Home | About | What is Evolution | World Archaeology & Palaeoanthropology | North

African Archaeology | Pseudoscience | Recommended Readings | Reviews | Links

| Search | Contact

Anne Solomon. 1999. Meanings, models and minds:

a reply to Lewis-Williams. South African
Archaeological Bulletin
'Meaning in San rock art is contested terrain, with different researchers bringing
different models of meaning and mind to bear on the issue. Models of meaning, and
the assumptions they incorporate about rock art as an avenue to understanding
prehistoric mind, are discussed. On the one hand, what is held to be meaning is a
product of particular theoretical premises, methods and epistemological
foundations, but, on the other hand, the meaning(s) of the art are not merely a
question of perspective, with free play accorded to the researchers imagination.
This distinction is illustrated via discussion of Qings commentary to Orpen, and
interpretations thereof.
Introduction
Rock art researchers agree that the (archaeological) meaning of San art is that
which it had for people in the past, but there is less agreement on what meaning is,
how it is constituted, and the methods used to access that meaning. Indeed, the
complex problem of meaning and its operations (semiosis) has preoccupied scores
of eminent scholars this century. Lewis-Williams (e.g. 1981; 1998) has offered a
detailed exposition of his theoretical premises and the model of meaning that he
favours. Other researchers, including Skotnes (1994) and myself (e.g.1989,
1992,1995, 1997a), have proceeded from different premises, which do not
correspond
with
Lewis-Williams
structuralist-semiotic
model.
Different
interpretations and accounts of meaning put forward in San rock art research have
been addressed by Lewis-Williams (1998), crystallising some of the problems and
contested positions that characterise contemporary research. However, meaning,
in Lewis-Williams account, is variously conflated with interpretation, context,
intention and truth, and depends on a particular model of mind. From a different
theoretical standpoint, this account of meaning is deeply problematic. Theoretical,
methodological, interpretive and epistemological issues related to the issue of
meaning in San art are discussed here, as well as interpretive problems associated
with nineteenth century San testimonies on rock paintings.
What is meaning?
Meaning as context
Lewis-Williams (1998) has evaluated the work of researchers who have considered
gender (e.g. Solomon 1989, 1992, 1994, 1995; Parkington 1989, 1996, Parkington
and Manhire 1997) and visual/formal considerations (Skotnes 1990, 1994),
concluding that these are merely secondary meanings, penumbral, yet vibrant
(Lewis-Williams 1998:96), while shamanism is the primary and central meaning of
the art. But are shamanism, gender or form meanings that can be ranked in order

of importance in this way? The notion that this is possible depends on a conflation
of meaning with context, and a particular view of what context comprises. For
Lewis-Williams, the context of production is a shamanistic cosmology. It is claimed
that all images are shamanistic in that they are part of a shamanistic cosmology
and are situated on a surface that had meaning within that cosmology (LewisWilliams 1998:89). In other words, context (shamanism) is equivalent to meaning
(shamanistic); meaning and context are interchangeable. However, this strategy
isolates one aspect of the original context of production, namely belief context,
which is spuriously split off from other realities. The prioritisation of belief over social
relations, economy and other material aspects of life cannot easily be sustained. In
San ethnographies, the gendering of rain, sun and moon (for example) must be
understood in terms of social relations, and not cosmology alone, and social and
belief contexts cannot be divorced as Lewis-Williams advocates. Both are aspects
of the original context of production; the privileging of one over another is an
analytical choice, rather than an imperative, and furthermore, a choice that is
unmotivated in the shamanistic model.
Separating contexts in this way allows Lewis-Williams to assess the relative
importance of each for understanding the art, and to proclaim shamanism as the
primary meaning. This is inevitable, since belief is set up a priori as primary, more
determining and more meaningful in his model of ranked meanings. It ignores the
fact that neither Parkington, Skotnes nor I have proclaimed our analytical foci as
the meaning of the art. Rather, these qualitatively different dimensions are each
relations of meaning, intertwined and simultaneously present in the original
production context. Neither belief, nor gender, nor form/artistic praxis constitute pure
contexts in themselves. It is rather their inter-relation which is of analytical interest.
The privileging of belief context derives from the idealism of Lewis-Williams analysis
(see below).
To say that meaning is always contextual is a different proposition from saying that
context equals meaning, and the notion of contextual meaning - irrespective of
which context is prioritised is problematic. Hodders archaeology of contextual
meanings (1987) has been discussed by Davis (1996), who notes the ultimate
redundancy of the notion: Contextual meaning is not a special variety of
meaning...by definition, the meanings of a term exist in a social and historical
context, namely the context of just those people who assign sense (Sinn) to a
reference (Bedeutung)...In the same way as contextual adaptation would just be
adaptation as such, contextual meaning is just meaning as such. The limitations
run deeper: to recognise context is not in itself to recognise the variability and
open-endedness of meaning...It remains to be shown for any given case that the
context of meaning - of people assigning sense to a reference - is characterised by
variability rather than invariance, or openness rather than closure (Davis 1996:1189).
The shamanists argument for the relative invariance of meaning relies on
prioritisation of belief-context-as-meaning, and appeal to the conservatism of San
religious belief. Indeed, it is difficult to see the remarkable similarities in the forms of
San beliefs in different times and places in other terms, and Lewis-Williams
emphasis on some kind of pan-San cosmology (e.g 1984b) has been valuable.
Nevertheless, problems arise. Forms may remain relatively constant, while
meaning (content) changes. Similarly, the same form may connote differently to

different people at one time (see further below). The notion of a primary belief
context depends on an abstraction, a statement about putative similarities in San
thought, irrespective of time and space differences, and separated from the
activities of people in any specific social and historical context. This reified belief
context, which, since it is already divorced from socio-economic processes, is
timeless and homogeneous, becomes the rationale for a view of meaning as
principally static and largely closed, and hence for shamanism as the essential
meaning of the art in all times and places.
Within this notion of an essential meaning, Lewis-Williams (1998:88-9)
acknowledges only limited polysemy, which he discusses in relation to the eland
symbol. However, since the meaning of the art has already been defined as
shamanistic, his analysis is really concerned with shades of (shamanistic)
meaning, rather than multiple meanings. This view of the consensual nature of
symbolic meanings is part of the standard semiotic account of the conventional
meaning of the symbol, and, by extension, depends on the notion of a
homogeneous, consensual and conflict-free social community in which meanings
are unproblematically agreed upon. Contextual meaning is again invoked. LewisWilliams (1998:88) argues that Key symbols are central in that they lie at the heart
of a belief system and as such have a semantic spectrum rather than a meaning.
Here Lewis-Williams departs from his earlier analysis (1981), which he now sees as
flawed. It is no longer the iconographical associations of a figure (e.g. an eland) that
he sees as significant. Instead he distinguishes between the eland antelope (the
real thing), a rock painting of (what appears to be) an eland antelope as a
concrete item of material culture and the eland symbol. The last-mentioned is
described as an abstract concept that (if they think about it at all) exists in peoples
minds (1998:89). A painted eland is said to be one contextualised manifestation of
the eland symbol, and as such will have a restricted rather than a diffuse semantic
focus (ibid.). The symbol is thus the sum of its potential contextual meanings. This
model of meaning is strongly contested, principally on the basis of its structuralist
assumptions.
The structuralist account of meaning, and idealist foundations
The success of structuralist analyses of rock art in the 1960s was carried over into
studies of San art by Vinnicombe (e.g. 1976) and Lewis-Williams (e.g. 1972, 1974)
in the 1970s. Lewis-Williams moved from an initial focus (1972, 1974) on classical
structural analysis (based on structural linguistics, where signs are studied as if
structured like a language) to semiotic analysis (1981), (a development of structural
analysis which also includes non-verbal signs, also (1980) invoking structuralmarxist analysis, in an effort to incorporate the social dimensions of art-making.
Despite these shifts, and claims of eschewal, Lewis-Williams analysis remains
irrevocably structuralist, with its attendant problems. The boundaries of semiotic
studies, which have been enormously productive, are, according to Hawkes
(1977:124), coterminous with structuralism, and part of a larger field which might
be called communication. Lewis-Williams uses a simplified version of PierceMorris semiotics, focussing on the broad sign categories icon, index and symbol.
Since Pierces work on the science of signs early this century, many writers,
including, for example, Eco (e.g. 1976), have addressed themselves to the manifold
problems that have subsequently emerged. Much recent writing on semiotic issues

has specifically addressed problems of structuralist tenets in semiotic analysis.

Lewis-Williams describes structuralism as the proposition that human thought
proceeds in terms of binary oppositions. This minimal definition inevitably
oversimplifies matters. Whilst Levi-Strauss did maintain that humans
characteristically order and classify experience in terms of binary oppositions, this
does not mean that every time one encounters contrasting dualistic terms that one
is dealing with a structuralist analysis! The founding metaphor of structuralism is
rather the depth : surface dualism, where depth refers to mental structures or a
cognitive template (cf. Ingold 1993, Thomas 1996), and surface to cultural
expressions as the realisation of those deep structures.
This appears unmistakably in the shamanistic model, and explicitly in LewisWilliams analysis of the eland symbol. It is said to exist in peoples minds (depth)
before being expressed as a contextualised manifestation in the concrete, material
form of the painted image (surface). A similar notion of depth and surface appears in
the idea that the neurophysiological system of all anatomically modern humans
(depth) generated forms which were construed and expressed (surface) by San
artists in the medium of paint (e.g. Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1988). The eland
concept is, in effect, a structure of, and in, the mind. This begs the question of
where and how? Lewis-Williams suggests that it was not necessary for people to
have thought about it at all. How then does the eland concept exist in the mind
unless it is thought about? How can a concept exist independently of thought? How
did it come into being in the first place? How does it change? Structuralist analyses
are notoriously inadequate in this regard, being synchronic and unable to
accommodate history and change. This may be understood in relation to the
idealism of the structuralist project in general, and the shamanistic model in
particular.
In the shamanistic model, with its structuralist foundations, ideas - belief, cognition
and what is optimistically called neuropsychology - are accorded considerable
importance, even determining force. Material factors have been considered only as
a secondary relation of meaning (for example in the idea that shamanism had
material consequences [*]). The decision that (a shamanistic) belief context is more
fundamental and determining than social context exemplifies this prioritisation of
ideas. Lewis-Williams sees socio-economic contexts as something to be factored
in post hoc to the shamanistic model (1998:90). The idealism of the model is not
ameliorated by such add-gender-and-stir strategies (cf. Moore 1988). However,
the problem is not resolved simply by replacing an idealist model with a materialist
one, although this is technically possible: for example (to replicate, but invert, LewisWilliams logic), it is as legitimate to propose that shamanistic beliefs were formed
within an already gendered hunter-gatherer economy, with the social context more
determining; in which case, gendered social relations can be seen as the context
and meaning of the art. This seems to be the way in which Lewis-Williams has
understood my arguments. But gender is no more the meaning of the art than
shamanism is, and the inverted scenario is equally problematic. Rather, in
contemporary research in many disciplines, efforts are made to transcend such bald
separations of the material and ideal domains.
After structuralism and semiotics

Theoretical perspectives and analytical strategies of (at least) the last two decades
have been formulated as critiques of and responses to both structuralism and
vulgar marxism. These various responses are commonly lumped together as
post-modern by those unfamiliar with the terrain and the variety of positions such
critiques espouse. The following discussion elucidates some of these developments
and the problems they have sought to address, with reference to the ways in which
they have both permeated my research and contributed to my critique of the
shamanistic model.
My consideration of the gender(ed) dimension of San art depends on a model of
meaning that diverges from Lewis-Williams. The focus on gender demanded that
the material conditions of the production of art receive more attention, in such a way
as to avoid the simple polarisation of ideal and material (above) and the antihistoricity of the structuralist project. Practice theory (Bourdieu 1977; Moore 1986),
structuration theory (Giddens 1979) and feminist post-structuralist theory (e.g. the
materialist and post-structuralist perspectives of Delphy (1984) and Cixous (1985
[1975]) respectively) were amongst the theoretical perspectives explored as an
advance on the structuralist-semiotic model (e.g. Solomon 1989, 1992). LewisWilliams claim that gender studies are irredeemably structuralist (because gender
focusses on the male : female opposition [Lewis-Williams 1998:91-2]) misses the
point, which was that gender is a mutable social construct, not a product of deep
structures.
Following Delphy (1984), a distinction was drawn between male/female and
masculine/ feminine, with the former dualism referring to biological givens, but the
latter as relatively autonomous social constructs, not derived from or caused by
biology (if that were the case, the content of gender would be invariant in time and
space; this is too obviously not the case to warrant further discussion). As such, my
model rejected the idea that gendered binary oppositions are products of deep
structure (cf. Cixous 1985 [1975]). Instead, following Moores influential study
(1986), I considered gendered oppositions in San texts in terms of gender
stereotyping, where such stereotypes operate as organising principles (not
structures) in processes of meaning formation that occur only in social practice, and
commonly in the contestation of power. The emphasis on practice offered a way of
analysing ideas and material conditions in conjunction, rather than seeing one as
simply determined by the other. It also addressed structuralisms structure, and the
idea that practices are enactments of underlying rules or structures. Rather, in
Giddens terms, structure is only instantiated in practice, and is not otherwise in the
mind (Giddens 1979). The approach also addressed the untenable notion that
gender relations are necessarily consensual, co-operative and complementary, as
Lewis-Williams assumed in an early paper (1982).
In retrospect, these post-structuralist revisions seem to analyse the issue of multiple
meanings in a limited way, viz. the slippage (Davis 1996;125n) between reference
(what an image denotes) and sense (its potential connotations, symbolic
meanings), and I have subsequently explored other theoretical options (see below).
Nevertheless, the aforegoing still seems to me to be an improvement on LewisWilliams structuralist model in various ways. In particular, by integrating social and
economic factors, and via the notion of contested meaning(s), the possibility of
recognising the potential open-endedness of meaning, and hence historical change,
was introduced. This model of meaning entails a different epistemological position,

but this is not relativistic, although it does stress relationality, and the contingency of
meaning. This stress on semantic contingency contrasts with Lewis-Williams
position, in which one of the meanings of meaning is truth.
Meaning as truth
The argument that the context, and hence the primary meaning, of San art is
shamanistic functions as a claim to truth; shamanism is proclaimed as allencompassing, and no other meaning is permitted. As such, the model is
essentially monosemic, although Lewis-Williams allows for constrained polysemy of
a lesser order at the level of the symbol. Lewis-Williams (1998:88-9) further
distinguishes between polysemy and multivocality, with the latter idiosyncratically
described as the potential use of different categories of image by different social
groups. However, in an account of meaning which emphasises process rather than
structure, polysemy may in fact be a product of multivocality and the negotiation of
meaning(s). (This need not - and did not, in my research - concern different groups
using different images.) The epistemological dimension of Lewis-Williams model of
meaning is illustrated by further reference to the eland symbol.
The question was posed above: How did Lewis-Williams abstract eland symbol
come into being? According to my premises, the meanings of the eland arise in
practice and practical negotiation - including contestation - of meaning. Moore
(1986) gives an example of the meaning of ash in Marakwet society, where the
perceived meaning of ash depends on the practical context and the gender of the
person enacting that meaning. By smearing herself with ash outside the
conventional context of its use, a woman challenged the conventional meaning of
ash (associated with male dominance) and created a new, and contrary, meaning.
Madonnas use of the Christian cross in her videos is another example of creative
subversion of conventional symbolic meanings. As such, the notion of a single
meaning shared by all members of a group is problematic. Multivocality, in my
analysis, referred to the same term (image or symbol) potentially having
qualitatively different meanings for different social groups (particularly men and
women). This derives from a view of meaning as fundamentally unstable, as
continually being remade in practice, and as such, subject to change. This disrupts
the stasis of the notion of meaning as structure, replacing it with a view of meaning
as an ongoing process of negotiation of semantic possibilities. As such, it offers both
an account of how meanings come into being, as well as how they might change,
which shamanistic explanations do not and cannot. The shamanistic models truth
depends on an assumption of unitary, fixed meaning. Lewis-Williams confuses my
analysis of meaning as potentially unstable (and hence subject to change) with a
relativistic epistemology. This is possible because the model conflates meaning with
truth.
In this regard, Lewis-Williams (1998:89) misconstrues my argument (Solomon
1989:161), viz. that one particular interpretation is not objectively (original
italicisation) better than another. One interpretation may eclipse another on other
grounds, but, short of time travel, the correspondence of one or another to the Truth
in the past cannot be objectively or empirically proven (although it might be the case
that one interpretation is a closer approximation of the truth than the other). LewisWilliams criterion (e.g. 1985) that an adequate hypothesis must be characterised by
verifiability is misplaced in this regard. Assessment must take place according to

other criteria. Since interpretations are shaped by their theoretical tenets, it is

necessary to debate the premises of conflicting interpretations, not only the
interpretations themselves, since results are shaped by premises. Lewis-Williams
structuralist premises cannot be empirically established as truer than my
alternative premises; the aptness of premises can only be motivated and argued,
not proven. In these terms, the quality of argumentation assumes crucial importance
when it comes to adjudicating between interpretations.
For example, (cf. Lewis-Williams 1983, 1984a, 1985) the argument must be
internally consistent (including consistent with its premises). In this sense, if my
argument is as internally consistent as Lewis-Williams, then both may be equally
rigorous. Nevertheless, rigour does not equal truth, although it does allow
discrimination amongst competing interpretations. Lewis-Williams other oft-cited
criteria include quantity of data explained and heuristic potential. However, the
alleged explanatory power of the model does not validate the model or its
premises retrospectively; such claims depend on a logically unsound, teleological or
consequentialist argument (Sparkes 1991).
To acknowledge the relationality of an interpretation to its premises and the
impossibility of empirical verification of the approximation-to-truth of one or another
model does not imply a relativistic epistemology, nor that all interpretations are
equal, nor does it licence the free play of a researchers imagination (nor, for that
matter, does it equate with Stalinism or a lack of respect for data [Lewis-Williams
1998:90]). My epistemology and model of meaning do not coincide with LewisWilliams; I contend, however, not that they are equal, but that the structuralistsemiotic model, and the particulars of the resulting interpretation, are highly
problematic. To illustrate this further, an iconographical/ interpretive problem - the
question of what therianthropic figures represent - is discussed in some detail in the
second part of this paper.
Meaning as intention; or Humpty Dumpty revisited
For Lewis Carrolls Humpty-Dumpty, words mean what the speaker means them to
mean. Lewis-Williams view of meaning and intention is not dissimilar, insofar as it
contains the idea that an expression (e.g. a painted image) was a faithful copy of
what was in the artists mind, and what s/he wished to convey. Davis (1996:95-127)
has astutely discussed meaning and its relation to intentions. He relates theories of
copying to an entrenched view of human consciousness and the way it is directed
at the world...According to the entrenched view, a metaphysics of consciousness
propounded by many Western philosophies and harking back to Platonic themes,
thoughts precede their particular material representation, expression or
embodiment. The natural embodiment is merely a stuff or medium of some kind
supplementary and relaying thought itself (Davis 1996:98). In other words, images
are un-mediated reflections of thought. Rock paintings, for Lewis-Williams, are
precisely thoughts converted directly into concrete items of material culture,
remaining as solid evidence of past intentions, thoughts and minds.
However, this depends on an ahistorical notion of mind, and received assumptions
about consciousness which derive from the Enlightenment view of the rational
subject, characterised by self-possession, immediacy, control and self-awareness
(Davis 1996:101). Davis, who has favoured deconstructionist and historical
materialist critiques, discusses the dichotomies which arise from this view of the

mind, where the first term describes the pure, original, rational intention, and the
second its realisation: Idea/Expression, Intention/Artifact, Form/Matter,
Concept/Statement, Rule/Practice... (1996:103). To escape this structuralist
depth/surface dichotomy, Davis proposes an approach similar to (but more radical
than) the model of meaning I previously employed, namely that it does not exist as a
thing in the mind, but is instantiated only in practice: In the deconstructive revision
of the entrenched account, value systems, strategies of life or ideology are written.
They are constituted only in the activity of thinking them out, or more accurately,
thinking them down in some medium or other...Thus the logoi are not in the heads
of the makers, and then, like a Word made Flesh, somehow emptied into matter.
Rather, they are made, written, by the makers neither before nor after, but only
always in the ongoing, temporally and spatially ramified structure of making (Davis
1996:98-9). Skotnes emphasis on artistic praxis and the visual as a site of
meaning (1994) variously echoes this.
The importance of Davis analysis of consciousness and intentionality is that, whilst
acknowledging that people intend to do things, it does not assume that the product
is an accurate reflection of that intention. Theres many a slip twixt cup and lip, and
intention, product and meaning are not identical. It is in this sense that meaning
concerns disjunction. For Davis, disjunction is not merely the slippage between
sense and reference, but is, at least, also the gap between pure intention and
mediated product (Davis 1996:125, 78n). The contrast between this and LewisWilliams notions of the painted eland as a concrete manifestation of the abstract
concept and of the rock art as an unmediated copy of perceptions, intentions or
concepts (Davis 1996:127) is obvious. In short, rock paintings are not fossilised
ideas. Lewis-Williams model of meaning assumes that the image or painting =
thought, and that thought = meaning: that is, the meaning that the artist had in
mind. This position cannot be sustained, and from this perspective, models of
meaning in San rock art research are in urgent need of further attention.
Theory, method and mythic women
The ethnographic method, pioneered by Stow (1905) and considerably extended
by Vinnicombe (e.g. 1976) and Lewis-Williams (e.g. 1981), has been of enormous
importance in rock art research, but it is heavily logocentric. As Preziosi (1989:37)
has observed, interpretation as contextual reintegration often boils down to no
more than mechanical practices of text-matching. It focusses on the referent of an
image (rather than the image itself), translating the visual into verbal terms, with the
verbal then masquerading as meaning. Partly in response to critiques of
iconography-centred approaches (cf. Skotnes 1994), I considered the mythic
women figures, which are - unusually - depicted in frontal view, in order to
incorporate questions about their form rather, than their referents as such (Solomon
1995, 1998). I drew also on Ingolds (1993) work on temporality, as an advance on
structuralism and post-structuralism. Ingolds study, which utilises phenomenological
theory, offers the potential to move beyond the analysis of static form, via his
argument that form is generated in movement, and that western thought has tended
to prioritise form over process. The focus on temporality seemed important in
relation to Schapiros view of visual arts as portraying an order of time in an order
of space (1985:215). Phenomenological accounts of consciousness (which share
aspects of the deconstructionist approach, but are elsewhere in tension) were used
as a way of relating the art to ongoing lived experience, rather than mental

structures, and to (gendered) San lifeways and material conditions, rather than a
split-off universe of beliefs.
In his critique, Lewis-Williams fails to engage with the themes of my research, and
the problems outlined and addressed therein, implying that such studies do not offer
an account of how the making of gender statements articulated with the rock art
images (Lewis-Williams 1998:91). That research was not, however, concerned with
the making of gender statements, neither did I suggest that San people painted in
order to negotiate gender (Lewis-Williams 1998:91). Rather, I analysed San art, its
themes and forms, in relation to the rhythms and processes of specifically huntergatherer societies, in which gender is unquestionably a pre-eminent socio-cultural
division. These rhythms and processes, I argued, are the context within which
shamanism operated and developed its form(s) (Solomon 1995). Contra LewisWilliamsclaim, the entire dissertation was concerned with the ways in which gender
and rock art were articulated. Exploration of similar strategies for addressing
Lewis-Williams timeless shamanistic cosmology and relentless structuralism
continue in my current research, with the important difference that I now believe that
the art cannot correctly be described as shamanistic (cf. Katz 19*).
The approach adopted was designed to address several problems, not least of
which was the notion that the forms of San art were derived from hallucinatory
experience. Lewis-Williams (1998:91) mistakes my linkage of a range of feminine
(not female) figures to a wider complex of gendered beliefs as intentional
ambiguity. Ambiguous, certainly; but not intentional, since intentionality was a
major part of the problem at hand (see above). The issue of frequencies is another
component of the analysis that Lewis-Williams misconstrues, arguing that, because
of the small percentage of mythic women, my study cannot constitute more than a
limited addition to our understanding(Lewis-Williams 1998:91). This is ironic in
terms of his dismissal (1998:95) of naive percentages, and ignores the fact that I
discussed frequencies, relative to the question of whether a rare depiction is less
meaningful than a virtually ubiquitous motif such as the eland. In short, LewisWilliams critique proceeds from a position which already denies my different
premises, and hence my different findings. The failure to understand and engage
with those premises means that his criticisms remain insubstantial. The same
applies to his critique of art historical approaches.
Art history and westernism
Art historical approaches are not necessarily antithetical to those of archaeology or
anthropology. Theorisation in art history - of agency/practice, consciousness,
iconography, meaning and so on constiitutes a parallel critique of the limitations
of structuralism. In the art/historical work of Skotnes, Davis and Preziosi (cited
above) the model of meaning that grounds the shamanistic model is explicitly
rejected. These studies cannot so simply be dismissed as inappropriate Western
formalist art history (Lewis-Williams 1998:94). For one thing, to consider the form
(rather than the referent) of an image, panel or site is not the same as conducting a
formalist analysis. For another, the way in which Lewis-Williams mobilises the
notion of the West(ern) is uneven at best.
Lewis-Williams criticises western art historys (allegedly) universalising tendency
(this charge made with reference to Skotnes work on form and artistic practice). Yet

a far deeper universalism is at work in the claim that all anatomically modern
humans see the same hallucinatory forms in ASCs - a biologistic statement about
forms and universals, which permits the shamanists to extend their analogical
arguments virtually all people (irrespective of time, place or identity) and their arts. A
similar universalism is evident in Eliades (1964) notion of shamanism as primitive
religion, although Eliade is more circumspect in what he includes in his definition of
shamanism (Solomon in prep.).
Elsewhere, Lewis-Williams charges critics with western, etic perspectives, thus
invoking the very difference of the San. This appears in his response to Skotnes
(1994) analysis of a western Cape site, in terms of the artists engagement with
space and ground;my discussion of lateral versus frontal view in paintings of human
figures at a KwaZulu-Natal site (1995, 1997b); and Parkington and Manhires (1997)
study of directedness. It is claimed that the way that the San viewed paintings
was almost certainly...very different from ours (Lewis-Williams 1998:95). This is yet
another conflation, this time of looking at with meaning. Of course San people
would have looked at the art with different eyes (in the sense that the art was an
integral part of their cosmology and environment), in a way which researchers
cannot. For Lewis-Williams, to view is virtually synonymous with to perceive its
meaning. Nether Skotnes or I were concerned with this; nor did either of us deny
that the significance of the art for prehistoric communities was, inevitably, different.
But, in the physical sense of look at, there can be no difference between the San
and the contemporary viewer - unless one is to resort to the highly problematic
notion that San vision was fundamentally different to our own. On such claim about
the Other apartheid was built. Moreover, since Lewis-Williams admits that we do
not know how the San viewed paintings (1998:95), and he does not give even
hypothetical examples of different ways of viewing, the claim that Skotnes,
Parkington and my research universalises viewing practices remains
inconsequential.
In contrast, my suggestion that the frontal view in which the mythic women were
depicted was a bridge between original and contemporary viewers was theoretically
grounded. A way of linking past and present via the experience of form is offered by
Ingold (1993). Although the argument needs to be read in its entirety for its
complexity to be appreciated, Ingolds epistemology is based on the idea that the
native dweller and the archaeologist... - insofar as they both seek the past in the
landscape - ...are engaged in projects of fundamentally the same kind, though their
resulting narratives may diverge. Ingolds epistemology bridges past and present via
the argument that the practice of archaeology is...a form of dwelling, and that the
knowledge born of this practice is thus on a par with that which comes from the
practical activity of the native dweller, and which the anthropologist, through
participation, seeks to learn and understand (Ingold 1993:152). This acknowledges
the difference between original inhabitants and researchers, while also specifying
how the contemporary researcher can nevertheless come to know anything about
past realities. Importantly, this is achieved without recourse to universals of biology
or neurology, and without the binary opposition of western: non-western (cf. Said
1978). The alterity or identi(cali)ty of the San and us appears in Lewis-Williams
arguments not as a consistent view, but shifting in relation to the point under
discussion. One may well ask: Cui bono?
Art history is constructed in a particular way in Lewis-Williams argument, not only

as a universalising western perspective. For example, he equates it with an

approach to the forms or compositions of San rock art (1998:94). But form and
composition are not the same thing (although composition may be an element of
form). The critique contains another example of the problem of meaning, sense
and reference. Lewis-Williams charges that influenced by Western art, researchers
divide a painted rock shelter into panels - areas of concentrated images that are
separated from similar areas by blank spaces (ibid.). What is the difference
between a panel and Lewis-Williams area of concentrated images? When LewisWilliams prepares an illustration for publication, how does he define the boundaries
of a set of paintings, except by the notion of panel, by any other name? However,
labelled, the referent remains the same. That problems in defining the boundaries of
panels are abundant is well recognised; that the conventions of San art are not the
same as Renaissance or modern art, likewise. And to which rock art researchers
and studies does Lewis-Williams refer?
A contrary view is that the insights of art history, and of research dedicated to
understanding the visual, are invaluable, and warrant archaeological attention.
Recently there has been a convergence of archaeological and art historical
interests, and a productive interplay of disciplinary perspectives. Many art historians
would reject the semiotic model, wherein words and images are seen as signs, in
favour of a more rigorous analysis of visual imagery and its particular operations (cf.
Davis 1985, 1989, 1996). In South Africa, Skotnes is one art(ist) historian who has
valuably introduced such a view, by active engagement with archaeology and
anthropology. Interdisciplinary studies contribute to the vitality of rock art research,
rather than merely challenging existing truths. One need only consider changing
views of the meaning of the art this century to realise that the exposition of
meaning is always processual, not to be conflated with truth - although researchers
seek interpretations which most probably corresponds with the reality of the past.
This does not mean that meaning is only perspectival, as the following discussion,
of Orpen (1874) and readings of nineteenth century San commentaries, illustrates.
San testimonies: evaluating readings
On the assumption that the truth of the original context of the art has been
discovered (rather than modelled or hypothesised), Lewis-Williams (1998:86)
believes that dissent centres on the naive question: how much of the art can be
explained in terms of San shamanistic beliefs, rituals and experiences?. My
question, however, is: Can San rock art be called shamanistic at all? After all, Katz,
author of the definitive work on !Kung curing, explicitly stated that they have no
shamanistic tradition (Katz 1982:231). A detailed argument against seeing the art
as shamanistic (extending my previous (1997a) study) is in preparation, and need
not be addressed here, where the focus is on theory and epistemology. I
concentrate here on evaluating Lewis-Williams reading of nineteenth century San
testimonies (Lewis-Williams 1980, 1998) relative to my own interpretation, with
special reference to Orpen (1874).
Iinterpretation of Qings testimony to Joseph Orpen, is a cornerstone of the
shamanistic model. Lewis-Williams uses it, along with /Xam and !Kung texts, to
argue that San religion was shamanistic and that the art must be understood in
terms of ritual, trance/ hallucinatory experience and an over-arching shamanistic
cosmology. But most of the references which Lewis-Williams has cited as evidence

for San shamanism refer to dead people and mythological/spirit beings, as does the
testimony of both Qing and Dia!kwain on paintings of therianthropic figures
(Solomon 1997a; and cf. Lee and Woodhouse (e.g. 1970); Pager (e.g. 1975,1984).
Responding to my interpretation, Lewis-Williams has reiterated his earlier position,
viz. that Qings comments were cobbled together subsequently by Orpen, who was
unaware that Qing was speaking in trance metaphors. As evidence, Lewis-Williams
cites Orpens statement: I shall string together Qings fragmentary stories as nearly
as I can as he told them to me. I noted them down from him then and since; I only
make them consecutive... (Orpen 1874:3).
However, there can be no question of Orpen fabricating Qings comments in this
way. It is clear from Orpens text that it was the series of stories narrated by Qing
that Orpen made consecutive. The comments on the paintings were made first: I
asked [Qing] what the pictures of men with rheboks heads meant. He said They
were men who had died and now lived in rivers, and were spoilt at the same time as
the elands, and by the dances of which you have seen paintings. I asked him when
were the elands spoilt and how. He began to explain... (Orpen 1874:2; original
italicisation). Thereupon he related the stories which Orpen made consecutive;
there is no indication that his initial comments on the therianthropes are anything
less than a verbatim account (albeit translated). Orpens use of direct quotation
marks, and his statement that he had made notes at the time of their conversations
(and after) all suggest that Orpen faithfully recorded Qings explanations.
The question remains: What did Orpen mean by consecutive? The description of
the conversation indicates that Qing first related the story of the spoiling of the
eland, in response to Orpens specific question about this event and time. Cagns
name, and his role as creator of the world, only came up subsequently, in the
course of the telling of the eland creation story, which, logically, took place after
Cagns initial creation of the world. Therefore, when Orpen said he had made the
stories consecutive, he meant only that he had ordered them according to the
trajectory of San mythology itself, starting with Cagn making the world and its
contents, followed by stories which feature later in the San mythological time line.
There is thus no question of Orpen having re-combined or misunderstood Qings
comments on the rhebok-headed men. Lewis-Williams (1998:92) suggests that my
disagreement on this point is not crucial; on the contrary, my reading obviates the
necessity for interpreting Qings comments as a confused string of statements
created by a bemused Orpen, and the need for trance-lation disappears. Seen in
relation to San mythology, it is not anfractuous [circuitous, indirect] (Lewis-Williams
(1980:473), nor couched in trance metaphors (as death, underwater and spoil
are claimed to be), but entirely straightforward.
Various San groups, including the /Xam and Kua, recount stories about a powerful
being associated with death and underwater, who corresponds broadly to the
lesser god, associated with death and disease. Qing himself related a regrettably
brief story about an underwater being who caught people by the foot and held them
there (Orpen 1874:9). It is unnecessary to assume that death means trance, since
a dangerous being associated with underwater is a feature of San mythology and
belief more widely. There is therefore no need to suggest that Qings first statements
- about men who had died and now lived in rivers refer to anything other than
people believed to have actually died. To argue this, Lewis-Williams must make
recourse to /Xam texts, where death is also assumed to refer to trance, not

mortality. However, the majority of the /Xam texts cited also refer to physically dead !
gi:ten (Solomon 1997a). As Lewis-Williams himself has pointed out (*), the
singular, !gi:xa, translates as full of magical power. Lucy Lloyd and Dorothea Bleek
translated it as sorceror[sic], whereas Lewis-Williams has substituted shaman.
The /Xam term does not, however, warrant so specific a translation, and the more
literal translation may usefully be reinstated, to cover both living and dead beings
with magical abilities (Solomon 1997a; in prep.). Instead, the existence of a
dangerous, underwater being (with magical powers) is ignored in favour of a trance
explanation which depends on diverse analogies with !Kung and /Xam. In short, the
reference to dead men in rivers in entirely in accordance with San cosmology and
religious thought, and does not require elaborate analogies to decode.
The third part of Qings statement concerns the spoiling of the eland, progeny of
Cagns wife, its killing by Cagns sons, and its reincarnation, no longer as parthuman, but as fully animal prey. The day the herds of eland were re-created from
Cagns elands remains was the day the elands were spoilt and became wild. This
story - and its occurrence at a particular time - are easily understood in relation to
the trajectory which characterises the mythology of almost all recorded San. In
myth, the world was created by a superior being (southern San: Cagn, /Kaggen),
and in the early days the earth was populated by beings part-human and part
animal. Animals could speak, while the first San were human-like, but uncultured
and lacking in manners and customs. Later, humans and animals were separated.
The event marking the separation is different in plot and characterisation from group
to group, but the effects are identical: humans become human, and acquire proper
behaviour (but lose immortality), whereas animals lose their capacity for speech,
becoming mere animals and prey. The widely told story of the Origin of Death, which
describes the loss of immortality and the necessity of death, also relates to this
transition to modernity.
The spoiling of the eland story relates to this transition from primal time to the world
of civilised, modern San. The part-human eland of the old order is replaced in the
new by herds of real eland. When Qing said that this was when they were spoilt
and became wild, he was referring to this transformation of the old order after the
transition. Spoilt here means transformed (see further below). In these terms, the
therianthropes were indeed dead people living in rivers, vanquished at the same
time as Cagns eland, at the end of the old order. This was confirmed in *Dia!kwains
independent testimony, when he stated that painted therianthropes belonged to the
prior ancient race of Bushmen, who were believed to kill people. In the /Xam texts,
and in other parts of Dia!kwains narrations to Bleek and Lloyd, the people who
existed in primal time are referred to as the people of the early race; it was
apparently to these whom Dia!kwain was referring when describing the
therianthropic figures. The testimony of both San men thus refers to mythology and
mythical beings. This recognition allows us to Qings statement as entirely coherent:
the therianthropes are beings who died at the time when the current order was
being instituted, and who are associated with the death realm.
Only Qings fourth statement refers to the activities of the living. He said that the
dead men were also spoilt...by the dances of which you have seen paintings.
Lewis-Williams (1980, 1998) insists that spoil here is a metaphor for enter trance
(by analogy with the spatially and temporally distant, and linguistically divergent, !
Kung). But the word spoil is used in several different ways within Qings account,

with general connotations of transformed, with negative connotations (Vinnicombe

(1976:320, 38n) suggested it should be translated as harmed). The spoiling of
the eland refers to their separation from humans and reincarnation as prey. In
another occurrence (Orpen 1874:4), Cagn rebuked his sons for slaying his eland
child, saying for you have spoilt the elands when I was making them fit for use; this
refers to the phase when creation was still in progress, and to the fact that Cagn
had not finished making and rearing his creation when his sons killed it. Spoilt
refers here to the interruption of the process of creation, as outlined in mythology,
and there can be no question whatsoever of this usage being a coded reference to
entering a trance state. Nor can the reference to men spoilt by the dances
necessarily be interpreted in trance terms. Dia!kwains testimony indicates that the
therianthropic dead men were believed to kill people even though they themselves
had died, while Qing stated that they still lived in rivers, even though they had died.
This is entirely in accordance with /Xam accounts as well as those of the !Kung,
Basarwa and others, which indicate that the spirits of dead people were greatly
feared. Therefore, when Qing said that the men who had died were spoilt...by the
dances of which you have seen paintings, he was referring to the effects of the
dance (practiced by living San) on the denizens of the death realm (spirits of the
dead/mythological beings), and the capacity of the dance to control (harm, damage,
spoil) their potentially maleficent powers. Qings four statements are consistent with
each other in this light.
Although this could be consonant with !Kung trance performance (which does
involve control of the spirits of the dead who shoot illness into people), it does not
prove that Qing was referring to trance. Nor does Qings later account of the dance
of blood reveal anything about the state of consciousness of the dancers, since
falling about and bleeding from the nose are products of exertion-induced,*high
blood pressure, not ASCs per se). The assumption that the same (or similar) forms
necessarily indicate the same content cannot hold. However, for the sake of
argument only, it may be assumed that it was indeed a trance dance comparable to
that of the !Kung. Nevertheless, Qing and Dia!kwains comments still identify
therianthropes as mythical beings/spirits of the dead, and not as live shamans. The
iconographical implications (Solomon in prep.) are manifold. The present task,
however, is to examine the ways in which different readings may be evaluated.
The reading I propose has various advantages over the shamanistic reading,
summarised as follows:
(1) All four clauses of Qings commentary appear as a coherent whole. Assumptions
about the limitations of Orpen and Bleeks competence are unnecessary, as is the
assumption that Qing was speaking in trance codes. (2) All four components of
Qings comments are addressed. (3) Ethnographic analogy, except by reference to
the broad forms of San mythology, is kept to a minimum; analogy does not depend
on the specific sense of particular references; and similar forms are not necessarily
assumed to have similar contents among spatially, historically and linguistically
separated groups. In this way the reading does not reproduce the homogeneity and
anti-historicity of the shamanistic model. (4) Methodological problems - such as the
claim that certain terms (e.g. spoilt) always mean the same thing (viz. trance) are
avoided, and the meaning of terms is seen as (contextually) mutable, rather than
fixed and invariant.

Lewis-Williams reading, on the other hand, relies heavily on all manner of analogies
with both /Xam and !Kung shamanism, and all but ignores the mythology which
Qing offered in explanation of the paintings. For example, he explains the reference
to the spoiling of the elands by reference to /Xam shamans transformed by animal
potency (Lewis-Williams 1998:93), but the references cited refer to spirit
possession and the control of animals by dead /Xam, not live shamans (Solomon in
prep.). Lewis-Williams claims that when he spoke about the spoiling of the eland
Qing probably meant that the medicine men in trance exploited the elands power
as they danced. This, I suggest, is vague, rather than subtle (Lewis-Williams
1998:91), as well as methodologically convoluted, and it fails utterly to explain why
the eland were spoilt at a particular time. The same applies to the analysis of
references to death. Sickness and real death are the fundamental problems dealt
with in the curing dance and !Kung trance ritual is a strategy for dealing with the
problem of mortality. To argue that the !Kung do not distinguish between real and
trance death merely introduces more analogies. If trance is seen as a form of death,
it is more probably because actual physical expiry is the real problem with which the
ritual deals (as does the mythology also). The fact that in San thought the dead are
believed to live on after death also contextualises this issue. Analysis in terms of
(trance) metaphors reintroduces a variety of the depth : surface distinction, where
key words (death/trance/spoilt) are seen as having a superficial label, but another,
deeper meaning.
In short, I contend that the reading I have put forward is methodologically more
satisfactory than Lewis-Williams, more internally consistent and more rigorous,
addressing and integrating all components of Qing and Dia!kwains commentaries.
Lewis-Williams (1998:93) claims that the test of the reading must be the art itself,
and that the art does not support my reading, but this depends on a fallacious
argument. Qings comments, as interpreted by Lewis-Williams, are fundamental to
the notion that the art is shamanistic. It cannot then be argued that therianthropes
are too frequently depicted in shamanistic contexts and with a variety of
indisputable shamanic features (ibid.) for my reading to be correct, since the
interpretation of them as in shamanic contexts is already a product of LewisWilliamss reading of the text. In other words, he argues that Qings comments
indicate that the art is shaman(ist)ic, and then - on the assumption that the art is
shamanistic - argues backwards that the art proves the reading! This is a serious
lapse of logic, and the claim that the art does not support my reading cannot stand
on these grounds.
Lewis-Williams (1998:92-3) also objects to my emphasis on mythology. Although the
shamanists have considered mythology, it is the way they have done so that is
problematic (see note 4), with the motifs and metaphors of myth said to derive from
and originate in trance experience. The fact that some beings and creatures feature
in both myths and rituals (Lewis-Williams 1998:93) by no means constitutes a
sound basis for dismissing my distinction of myth and ritual. Rather, I suggested that
the relationship between them needed further attention, since it is culturally and
situationally variable. In these terms, it is as likely that myth and cosmology inform
trance (i.e. that the trancer experiences what s/he expects, on the basis of
knowledge of this lore) as the inverse, that trance experience permeates the myths
(Solomon 1997a). Certainly, the implication of Qing and Dia!kwains testimony is
that mythology is far more important than has been acknowledged in shamanistic

readings.
A related objection is that the narrativity of myth is absent in the paintings, and that
narrative must surely be an important component of an interpretation that is
founded on mythology (Lewis-Williams 1998:93). My proposition, however, was that
the characters in the rock art are to be understood in relation to the trajectory of San
mythology (from creation though primal time to the current order). There is no
requirement for the art to be narrative for it to be affiliated to myth, except within
the narrow confines of seeing art as illustration. Indeed, it is difficult to see how the
narrativity of myths could be transposed into the art. Visual art may be seen
precisely as resolving problems of representing an order of time (or narrativity) in an
order of space ((Schapiro 1985:215, Solomon 1989). The discussion (above) of
intentionality, and of the notion of art as copying, indicates that this translation
process is far more complex. The idea that myth is a narrative form, and that if the
art relates to myth it must similarly display narrative features, is misplaced, and
derives from a particular view of the way in which art is said to represent thought or
mind (see above). Since it seems that health and prosperity were believed to be
influenced by mythological/spirit beings, the contention that the art relates to
mythology - albeit not in the sense of illustrating the narratives - remains valid, and
has considerable potential to alter the ways in which rock art is currently
understood.
Conclusions
The problem of meaning has been extensively debated in the literature of a range of
disciplines, including philosophy, linguistics, literary studies and anthropology, to
name a few. There has been little debating of semiotic issues in South African
archaeology - partly, I suggest, because of a general neglect of theory in the
discipline. Indeed, Lewis-Williams, despite his admirable record of having developed
the theoretical basis of rock art research, seems unaware of developments since
the formulation of Pierce-Morris semiotics in the 1930s. Further examination of the
theoretical tenets and models of meaning which inform interpretations may bring
some of the crucial debates of our times further into archaeological discourses. In
particular, the structuralist/ semiotic-based model contains a number of problems
(cf. also Davis 1985,1989, 1996), including: its idealism; the way in which icons and
symbols are conceptualised; the persistent assumption that graphic signs function in
quasi-linguistic terms; logocentric notions of art, as unmediated ideas or fossil
thoughts; and more.
Recognition of the role of theoretical premises in constituting divergent
interpretations may contribute to more constructive debate, founded on a proper
understanding of those premises. However, other differences of opinion are less
closely aligned to premises, although they do demand further attention to questions
of method, evaluation and epistemology. My contention that Lewis-Williams has,
quite simply, misinterpreted San texts in his construction of San shamanism as the
context and meaning of San exemplifies this. Unfortunately, Lewis-Williams does not
engage with the particularities of that interpretation, but merely reiterates his
position. This neither constitutes argumentation, nor is it constructive; moreover, it
speaks volumes about hegemony, and the current state of rock art research.
The implications of the position I have outlined are not limited to iconographical

questions. Recognising that paintings are not simply copies of thoughts, but that
they are mediated in the making, requires a more rigorous approach to the
production of art. Skotnes (1994) has suggested, from a slightly different
perspective, that studies of rock art need to incorporate understanding of artistic
praxis. This might be extended to incorporate consideration of technology more
generally (but technology as it interfaces with thought, rather than as merely a study
of physical processes [cf. Dobres *]. Ironically, manufacturing processes and
techniques have been studied at length in relation to stone artefacts, where the
minutiae of the modifications that ultimately characterise various tool categories
have been researched. Little work of this kind has been conducted in rock art
research. If rock art is to be seen as a trace of ancient mind, technology and artistic
praxis require further attention, alongside the iconographical studies which have
largely characterised the sub-discipline.

References
Bleek, W.H.I. 1874. Remarks on J.M. Orpens Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen.
Cape
Monthly
Magazine
9:1-13.
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press.
Cixous, H.1975. Sorties. In: La jeune ne. Union Gnrale dEditions 10/18.
Reprinted in E. Marks and I. de Courtivron (eds.) 1985, New French Feminisms: An
Anthology.
Brighton:
Harvester
Press.
Davis, W. 1985. Present and future directions in the study of rock art. South African
Archaeological
Bulletin
141:5-10.
Davis, W. 1989. Style and history in art history. In: M. Conkey and C. Hastorf (eds),
The uses of style in archaeology, pgs. 18-31. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Davis, W. 1996. Replications: archaeology, art history and psychoanalysis.
Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania
State
University
Press.
Delphy, C. 1984. Close to Home - a materialist analysis of women's oppression.
Edited by D. Leonard. London: Hutchinson, in association with the Explorations in
Feminism
Collective.
*Dobres,

M-A.

(awaiting

publication

details

from

author)

Eco, U. 1976. A theory of semiotics. Bloomington and London: Indiana University

Press.
Eliade, M. 1964. Shamanism: archaic techniques of ecstasy. Princeton: Princeton
University
Press.
Giddens, A. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and

Contradiction

in

Social

Analysis.

London:

Macmillan.

Guenther, M.G. 1986. The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: tradition and change.
Hamburg:
Helmut
Buske
Verlag
(Quellen
zur
Khoisan-Forschung).
Guenther, M.G. 1989. Bushman folktales: oral tradition of the Nharo of Botswana
and the /Xam of the Cape. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden.
Hawkes, T. 1977. Structuralism and semiotics. Methuen New Accents Series.
London:
Methuen.
Hodder, I. 1987. The archaeology of contextual meanings. Cambridge: Cambridge
University
Press.
Ingold, T. The temporality of the landscape. World Archaeology 25(2):152-174.
Katz, R. 1982. Boiling energy: community healing among the Kalahari !Kung.
Cambridge,
Mass.:
Harvard
University
Press.
Lee, D.N. and Woodhouse, H.C. 1970. Art on the rocks of southern Africa. New
York:
Charles
Scribner
and
Sons.
Lewis-Williams, J. D. 1972. The syntax and function of the Giants Castle rock
paintings.
South
African
Archaeological
Bulletin
27:4965.
Lewis-Williams, J. D. 1974. Superpositioning in a sample of rock-paintings in the
Barkly East district. South African Archaeological Bulletin 29:93103.
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1980. Ethnography and iconography: aspects of southern San
thought
and
art.
Man
(n.s.)
15:467-482.
Lewis-Williams, J. D. 1981. Believing and seeing: symbolic meanings in southern
San
rock
paintings.
London:
Academic
Press.
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1982. The economic and social context of southern San rock
art.
Current
Anthropology
23:429-449.
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1983. Science and rock art: introductory essay. South African
Archaeological
Society
Goodwin
Series
4:3-13.
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1984a. The empiricist impasse in southern African rock art
studies.
South
African
Archaeological
Bulletin
39:58-66.
Lewis-Williams, J.D 1984b. Ideological continuities in prehistoric southern Africa: the
evidence of rock art. In: C. Schrire (ed.) Past and present in hunter gatherer studies.
New
York:
Academic
Press.
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1985. Testing the trance explanation of southern African rock
art: depictions of felines. Bollettino del Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici 22:47
62.
Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1998. Quanto? The issue of many meanings in southern

African

San

rock

art.

South

African

Archaeological

Bulletin

168:86-97.

Lewis-Williams, J.D. and Dowson, T.A. 1988. Signs of all times: entoptic phenomena
in
Upper
Palaeolithic
art.
Current
Anthropology
29:201-245.
Lewis-Williams, J. D. & Dowson, T. A. 1989. Images of power: understanding
Bushman
rock
art.
Johannesburg:
Southern
Book
Publishers.
Lewis-Williams, J. D. & Loubser, J. H. N. 1986. Deceptive appearances: a critique of
southern African rock art studies. In: Wendorf, F. & Close, A. E. (eds), Advances in
World Archaeology Vol. 5: 25389. New York: Academic Press.
Moore, H.1986. Space, Text and Gender: An Anthropological Study of the Marakwet
of
Kenya.
Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press.
Moore, H. 1988. Feminism and Anthropology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Orpen, J.M. 1874. A glimpse into the mythology of the Maluti Bushmen. Cape
Monthly
Magazine
9:1-13.
Pager, H. 1975. Stone Age myth and magic. Graz: Akademische Druck.
Parkington, J. E. 1989. Interpreting paintings without a commentary. Antiquity
63:1326.
Parkington, J. 1996. What is an eland? N!ao and the politics of age and sex in the
paintings of the Western Cape. In: Skotnes, P. (ed.) Miscast: negotiating the
presence of the Bushmen: 281289. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.
Parkington, J. E. & Manhire, A. 1997. Processions and groups: human figures, ritual
occasions and social categories in the rock paintings of the Western Cape, South
Africa. In: Conkey, M. W., Soffer, O., Stratmann, D., & Jablonski, N. G. (eds) Beyond
art: Pleistocene image and symbol. San Francisco: Memoirs of the California
Academy
of
Sciences,
No.
23:301320.
Preziosi, D. 1989. Rethinking art history: meditations on a coy science. New Haven
and
London:
Yale
University
Press.
Said,

E.

Orientalism.

London

and

New

York:

Seymour-Smith, C. 1986. Macmillan dictionary of anthropology. London and

Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
Schapiro, M. 1985 [1969]. On some problems in the semiotics of visual art: field and
vehicle in image signs. In: R.E. Innis (ed.), Semiotics: an introductory anthology.
Bloomington:
Indiana
University
Press.
Skotnes,

P.

1990.

Is

there

life

after

trance?

De

Arte

44:16-24.

Skotnes, P. 1994. The visual as a site of meaning: San parietal painting and the
experience of modern art. In: Dowson, T. A. & Lewis-Williams, J. D. (eds) Contested
images: diversity in southern African rock art research: 315329. Johannesburg:

Witwatersrand

University

Press.

Solomon, A. 1989. Division of the earth: gender, symbolism and the archaeology of
the southern San. Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Cape Town.
Solomon, A. 1992. Gender, representation and power in San ethnography and rock
art.
Journal
of
Anthropological
Archaeology
11:291-329.
Solomon, A. 1994. Mythic women a study in variability in San art. In: T.A. Dowson
and D. Lewis-Williams (eds.), Contested images: diversity in southern African rock
art research: 331-371. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
Solomon, A. 1995. Rock art incorporated: an archaeological and interdisciplinary
study of certain human figures in San art. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University
of
Cape
Town.
.
Solomon, A. 1997a. The myth of ritual origins? Ethnography, mythology and
interpretation of San rock art. South African Archaeological Bulletin 52:313.
Solomon, 1997b. Landscape, form and process: some implications for San rock art
research.
Natal
Museum
Journal
of
the
Humanities
9:5773.
Solomon, A. 1998. Ethnography and method in southern African rock art research.
In: C. Chippindale and P.S.C. Taon (eds), The archaeology of rock art. Cambridge:
Cambridge
University
Press.
Solomon, A. 1999. The quest for mind via San rock art. Unpublished paper
presented at the 4th World Archaeological Congress, Cape Town, 1999.
Solomon,

A.

in

prep.

Magic,

myth

and

San

art

(working

title).

Stow, G. W. 1905. The native races of South Africa. London: Swan Sonnenschein
Sparkes, A.W. Talking philosophy: a wordbook. London and New York: Routledge.
Thomas, J. 1996. Time, culture and identity: an interpretive archaeology. London,
New
York:
Routledge.
Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the eland: rock paintings of the Drakensberg
Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of
Natal Press
http://www.antiquityofman.com/solomon_DLWreply.html
consultado abril 2015