in

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology the Level III wall-paintings, comments that ‘heads and noses are always clearly marked, but eyes are never indicated’ (1962: 62). The 2012 Catal Figurine Report (Meskell, Nakamura and Der 2012) similarly reveals that the human head, when found, does not depict facial characteristics, however, whilst hair and noses are occasionally present, fewer have ears and mouths, and – significantly – eyes are usually omitted (2012: 191). Similarly, decapitation, as a motif, does emerge in the visual culture. We might consider the headless ‘harlequin’ man of the hunting scenes (Mellaart 1962: 62) or the Vulture shrine images of large birds swooping over decapitated human forms (Shrine VII, 8 Plate 8, Mellaart: 1964). ‘Seeing’ the paintings was not only practically challenging but also may have been enculturated to have a complex social meaning in the community. Touching the paintings appears to be an important form of engagement. This notion is re-affirmed by the hand motif which is fairly common at Çatalhöyük; the fiftyseven handprints in EV, 15 (Mellaart 1963, Plate XVIII), red ochre handprints in Building 77 (Doherty 2011: 91) and Building 80, which also had the red handprints of a child on the southern wall near the hearth and covered by 30 layers of plaster (Farid 2011: 30), are just a few examples of where the mark of the hand has been found. The hand, coated in pigment, transforms the wall by marking and leaving its trace – this is a vital material engagement – transforming all materials involved. We can clearly identify instances when touching the wall was culturally significant. Furthermore excavators noticed brush/tool marks across the painted surface of the handprint and believe the original image to be that of a handprint that has been subsequently painted on/filled in (Çamurcuoğlu 2011:102). As the wall-paintings are often covered quite quickly, the addition of pigment to handprint suggests that agents may have been touching this area of the painting and causing the paint to break down and rub off, thus requiring the section to be painted again in its uselife. Similarly, Mellaart in his preliminary excavation report commented that the great bull hunting scene in the Shrine building in Level III had ‘traces of over painting’ (1962: 63). The limited time images were on display in connection with this demonstrable disintegration supports the idea that touching the painting was part of the engagement process. A wall-painting in Building 80 exposed in the 2011 excavation supports this interpretation. On revealing the painting excavators were perplexed by the existence of detailed painting on a lower indentation of the second horizontal panel. This observation raised several questions since this section would be very difficult to see. Farid (2011: 29) noted that the only way to see this painting was to either be squatting in front of the painting or lying beneath, and due to the evident lack of light, I would add that in both cases, seeing, in the conventional sense conceived in Europe and the USA today, would have been difficult. The addition of the image on the underside of the rim of the overhanging panel is significant, primarily because to our eyes it seems unnecessary to continue the design to this area which is essentially invisible.

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Archaeology with Art Consideration of the environment within the building indicates that interpretations that focus on literal translations of symbols are only addressing a single part of a much more complex whole. Hodder and Meskell (2011) examine the statistical patterning of symbols present on wall-paintings and figurines and propose three key themes; maleness, wild animals and piercing flesh (2011: 236-7). By doing so they provide an alternate narrative to rival the traditional reading of the female being a dominant icon in the Neolithic period and this icon being equated with fertility (Cauvin 2000; Gimbutas 1974; Mellaart 1967). They propose that phallocentric imagery has been downplayed and that maleness was a ‘prime cultural signifier’ during the Turkish Neolithic (2011: 237). This reading is the antithesis of former interpretations of the period. Whilst Hodder and Meskell admit that they do not want to ‘replace one meta-narrative with another’ (2011: 237) the oscillation from the dominance of female icon to a male icon is troublesome because such readings are often based upon quantitative data that do not address the key issues of contextual relationships, culturally contingent forms of engagement with environment and the transformational nature of the practices as evidenced. From this exploration of the sui generis spaces here it is evident that things were difficult to see, agents were touching areas of the paintings and the imagery was ephemeral – all of these data indicate that the spaces were cultivated for momentary experiences centred on the transformative properties of materials such as colour, light and substance (pigment) and that aspects of the emergent qualities of these materials were being harnessed and brought into domestic spaces. By drawing comparisons between experiential art and the sui generis spaces it becomes apparent that the types of engagements evidenced in the archaeological record indicate that material engagements practiced in these spaces were more than ocular - they were multi-sensorial. Furthermore, it is the admission that seeing is culturally contingent (see Anthony Forge) that casts doubt over our ability to ‘read’ the narrative of paintings made 9000 years ago from essentialist readings of symbols. Conclusion The works in this edited volume speak of Archaeology with Art, and my contribution is to propose an analysis of the hallmarks of experiential artworks in conjunction with archaeological evidence found at a Neolithic tell – the lynchpin of my analysis being that these are both examples of ‘vital’ material engagements. By identifying the tools artists use to create these contemporary artworks and recognising, notably, that such techniques are also present in these sui generis spaces at Çatalhöyük, I have sought to tease out some of the subtle ways that spaces are manipulated and synthesized some of these techniques with the archaeological dataset found at the town. Ingold reminds us of the dynamic properties of materials and how ‘in the process of making we ‘join forces’ with

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology them, bringing them together or splitting them apart, synthesising and distilling, in anticipation of what might emerge’ (2013: 21). In light of the artworks discussed in this chapter, I assert that art practices (such as experiential art) that focus on the transformative aspects of materials (both human and other-thanhuman) are fruitful areas of research that will provide us with the tools to explore the informative processes of becoming in the archaeological record. References Beaulieu, A. 2011. The Status of Animality in Deleuze’s Thought, Journal for Critical Animal Studies 4(1/2): 69-88. Black, K. 2011. Structure and Material Exhibition, Available from: http:// www.artscouncilcollection.org.uk/exhibition/2011-structure-and-material 15.6.2015

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Bennett, J. 2010. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke Berger, J. 2008. Ways of Seeing. London, Penguin Books Ltd. Bishop, C. 2012. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London, Verso Books. Bishop, C. 2005. Installation Art. London, Tate Publishing Bosch, E. 2012. 18th July Sun clock, Available from: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=TDHRI-o0On8 accessed 14.5.2015 Bosch, E. 2008. Catalhöyük light and dust on a city 9000 years old. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64DlgYzQVkc accessed 14.5.2015 Boz, B. and Hager, L. 2011. Neolithic Burials 2011. In Çatalhöyük 2011 Archive Report, 67-75. Çamurcuoğlu, D. 2011. Conservation Report. In Çatalhöyük 2011 Archive Report, 101-106. Cauvin, J. 2000. The Birth of the Gods and the Origins of Agriculture, Trans T. Watkins. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Cessford, C. 2001. A New Dating for Çatalhöyük. Antiquity 75: 717–725. Cooney, G. 2002. So many shades of rock: colour symbolism and Irish stone axeheads. In A. Jones and G. MacGregor (eds), Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research: 93-109, Oxford, Berg. Courchesne, L. 2002. Experiential Art: Case Study, Available from: http:// ic.media.mit.edu/courses/mas878/pubs/courchesne-02-experiential-art.pdf accessed 26.1.15. Darvill, T. 2002. White on blonde: quartz pebbles and the use of quartz at Neolithic monuments in the Isle of Man and beyond. In A. Jones and G. MacGregor

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Archaeology with Art (eds), Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research: 73-93, Oxford, Berg. Doherty, C. 2011. Clay and Landscape Studies. In 2011 Çatalhöyük Archive Report: 90-95. Düring, B. S. 2007. The articulation of houses at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey. In R. Beck, (ed.), The Durable House, House Society Models in Archaeology: 130-135, Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations. Farid, S. 2011. Building 80. In 2011 Çatalhöyük Archive Report: 27-31. Farid, S. 2007. Introduction to the South Area Excavations. In I. Hodder (ed), Volume 3 Excavating Çatalhöyük: South, North and KOPAL. Area, Reports from the 1995–1999 Seasons. Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Forge, A. 1970. Learning to See in New Guinea. In P. Mayer (ed), Socialization: The Approach from Social Anthropology: 269-92. New York, Tavistock. Gell, A. 1998. Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Ganis, M. 2012. The Intuitive Builders of Çatalhöyük. In 2012 Çatalhöyük Archive Report, 127-138. Gimbutas, M. 1974. The gods and goddesses of Old Europe: 7000 to 3500 BC myths, legends and cult images. USA, University of California Press. Hodder, I. (ed) 1996. On the surface: Çatalhöyük 1993-95. London, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Hodder, I. (ed) 2005a. Çatalhöyük perspectives: reports from, the 1995-99 seasons by members of the Çatalhöyük teams. London, British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. Hodder, I. 2006a. Çatalhöyük: the leopard’s tale: revealing the mysteries of Turkey’s ancient “town.” London, Thames & Hudson. Hodder, I., 2010. Religion in the Emergence of Civilization: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Hodder, I. and Pels, P. 2010. History Houses. In Religion in the Emergence of Civilization A new interpretation of architectural elaboration at Çatalhöyük. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Hodder I. and Meskell, L. 2011. A “Curious and Sometimes a Trifle Macabre Artistry”, Current Anthropology 52(2): 235-263. Ingold, T. 2013. Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture. Oxon, Routledge. Jones, A. and MacGregor, G. 2002. Colouring the Past: The Significance of Colour in Archaeological Research, Oxford, Berg.

Govier - Experiential Art and Archaeology Knappett, C. and Malafouris, L. (eds), 2008. Material Agency: Towards a NonAnthropocentric Approach. Springer. Last, J. 1998. A design for life. Interpreting the art of Çatalhöyük. Journal of Material Culture 3(3): 355-78. Last, J. 2005. Art. In I. Hodder (ed), Çatalhöyük perspectives reports from the 1995–99 seasons, Çatalhöyük Research Project Volume 6, British Institute at Ankara, BIAA Monograph No. 40. Latour, B., 2004. The Politics of Nature: How to Bring the Sciences into Democracy, Trans Catherine porter. Cambridge, Harvard University Press. Lewis-Williams, D. 1994. Rock Art and Ritual: Southern Africa and Beyond. Complutum, 5: 277-289. Matthews, W., Wiles, J. and Almond, M. 2006. Micromorphology and microanalysis of architectural surface materials and residues: investigation of source materials and the life-cycle of buildings. In Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2006. 285-294. Matthews, W. 2005. Life-cycle and life-course of buildings. In I. Hodder (ed), Catalhoyuk Perspectives: Themes from the 1995-9 Seasons. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, Cambridge. Mellaart, J. 1962. Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, first preliminary report, 1961. Anatolian Studies 12: 41-65. Mellaart, J. 1963. Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, second preliminary report, 1962. Anatolian Studies 13: 43-103. Mellaart, J. 1964. Excavations at Çatal Hüyük, third preliminary report, 1963. Anatolian Studies 14: 39-119.  Mellaart, J. 1967. Çatal Hüyük: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia. London, Thames and Hudson. Meskell, L., Nakamura, C. and Der, L., 2012. Figurine Report. In Çatalhöyük 2012 Archive Report: 189-195. Moyes, H. 2014. Speleothems and Their Contexts at Çatalhöyük. Konya, Turkey: Çatalhöyük. In Çatalhöyük Archive Report 2014: 211-221. Robinson, D. 1927. The Discovery of a Prehistoric Site at Sizma. American Journal of Archaeology 31(1): 26-50. Thomas, J. 2007. ‘The trouble with material culture’, Journal of Iberian Archaeology, 9/10: 11-24. Tingham, R. and Stevanoviç, M. (eds) Last House on the Hill: BACH Area Reports from Çatalhöyük, Turkey, Cotsen Institute of Archaeology (UCLA) Press.

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Was & Watson

Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen John Was1 & Aaron Watson2 Introduction The Kilmartin area of Argyll in west Scotland has an extraordinary concentration of prehistoric rock art. There are extensive panels of cup and ring marks, including well-known sites such as Achnabreck, Cairnbaan and Ormaig (RCAHMS 1999). Inspired by these ancient markings, Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen was a community art project that involved the contemporary creation of carved symbols. This paper introduces the ideas and inspirations behind the project, and documents the resulting multimedia installation at Kilmartin Museum in 2014. We conclude with a discussion of how the active process of creating these images, as well as the resulting artworks, might encourage alternative means of exploring perceptions of known and unknown, past and present. Background Landscape rock art in Britain and Ireland has long been a focus for research and debate (Bradley 1997). Antiquarians and archaeologists have surveyed many sites in enormous detail, collating an extensive corpus of the markings we see on the rocks today (e.g. Beckensall 2005). While almost all are non-representational in form, the majority express variations of the cup and ring (Figure 1). There has been much speculation regarding their meaning, and over one hundred different interpretations have been documented (Morris 1979: 16-28). Recent excavations at Torbhlaren and Ormaig in the Kilmartin area (Jones et al. 2011), and across the Ben Lawers Estate in the Southern Highlands (Bradley and Watson 2012; Bradley et al. 2012), have uncovered intriguing evidence for the context within which the carvings were made. Around outcropping decorated rocks and boulders, and within fissures upon their surfaces, were found the broken remains of quartz hammerstones used to sculpt the motifs (Figure 2). Substantial quantities of fractured quartz emphasise the dynamic events surrounding their creation. They did not simply materialise; these symbols were energetically pounded into the rock, stone hitting stone, percussive sounds reverberating, debris flying. The presence of non-local stone, including flint and Arran pitchstone,

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John Was, independent researcher, [email protected] Aaron Watson, independent researcher, [email protected]

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Figure 1. Examples of rock art in Scotland. A: Achnabreck. B: Ormaig. C: Cairnbaan. D: Ben Lawers. (Photographs by Aaron Watson)

also reveals that distinctive materials were being worked (Bradley and Watson 2012:74; Bradley et al. 2012: 49; Jones et al. 2011:100). The most extensive panel of motifs at Torbhlaren is situated along the crest of an upstanding rock outcrop and is bordered to one side by a wide natural ledge. At another outcrop nearby a cluster of complex motifs overlooks an area of compacted ground, rich in quartz debris, which was revealed by excavation (Jones et al. 2011: 50-6). Upon Ben Lawers, cobbles had been placed to one side of a domed rock that has a cup mark and several concentric rings set upon its apex (Bradley et al. 2012: 35-8). This consolidated ground defines the optimal position to view this motif against a spectacular backdrop of Loch Tay and the mountains beyond (Figure 3). In both instances, it seems that people stood in these locations to view the petroglyphs, and perhaps also to witness their creation as a theatrical or ceremonial performance. One of the rock types available at Ben Lawers was found to have unusual properties. During the excavations it was found that schist produced remarkable

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Figure 2. A: Excavation at Torbhlaren. B: Excavation at Ormaig. C: Excavation on Ben Lawers. D: A broken hammerstone from Torbhlaren. E: A worn quartz pebble from Torbhlaren, perhaps used to shape motifs. F: The ‘peck’ marks that result from hammering are visible at Ormaig. G: Quartz debris from Torbhlaren. (Photographs by Aaron Watson)

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Figure 3. A: Rock art extends along the crest of an outcrop at Torbhlaren, while a natural ledge offers a viewpoint alongside. B: Excavation at Torbhlaren. C: The cluster of cobbles in the foreground marks consolidated ground alongside a large carved boulder on Ben Lawers. D: A cup with several rings framed by the view beyond. (Photographs by Aaron Watson)

quantities of mica dust that sparkled in sunlight, and this would have also occurred throughout the original act of making the motifs. It is possible that wider areas of the rock surface were deliberately struck in order to produce this dust and emphasise the silvery lustre of the rock surface, almost as a kind of symbolic quarrying (Bradley and Watson 2012: 76; Bradley et al. 2012: 60). This aesthetic sensibility seems to have extended into the wider landscape. Carved rocks also appear to have been chosen for their uninterrupted views towards the shimmering and reflective surface of Loch Tay below (Figure 4). In combination, the results of this fieldwork suggest that the significance and meaning of rock art is likely to have extended far into the wider landscape and

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Figure 4. The sparkling surfaces of carved schist boulders upon Ben Lawers share qualities with the shimmering loch below. (Photographs by Aaron Watson)

beyond the carvings themselves. While many approaches to recording can make it appear static and silent in the modern landscape, a broader consideration of the multisensory qualities of the archaeological record, including colour and acoustics, is indicative of a rather more dynamic past. Ultimately, however, the exact role and meaning of these abstract forms in the lives of their Neolithic and Bronze Age creators remains a mystery. The Project Insights from Torbhlaren and Ben Lawers, allied to the authors ideas about how multisensory interpretations of the past can be creatively expressed and interpreted, formed the background and inspiration for the Living Symbols arts project (see Crewdson and Watson 2009; Watson 2004; 2008). The project involved a twostage process. First, present day residents of the Kilmartin area were invited to carve images in stone that represented things of importance in their lives. Second, an exhibition was staged at Kilmartin Museum that was divided into two areas. The ‘Light Room’ displayed over sixty community sculptures, while the ‘Dark Room’ contained a dynamic multimedia animation by the authors. As part of the preliminary stage of the project, participants were asked to think of a theme or inspiration for their image that had significance for them. They then

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Figure 5. The Living Symbols sculpting workshops. (Photographs by Aaron Watson)

gathered for sculpting workshops held at Kilmartin Museum. Each day began with a group discussion of the ideas for symbols that people had prepared. Everyone was then supplied with masonry tools and a rectangular block of limestone, and the process of carving began. Expert tuition and advice was provided at all times by local sculptor Melanie Chmielewska, with the authors recording the process through photography and film (Figure 5). Children from Tayvallich Primary School also made a special contribution. Inspired by a fieldtrip to the rock art site of Achnabreck they designed their own symbols. One of these was then chosen to be made into a panel of hand-made clay tiles, each individually modelled and engraved. Once dry, these tiles were coloured using paints that the children made themselves by grinding charcoal and local rocks sandstone, limestone and bog iron - into a fine powder. In the second phase of the project the finished sculptures were displayed with written explanations of their meaning in an exhibition hosted at Kilmartin Museum:

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Was & Watson - Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen The Dark Room A three-act audio-visual installation by the authors was inspired by the enigmatic and aesthetic qualities of prehistoric rock art, and the dynamic events surrounding its creation. This was shown across three large screens and used 3D-multichannel sound. Act 1 of the animation offered a figurative portrayal of rock art at Cairnbaan captured using photogrammetry and brought to life using digital lighting. As the camera moves across the rock, any sense of present-day familiarity begins to break down as the scene transforms into a fire-lit ritual (Figure 6). The soundtrack incorporated specially recorded sounds of hammer-stones carving into rock, as well as energetic vocalisations and rhythms of ritualistic practices. Act 2 again featured images of the motifs at Cairnbaan, but this time their form was reproduced as a liquid (Figure 7). This offered a metaphor for the fluidity of interpretation, and was directly inspired by night-time visits to rock art on the slopes of Ben Lawers. Not only did the moon clearly illuminate the cup and ring motifs, but also reflected from the rippling surface of Loch Tay (Figure 8).

Figure 6. Still frames from Act 1 of the audiovisual installation.

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Figure 7. Still frames from Act 2 of the audiovisual installation.

The third act was the most abstract and focused upon the notion that, while the significance of ancient compositions in stone has long since been forgotten, the cup and ring mark is a universal constant wherever these carvings are found. This iconic symbol was the enduring image of the animation, enriched by painted textures that were inspired by working in the Kilmartin landscape (Figure 9). The abstract sounds and forms perhaps describe imaginations from which the design was conceived. Discussion It is difficult to summarise a site-specific multimedia project that combines such diverse activities and outcomes. Using modern technology to create abstract imagery and immersive sound in the ‘Dark Room’, we hoped to evoke something of the enigmatic quality of the prehistoric motifs in the wider landscape. We also wanted to capture the multisensory dynamism that would have accompanied their creation and ceremonial use.

Was & Watson - Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen In the ‘Light Room’ the communitysculpted images were more akin to the ancient rock art carvings, the major distinction being that written explanations of their meaning were presented alongside each piece. A range of themes of importance inspired the modern engravings for the individual sculptors. Many conveyed profound and abstract concepts, such as beauty, remembrance, hope, family, wishes, achievement, dreams and death; but interestingly these could not have been guessed without the attendant statements. If anything, this privileged insight into the inspirations of the modern inhabitants of Kilmartin Glen not only serves to reinforce the ambiguity of the ancient symbols but also their modern counterparts. If we are unable to decipher the meaning of modern symbols without the creators written descriptions, Figure 8. Moonlight reflecting upon the what chance is there to comprehend surface of Loch Tay, viewed from a carved rock high on the slopes of Ben Lawers. ancient ones? It is probable, therefore, that we may never know (Photograph by Aaron Watson) for certain what the ancient carvings mean, yet the Living Symbols project might enable us to say something about the broader context of their role, and ancient and modern understandings. Overseeing, and engaging in, the creation of expressive sounds and images for the project has highlighted a number of aspects inherent in the creative process for us; not least the will and imagination required to produce each piece. Perhaps in trying to identify clues and decipher specific meanings it is easy to overlook this broader significance. Both ancient and modern markings are a signature of human intention, presence and endeavour, an indelible mark on the world invested with meaning and possibility. Our encounters with ancient art in the woods, on hillsides and in fields thus evoke something fundamental about the presence of people in this landscape. We identify that these images are not natural forms.

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Figure 9. Still frames from Act 3 of the audiovisual installation.

Their lines and shapes transform the rock-face, signifying a realm of humans and their beliefs. An overt and striking message is conveyed simply through their coming into being: Here we are, and here is the world of our beliefs. Our gods, our loves, our ancestors, our songs, our dead. And our future lives in the memory and imagination of others. Whether encountered by their creators, their contemporaries from further afield, or by us in the present, this significance is successfully communicated and understood. Examining the project as a process may also allow us to re-conceive the roles of both ancient and modern symbols. The first stage of the project involved community participation, comprising a series of events carried out by individuals and groups. Participants had to weigh their thoughts, decide upon themes, and choose images to convey these themes. They had to learn how to carve the

Was & Watson - Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen images, before executing them in stone as part of a workshop, all ultimately leading to the goal of creating a sculpture. From this perspective, the resulting symbols represent the end of a journey of imagination, learning, and of working as a community towards a shared goal, perhaps in some small way a journey of enlightenment. Thus, the role of both ancient and modern symbol may be seen as a residue or signature of this process and experience. Rock art motifs can be thought of as a trace of the thoughts and actions that brought them into being. Findings at Torbahlaren and Ben Lawers emphasise how the markings are the outcome of dynamic events during which hammer stones were used to beat and grind the rock. In this sense, their incision might have been performed as an integral element of some multifaceted ritual, just as footsteps in the sand evidence the walker’s journey. The role of the symbols might have been the residue of symbolic quarrying, where the shaping of motifs generated quartz fragments and dust, produced vibrant sound and orchestrated physical gesture. Indeed, we speculate that in some cases the sounds of percussive hammering might have been the foundation rhythm and accompaniment to music and song: the signs on the rocks, the causal silhouettes of notes on a musical score. Stage two of the project highlights an alternative role. This latter stage involved the public viewing of the carvings and audio-visual installation, a time when new experiences and responses were instigated by the symbols for those who visited the exhibition. From this perspective the symbols act as a beginning rather than an end-note, a catalyst, instigating thoughts and actions in observers. By their very presence, the symbols excite perceptions and interpretations in the observer that can lead to a variety of beliefs and behaviours. Taking stages one and two together we can see how ancient and modern symbols may have meaning both as the residue of transformation and through being themselves transformative. We may gain further insights by considering the contrasts, or apparent contrasts, between ancient and modern symbols. One might be that our living symbols were displayed in a museum, in a village, and within the context of a Western European society that has tamed the landscape so that it is now perceived by many visitors as a place for recreation. The ancient symbols were enacted within a very different world: one uninformed by post-Enlightenment thought, and thereby understood through conceptions of nature and culture that would be entirely unfamiliar today. Yet, we might also suggest that there were likely parallels: security and safety sought through community affiliations, a capacity for thought and ingenuity, ambition and power, confidence, self-doubt, vulnerability and ignorance. Both ancient and modern symbols may reflect the qualities of their makers as confident assertions, tentative interactions, sacred reflections, or perhaps desperate acts of resistance.

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Archaeology with Art Another apparent distinction between ancient and modern symbols is that the designs of the Living Symbols sculptures are enormously diverse, and convey assorted meanings, while much of the prehistoric art found across the landscapes of Britain is expressed using variations of a single symbol: the cup and ring. How might we account for such a distinction? Interestingly, the range of images carved by the Kilmartin community, taken together, express essential aspects of what it is to be human by conveying concerns such as hope, family, achievement, and death. Could it be that what the modern symbols achieve in concert, the ancient symbols abstract into a single iteration? Perhaps there is some support for this idea as the fundamental geometry of the cup and ring, the circle, appears universal to many aspects of Neolithic and Bronze Age life, from the format of pottery to the ground plans of many houses, barrows, stones circles and henges (Bradley 1998: 104-9). As a final summation we suggest that, in essence, the Living Symbols project involved people gathering, an activity being undertaken, symbols being created, connections being made, communication achieved, and responses triggered. We might then ask, in broad terms is this so different from how the creation of rock art unfolded in the past? Through providing a contemporary counterpart, we also believe that the project has enabled us to see ancient rock art from a newly created perspective, and allowed us to begin to trace alternative configurations of connections between past and present, known and unknown. We might also emphasise that these new paths of exploration have been illuminated through the provision of an artistic and archaeological union. For visitors to the exhibition we hope to have added some new layers of interest and humanity to the surviving fragments of the deep past, and a means to re-engage with, reconsider and respond to Neolithic and Bronze Age endeavours and craft. Indeed, it is this simple realisation that has been reinforced at all stages of the project. When fellow human beings communicate, the desire to try and understand, and to answer, is strong whether in the present or when the message is thousands of years old. Perhaps this project was simply our way of responding to an ancient call. Acknowledgements John Was and Aaron Watson would like to thank all of the participants who took part in the project and who gave us permission for their sculptures and written descriptions to feature in this paper. We would also like to thank Melanie Chmielewska for her expert tutoring at the community sculpting workshops, Mark Hamilton for framing the clay tablets, and Alec Howie, Carron Tobin, Argyll and Bute Council and Creative Scotland for their support. Our thanks also extend to all the staff at Kilmartin Museum for their help in setting up and running Living Symbols, and in particular Kate Moody for managing the project, Julia

Was & Watson - Living Symbols of Kilmartin Glen Hamilton for working with Tayvallich School, Claire Dangerfield for assistance with the installation, and Sharon Webb for support and enthusiasm. For further information please visit: www.monumental.uk.com

References Beckensall, S. 2005. The Prehistoric Rock Art of Kilmartin. Kilmartin, Kilmartin Museum. Bradley, R. 1997. Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe: Signing the Land. London, Routledge. Bradley, R. 1998. The Significance of Monuments. London, Routledge. Bradley, R. and Watson, A. 2012. Ben Lawers: arved rocks on a loud mountain. In A. Cochrane and A. Jones (eds) Visualising the Neolithic: 64-78. Neolithic Studies Group Seminar Papers 13. Oxford, Oxbow. Bradley, R., Watson, A. and Anderson-Whymark, H. 2012. Excavations at four prehistoric rock carvings on the Ben Lawers Estate, 2007-2010. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland: 142, 27-61. Crewdson, J. and Watson, A. 2009. New art−ancient craft: making music for the monuments. In S. Banfield (ed.) The Sounds of Stonehenge: 4-10. Oxford, BAR British Series 504. Jones, A., Freedman, D., O’Connor, B., Lamdin-Whymark, H., Tipping, R., and Watson, A. 2011. An Animate Landscape: Rock Art and the Prehistory of Kilmartin, Argyll, Scotland. Oxford, Windgather Press. Morris, R. 1979. The Prehistoric Rock Art of Galloway and the Isle of Man. Poole, Blandford Press. RCAHMS. 1999. Kilmartin: Prehistoric and Early Monuments. An Inventory of the Monuments Extracted from Argyll Volume 6. Edinburgh, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland.

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Archaeology with Art Watson, A. 2004. Making space for monuments: notes on the representation of experience. In C. Renfrew, C. Gosden and E. DeMarrais (eds) Substance, Memory, Display: Archaeology and Art: 79-96. Cambridge, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. Watson, A. 2008. Learning to see through the Kilmartin Eye. In J. Thomas and V. Oliveira Jorge (eds) Archaeology and the Politics of Vision in a Post-Modern Context: 147-62. Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing.