In our globalized world access to rock art sites is unprecedented. But despite awareness campaigns, education about the universal value of rock art, global media attention and the efforts of those who manage rock art sites, purposeful damage to rock art imagery and the landscapes it is a part of continues at an alarming rate. There are many reasons for this, including ignorance, indifference, iconoclasm, racism, political motivations, and economic priorities. It also has been observed that 'marks attract marks' so for some people there is a compulsion to leave one's own mark at rock art sites because previous people have done so. Indeed, new graffti at rock art sites, unless quickly removed, can soon lead to a growing number of incidents. To further complicate things, Indigenous interactions with rock art sites can sometimes lead to new mark making construed by others as a form of vandalism. After summarizing why rock art is important in today's globalized digital world, the history of purposeful damage to rock art sites is briefy reviewed before recent case studies from Australia and elsewhere are discussed. New strategies for preventing graffti and vandalism at rock art sites, are then outlined. It is concluded that our global rock art heritage needs to be valued as a part of living culture rather than archaeological artefact in order to best conserve it for future generations.

**Keywords**

Graffti · Vandalism · Australia · Superimposition · Living heritage · Management · Conservation

#### **17.1 Introduction**

Rock art, consisting of paintings, drawings, stencils, prints, engravings, bas relief and, in northern Australia, fgures made of beeswax, is found on every continent except Antarctica. Rock art was made at least 45,500 years ago in Sulawesi, Indonesia (e.g. a painting of a pig; Brumm et al. 2021) and up until the late twentieth century in some parts of the world, including at many locations across Australia (e.g. May et al. 2019; Taçon et al. 2012, 2021). The oldest hunting scene globally has been dated to at least 43,900 years ago (Aubert et al. 2019), while some hand stencils and further fgurative paintings from Sulawesi and Kalimantan have a minimum age of 40,000 years (Aubert et al. 2014, 2018b). Paintings and stencils in Europe, at places such as Chauvet and Cosquer, France, are up to 35,000 years old (Quiles et al. 2016; Valladas et al. 2017) and some cave paintings in Spain have been argued to be about 65,000 years of age (Hoffmann et al. 2018) but there is debate about both reliability and signifcance (e.g., Aubert et al. 2018a; Slimak et al. 2018; White et al. 2020). The oldest reliable evidence of Pleistocene rock art in Australia is a painting of kangaroo in the Kimberley region of Western Australia dated to between 17,100 and 17,500 years ago (Finch et al. 2021) but there is likely much older surviving rock art within and beyond the Kimberley.

Across Australia, rock art remains a fundamental part of Indigenous living culture (Taçon 2019) and across the world has contemporary relevance (Brady and Taçon 2016). This is encapsulated in the mission statement of the Rock Art Network, an international group of 40 rock art experts from 18 countries raising awareness about why rock art is important and relevant today. They conclude that 'This fragile and irreplaceable visual heritage has worldwide signifcance, contemporary relevance and for many indigenous peoples is still part of their living culture. If we neglect, destroy, or disrespect rock art we devalue our future' (Agnew and Deacon 2022, viii).

P. S. C. Taçon (\*)

PERAHU, Griffth Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Gold Coast campus, Griffth University, Brisbane, QLD, Australia e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024 245

O. Moro Abadía et al. (eds.), *Deep-Time Images in the Age of Globalization*, Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54638-9\_17

Despite this, world rock art is under threat from a range of natural and human forces (Agnew et al. 2015; Darvill and Fernandes 2014; Marshall 2020; Marshall and Taçon 2014; Rosenfeld 1985; Taçon and Marshall 2014; Thorn and Brunet 1995), with cultural impacts having the most devastating affects but also possibly easier to manage. Even the ancient rock art of Sulawesi is being impacted by graffti and industrial development (Taçon et al. 2018) but graffti is one of the biggest growing problems worldwide as access to rock art sites for tourism and industrial and urban development accelerates. And as Jannie Loubser states 'Unchecked, graffti can cover in a short period entire rock art panels that have survived millenia of destructive natural agents' (Loubser 2019, 1).

Keegan (2014, 4–5) provides a useful defnition of graffti as 'markings done on private or government property without formal or tacit consent and, hence, not endorsed by the broader society' and discusses its long history. David and Wilson (2002, 43) argue that 'graffti is imbued with a polluting and vandalistic quality irrespective of its decorative potential. It threatens the status quo not just because of the words or images written, but by the fact that its execution in public spaces lies outside the control of existing social forces'. But Frederick (2009, 212) provides one of the most comprehensive yet succinct defnitions of graffti:

Graffti in the broader contemporary context is a complex markmaking phenomenon, that may be seen as a kind of drawing or painting and, because it commonly employs language text, also as a kind of writing. Its sculptural forms and intervention in the surface textures and appearance of buildings make it an element in the liquid architecture of a mutating metropolis. However, the term 'graffti' is most often applied to any form of unsolicited marking. Graffti is generally understood as text and/or images that is made in shared spaces where it is generated and viewed publicly, be that a privately owned building, public transport or an alleyway. It is otherwise diffcult to characterise graffti because it is a mode of expression and communication which comprises a vast array of media, technique, subject matter, form, and meanings. Yet despite the fact that people 'do graffti' in different ways for different ends, it is most often typifed as an act of vandalism or anti-social behaviour.

Some of the oldest graffti at rock art sites is in France and dates to the 1600s at sites such as Niaux Cave (Fig. 17.1), while in Australia a large number of rock art sites have graffti from the late 1800s and early 1900s associated with early explorers and settlers of European descent. Graffti at rock art sites usually consists of names, dates, scratches, expressions of love or hate and occasionally pseudo/imitation Indigenous rock art (see Gray Rock example below), deliberately placed alongside or over traditional rock art, as well as elsewhere within a site. Intersections between rock art and graffti have begun to be explored in various ways (e.g. Frederick 2018; Frederick and O'Connor 2009) but graffti at rock art sites, and the motivations behind it, has rarely been explored in detail.

**Fig. 17.1** Graffti from the mid-1600s to the early 1800s in the passageway that leads to the rock paintings of the Salon Noir, Niaux cave, France. (Photograph: P. Taçon)

#### **17.2 Why Rock Art Is Important for Indigenous Australians**

Across Australia, First Nations people explain that their rock art continues to be an integral part of contemporary culture rather than an archaeological artefact. Their views often differ from those of archaeologists and heritage managers, although there is some overlap (Taçon 2019, 10–12).

Rock art sites, sacred sites and other places of signifcance anchor Indigenous people in landscapes created by powerful Ancestral Beings that are at the same time cultural, natural and spiritual. These places are fundamental for contemporary Indigenous culture and the well-being of both individuals and communities… for Indigenous Australians they are more than heritage places and places of history because they are charged with old and new stories, ancestral connections and meaning. They reinforce notions of cultural survival and are proof of Indigenous ownership of land. They are places of knowledge, spirituality and experience that shape Indigenous identity. Rock art sites are important places for teaching tradition, law and lore. They are about story, song and dance; ritual and ceremony. … They are priceless inheritance but also cornerstones of contemporary culture (Taçon 2019, 12).

Rock art sites are places where Indigenous people connect with their ancestors, recent and ancient. Because of this they have to be cared for in both traditional and Western scientific ways so they are safeguarded for future generations (Williams et al. 2019). If sites are vandalized with graffiti, or in any other way, Indigenous Australians can feel not only great sadness, anger and disgust but also be physically ill (see various examples in Taçon 2019, 2021).

#### **17.3 Is There Indigenous 'Grafti'?**

Indigenous graffti is extremely rare at rock art sites although some people have argued very contemporary rock art production over earlier images is a form of vandalism (e.g. see Chaloupka 1992; Clarke and Randolf 1992; Ward 1992). Indigenous graffti occurs in other contexts, including on road signs (e.g. Ralph and Smith 2014) or other surfaces (Frederick 2018), often as a form of protest. One morning in April 1992, while recording petroglyphs in Roma Gorge, central Australia, I came across a boulder with names, numbers and a date pecked into the rock. 'Oh, what a shame' I thought to myself—but at least this was the only instance of 'graffti' amongst thousands of traditional designs such as bird and animal tracks, circles with pits, concentric circles, other non-fgurative designs, hooked boomerang designs and other motifs typical of the region on 112 engraved faces spread over a distance of 434 metres (Taçon 1993, 119). Roma Gorge is associated with two family groups and during a few days of recording senior Traditional Owners of each family, Herman Malbunka from Ipolera Outstation and Max Inkamala from Hermannsburg, would join me for part of each day to interpret the art and to summarise their association with it. 'Herman Malbunka's family is associated with the south side of the gorge while Max Inkamala's family has always maintained the north side. In the past the two families would share food, ceremonies and access to each other's land on a permission basis with the un-engraved section understood to mark their common border' (Taçon 1993, 120).

When Herman and Max arrived later in the day I showed them the boulder with what I thought was graffti, three names associated with numbers—Bertram 27, Kenneth 25, Donald 33—and a date, 1948 (Fig. 17.2). I told them how disappoint-

**Fig. 17.2** Roma Gorge boulder, central Australia, with what was presumed to be graffti. (Photograph: P. Taçon)

ing it was that someone had done this but they chuckled and said it was not done by non-Aboriginal vandals. Bertram Enata, Kenneth Enata and Donald Lambarba were from the Hermannsburg Mission and the numbers next to their names were given to them by the missionaries. These numbers were put on all their school clothes, books and other belongings, part of an imposed new identity, along with European names. Herman told me he was number 8, while Max said he was 22. They were friends with Bertram, Kenneth and Donald and said they must have visited in 1948 and used a traditional pecking technique for their inscriptions. In the past, people from the surrounding area would visit Roma Gorge for various reasons, including for food and water but also for ceremonies. They would leave marks of their identity behind in the process, including tracks of their totem animals. Thus, for Herman and Max the boulder did not have graffti but instead refected the new identities their people had been given at the mission.

Aboriginal people have incised, written or painted their names at various sites across Australia, including at one site in Kakadu National Park where the artist, Narlim, painted his name inside the hull of a ship he had painted (May et al. 2021). In North America there are also instances of First Nations people adding names to rock art sites. Jannie Loubser, while undertaking rock art conservation, found that 'At Writing-on-Stone, Alberta, Canada, for example, Blackfoot medicine people incised their names next-to earlier biographic incised drawings. Had it not been for consultation with Blackfoot elders, the names of their predecessors might have been removed in error' (Loubser Pers. Comm. 3rd March 2020 via email).

These examples indicate that Indigenous people made text-based inscriptions at rock art sites that could be interpreted by etic observers as graffti/vandalism. However, David and Wilson (2002, 42–43) suggest inscriptions 'are an assertion of a right to be-in-place, inscriptions represent a resistance to sociographical exclusion'. The colonisation of Australia and North America meant increasing exclusion from traditional places for Indigenous people as well as shifting identity and the adoption of script-based marking, especially post-missionisation with children taught to write English. When people were able to return to important rock art sites often new rock art imagery was added that refected traditional or new experience and identity, often 'to combat European colonialism' (McNiven and Russell 2002, 36). Sometimes this included new ways of marking places via text and numbers. In other words, 'Aboriginal people across Australia were active participants in change, mediating their interactions with outsiders in innovative ways, as well as continuing traditional practices while reaffrming connections to place' (Taçon et al. 2012, 433).

However, whether additions, alterations or obliterations of rock art are instances of vandalism/graffti on the one hand or tradition, ritual and contemporary engagement by Indigenous people on the other can be a complex problem to resolve (e.g. see Rogers 2007). More recently, new graffti at a rock art site near Gunbalanya, Arnhem Land, Australia was found to have been made by bored Aboriginal teenagers from the Gunbalanya community. The graffti was interpreted as vandalism by elders and was in no way sanctioned by them.

#### **17.3.1 Rock Art Superimpositions**

Some rock art researchers have argued that superimpositioning of rock art imagery, including contact subject matter, something common in Australia and around the world, is a form of vandalism. Grahame Walsh (2000), in particular, went to great lengths to analyse superimpositions at Kimberley, Western Australia rock art sites and classifed them into 'casual – unintentional', 'deliberate – positive' and 'deliberate – negative' (2000, 214). He then asked the question as to why 'prehistoric artists frequently seem to 'wilfully deface' earlier masterpieces by superimposing them with their arguably less technologically advanced images?' (Walsh 2000, 214). Walsh suggested that superimposition could be considered 'vandalism' but sometimes may have resulted from a lack of space for new art. He concluded that in some areas of the Kimberley up to 20% of rock art images were deliberately superimposed for a specifc purpose and that 'In more recent Kimberley art periods, incidents of negative purpose become more apparent, when earlier themes not pertinent to contemporary cultures are effectively obliterated by the consciously and deliberately positioned replacements' (Walsh 2000, 215). Walsh also discussed instances where ochre was used to cover earlier art and that some old paintings were 'deliberately defaced' 'through pounding, pecking or less commonly scratching' (Walsh 2000, 215). For various reasons he presumed that recent Kimberley Aboriginal people did this rather than those from the time period of the original artists. Walsh concluded that given many Kimberley defacements and superimpositions occur in what can be considered 'secretive' locations they were deliberate and associated with certain types of engagement with older rock art:

In contrast, Ana Motta proposed that Kimberley superimpositions 'were (and still are) a mechanism that allowed past and present inhabitants to (re)create and (re)appropriate the inherited landscape' (Motta 2019, 482). This is consistent with observations at rock art sites in Western Arnhem land where up to 20 layers of superimposition can be found on some rock art panels (e.g. see May et al. 2010, 60–61). This is partly because 'The very act of painting also reaffrmed ideas about the past, the Dreamtime and Aboriginal cultural traditions' (Taçon 1989, 328–329). But not only were old fading paintings renewed or covered over by new paintings but also relatively recent images with contact subject matter, such as ships, frearms or introduced animals, were superimposed or completely covered by traditional subjects such as large X-ray kangaroos, emus or fsh:

By producing detailed and aesthetically powerful paintings of native animals with X-ray, solid, hatched, and cross-hatched infll over and/or next to introduced subject matter, artists, who often were initiated and highly knowledgeable ceremonial leaders, made authoritative declarations about the importance of maintaining Aboriginal tradition in the face of cultural change brought about by outsiders in visually compelling manners. They also left messages about connections to sites and traditional clan estates (Taçon et al. 2021, 128).

In both Arnhem Land and the Kimberley some panels or sites were added to, covered over, superimposed and embellished much more than others. Motta et al. (2020) concluded that for the Kimberley 'analytically and conceptually, artists draw upon the repertoire of earlier images or artists, contributing to the continuity (and variance) of artistic forms and traditions. The exact characteristics of these continuities allow insights into the interplay between motives, places, Country and individual as well as interpersonal and socially constructed agency. Rock art thus becomes the product of a dialogue between places and different generations of artists' (Motta et al. 2020, 146). This is certainly also true for Arnhem Land and probably much of Australia, if not globally. For instance, Re (2016) arrived at similar conclusions for superimposed rock art of the Strobel plateau, southern Patagonia, Argentina.

#### **17.4 Motivations for Non-indigenous Rock Art Vandalism and Grafti at Sites**

There appear to be many reasons why rock art sites have been vandalised or graffti was added to them by non-Indigenous people. As Loubser (2019, 1) notes 'Reasons why visitors decide to apply graffti at a site are variable and hard to pin down with certainty, but probably have something to do with "domesticating" untamed spaces, such as by writing down their own names or initials, the names or initials of loved ones, faces, symbols, towns of origin, and dates of visits'. Franklin (2011) refers to this as expressing 'personal presence'. Loubser also notes that 'The recognition of highly visible pictographs and petroglyphs can also be impe-

Whether these purposes or activities were concerned with magical, ritual or historical purpose remains a mystery, but such forms of superimposition cannot be considered either casual or unintentional.

Superimposition examples involving Bradshaw Figures deliberately covered by the most recent art forms frequently make clear statements of cultural dominance (Walsh 2000, 224).

tus for visitors to leave their own mark with the likely assumption that they have the same right as Indigenous peoples to do so' (Loubser 2019, 1).

Imitation, whereby people seeing graffti are inspired to add their own, is another reason some rock art sites are repeatedly vandalised: 'once graffti is on the rock, it takes less impetus for other people to add their own marks' Loubser (2019, 1). Ignorance, in terms of lack of education or awareness of the importance and cultural signifcance of rock art, can also play a role. Another factor is indifference, whereby it is known that rock art is important but there is a lack of care or concern due to a narcissistic urge to add one's own marks or so as not to be prevented from accessing the site. An example of this is rock climbers who deliberately place graffti over rock art so as to not be prohibited from climbing at locations with rock art (e.g. Gunn et al. 2020, 90).

Iconoclasm, whereby rock art is destroyed or damaged to hurt an individual or community, usually for religious or political reasons is a major motivation in various parts of the world (see also Zaradona 2011, 2020 for rock art landscape iconoclasm). Racism can also be a factor in all of the above and may have been a key motivation behind a 2020 incident at Uluru, central Australia when vegetable oil was thrown on paintings (Jonscher 2020).  More generally, 'vandalism can be perceived as a lack of value regarding Indigenous knowledge whilst also diminishing its continued connection to living Indigenous cultures. In short, acts of rock art vandalism are manifestations of ongoing cultural violence against Indigenous communities' (Giorgi and Taçon 2019, 190). Another example of this is bullet holes found at sites in many parts of the world that were made either with the intent to purposely damage rock art or as a disrespectful result of target practice.

Revenge can also be a motivation, as it was for a tourist driver/guide at Tadrat Acacus, southwest Libya in April 2009. After he was fred by a Libyan-Italian tourist company, he heavily vandalised several panels of engraved and painted rock art by spraying red, black and white paint over the images and writing insults against Italians and the Libyan government (Di Lernia et al. 2010). An international investigation into the incident concluded that 'The damage is extremely severe, and it is unlikely that the paintings can be successfully restored, whereas it is hoped that some engravings can be cleaned' (Di Lernia et al. 2010, 59).

Economic priorities, such as mining and other forms of development, can lead to both rock art landscapes and sites being destroyed or vandalisised. For instance, in Sulawesi, Indonesia, 'cement processing, marble quarrying and resulting new dusty roads is another growing risk for rock art' (Taçon et al. 2018, 38). Opportunistic stone quarrying has impacted rock art in India and elsewhere while large scale mining, urban development, agriculture and tourism has led to rock art damage world-wide, with Murujuga in the Pilbara Australia's most famous example because of a range of industrial development and associated town and port infrastructure since the 1960s that has impacted petroglyphs in various ways (Bednarik 2006; Zaradona 2011, 2020). Of course, this is different from graffti left by individuals as it is much more widespread and results from industrialiastion permitted by governments within the bounds of heritage legislation that is not always effective.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that graffti and other forms of vandalism at rock art sites has increased in many parts of the world during the Covid-19 pandemic, from Mexico and Chile to Turkey, India and Australia, but especially in the United States of America (e.g. Boster 2021, 5). Some seems politically motivated given the nature of the text and imagery, for instance at a highly signifcant rock art site near Moab, Utah called the 'Birthing Scene Petroglyph', named for the depiction of a woman giving birth amongst other engravings of anthropmorphs, big horn sheep, bear tracks and other subjects. The petroglyphs are thought to have been there for millennia, but in April 2021, 'White power' was scratched over some of the anthropomorphs and an ejaculating penis over other fgures. Other sexually explicit vulgarities were also enscribed over rock art (e.g. see Thulin 2021). In other cases, such damage is wrought through ignorance, For example, also in Utah in April 2021 a rock climber put a line of climbing bolts through a panel of petroglyphs believed to be over 1000 years old and even advertised the route he created online, dismissing the ancient but still spiritually signifcant rock art as modern graffti (Boster 2021, 4).

As can be seen, there are many motivations behind why rock art sites have been vandalised, damaged or destroyed but as Giorgi and Taçon (2019, 190) note 'the underlying psychological reasons for desecrating a site, the perpetrators and the audience at whom it is aimed are very different'.

#### **17.4.1 Gray Rock**

Located in central Australia near Barcaldine, the Gray Rock Historical Reserve is well known for being the site of the historic Greyrock Hotel established in 1877 and its associated historic graffti (Fig. 17.3). But it also has very important rock art. For instance, up high amongst the engraved names and dates of various ages at the southern end of the sandstone wall at the base of the rock formation there are three engraved human fgures which are very similar in style to one at the southern end of the largest rock art site in the region, Marra Wonga, on the nearby former Gracevale property now known as Turraburra (Taçon et al. 2022). They are said to be depictions of a key Ancestral Being called **Fig. 17.3** Gray Rock historic graffti, including 'JW Watson 1884'. (Photograph: P. Taçon)

Wattanuri, as is the very similar human fgure at Marra Wonga. On the southern wall there also are two engraved human feet and an engraved possum-like clawed hand. There is a fourth engraved Wattanuri type of human fgure on a small rock platform below the eastern side of the rock complex. Further north on the eastern side of the reserve is a long rock shelter with several old white and yellow hand stencils.

The Greyrock Hotel was built as a changing station and overnight resting place for people travelling between Aramac and Clermont by coach with Cobb & Co. Graffti was added on the wall behind the hotel where the rock engravings are located and on the rock pavement below soon after the hotel was built in front. Visitors added their names and dates and this continued after the hotel was abandoned in 1885, when a rail line replaced the coach route. There is now a continuing tradition of engraving or painting names and dates that threatens to obliterate not only the Aboriginal petroglyphs but also the early historic graffti considered important because of its historic value related to some of the people who left their names there. Infrastructure, including pathways, barriers and signage, installed in the early 2000s did little to slow down instances of more graffti. Ironically, the local council, in the interest of promoting tourism and active engagement with the site, almost encourages contemporary visitors to add their names to what is now an almost obscene proliferation of graffti with a sign in front that reads: 'Gray Rock. The names engraved on the sandstone rock could have been coach passengers prior to the turn of the century, together with more recently added. A who's who treasure!'.

There are other smaller panels of graffti in the Gray Rock complex and amongst the panels of Aboriginal white and yellow hand stencils towards the northeast of the rock are miniature hand and animal stencils (Fig. 17.4) likely made in the 1990s or earlier as Gunn (2000, 48) includes a photo of one of them, a miniature snake stencil, in his report. These acrylic spray-painted stencils, that imitate Aboriginal rock

**Fig. 17.4** Gray Rock miniature stencils made sometime in the 1990s. (Photograph: P. Taçon)

art but on an extremely small scale and use cut-out images of the subjects, add a truly bizarre form of vandalism to the site not found anywhere else. A lot of effort was undertaken to make the stencil sheets for repeated stenciling and to make the stencils but the motivation is unclear. No one knows who the perpetrators were or exactly what sort of statement was being made. Whether the miniature stencils were made to creatively bond with the place, to mimic, to mock or to pay homage to traditional rock art we likely will never know. But for contemporary Aboriginal people of the area, such as Iningai elder Suzanne Thompson (Pers. Comm. 13th September 2020), the miniature stencils are a desecration that, being made with acrylic paint, is hard to remove.

#### **17.5 Discussion and Ways Forward**

In many parts of Australia and the world in general signage is sometimes used at rock art sites to dissuade people from adding graffti (e.g. Fig. 17.5) with varying affect. As graffti can attract more graffti often there are attempts to remove it from rock art sites. This is sometimes straightforward, especially paint at petroglyph sites, but as Gunn et al. (2020) note, 'The removal of graffti over painted rock surfaces requires extreme care to avoid further damage to the painting. In one recorded instance, the removal of overpaints required two conservators (Thorn 1991) and in all cases graffti removal requires consideration of all losses, including cultural and archaeological values' (Gunn et al. 2020, 90).

According to Jannie Loubser, 'Perhaps the single most prevalent factor that promotes graffti and other forms of vandalism in the American West is easy accessibility to contemporary people; wherever sites are close to well-travelled roads and trails, you are guaranteed to fnd damage caused by humans and/or their domestic stock. Where roads, parking lots, and trails have been re-routed farther away from surfaces with rock imagery, vandalism drops off signifcantly or virtually disappears (this trend is substantiated by site steward monitoring and/or by graffti dates)' (Loubser, Pers. Comm. 30th June 2020 via email). This is also true for

**Fig. 17.5** Sign at the Pha Phak Wan rock art site, Thailand installed to help prevent graffti. (Photograph: P. Taçon)

Australia which is why many Aboriginal communities are in favour of restricting access to areas with rock art sites as much as possible and is one of the reasons that the publication of exact locations of rock art sites is not encouraged.

An analysis of dated graffti in New South Wales from 1870 to 1985 and in the Central Highlands of Queensland from 1890 to 1981 (Morwood and Kaiser-Glass 1991) showed that instances of graffti peaked between the late 1950s and the late 1970s, with the late 1960s to early 1970s the worst period (see Morwood and Kaiser-Glass 1991, 96–97). They concluded 'that the incidence of dated vandalism at rock art sites refects the history of European use of specifc areas and sites, as well as more general changes in ease of access and community attitudes towards Australian Aboriginal culture' (ibid., 1991, 98). Interestingly, in New South Wales the peak in incidences of graffti occurred after a National Parks and Wildlife Act that afforded Aboriginal sites some legislative protection was passed in 1967. This led to a 1974 change in the National Parks and Wildlife Act. 'with stricter penalties and provision for restricting access to, and use of, areas containing Aboriginal sites' (ibid., 1991, 98).

Loubser (2020) recently undertook a similar form of analysis for four important heavily impacted North American sites. He concluded that:

A common thread at all four sites is that graffti does not necessarily increase with increasing population or increasing visitation numbers. A shared reason for the increase in graffti rather appears to be increasing access to unmanaged sites, be it through opening them to the public (e.g., Scenic Mountain during Edwards ownership in the early 1900s or Writing-on-Strone becoming a provincial park in 1957) or constructing new roads to within easy walking distance of the sites (e.g., Castle Gardens in 1968). Closure of roads (e.g., Painted Rock since 1989), entrance via guided tours only (e.g., the Archaeological Preserve at Writing-on-Stone since 1977), and increased monitoring by park staff (e.g., since the 1990s at Scenic Mountain) have been accompanied by a rapid drop-off in graffti incidences (Loubser 2020).

Education/awareness of the importance and contemporary cultural signifcance of rock art is often said to be important for preventing graffti and other forms of vandalism. However, this is not always effective. For instance, at the 'Art Gallery' site in Carnarvon Gorge, Queensland a woman called Jana carved her name into rare black hand stencils after having attended an information evening about the art (Giorgi and Taçon 2019, 190). The National Parks authority successfully charged and fned her, something that is rare worldwide, partly because it often is impossible to fnd vandals or prove who exactly committed an offense.

In mainland Southeast Asia, rock art tourism remains a threat: 'Besides development, unmanaged tourism is the largest threat to rock art sites. Most rock art sites that are open to tourists tend to be remote and unmonitored and, as such, are susceptible to graffti and littering. In many of these tourism sites, the rock art is out of reach from human hands, either because of its physical location, or because barriers have been erected to prevent access. In rare cases, rock art is directly damaged by vandalism' Tan (2019, 144).

Some of the issues involving graffti and vandalism at rock art sites has been identifed and discussed above but 'a deeper understanding of the impetus for graffti at rock art sites needs to be researched and will lead to more effective management strategies' (Giorgi and Taçon 2019, 190). In this regard it is worth noting Ursula Frederick's (2018) observation that:

An added source of tension in the nexus between graffti and rock art comes from the area of applied heritage management. Here on the ground, park rangers, Indigenous custodians, council authorities, and heritage professionals are confronted with the day-to-day prospects of graffti as an act of wilful vandalism and destruction. While damage to rock art is disturbing, the motivations underlying such activities should not be summarily dismissed as 'all the same'. Rather, graffti over and against rock art, may be undertaken for different reasons; it is often sitespecifc and prompted by local circumstances. Nor can we assume that it is always intended to be harmful. Indeed, identifying what exactly constitutes vandalism *as* or *against* rock art may be a source of contestation in its own right (Frederick 2018, 638).

Frederick (2018) and many other researchers have argued that graffti has various forms of historic and cultural signifcance and that removal can also be a form of site desecration (e.g., Merrill 2011). Morwood and Kaiser-Glass (1991, 98) contend that 'If systematically undertaken, the recording of graffti to monitor changes in its rate of accumulation at sites can provide information on the long- and short-term effectiveness of legislation, well-publicised punitive action on offenders, specifc management procedures at individual sites, and so on'. They conclude that vandalism at sites is 'an artefact with historical signifcance, research potential and management implications'. Thus, it should be standard practice to record graffti before removal (1991, 98). Merrill (2011, 72) argues that new theoretical approaches are needed 'to truly grasp the relationship between heritage and vandalism'. He further states that 'these emerging theories may encourage the actual preservation of examples of vandalism or facilitate their preservation by record' (2011, 73). For instance, what has been interpreted as graffti can have importance when it is associated with certain well-known individuals, historic events or particular places. Examples include the names and dates left by early non-Indigenous explorers across Australia and many other parts of the world, graffti made by Sex Pistols band members (Graves-Brown and Schofeld 2011) and even rock paintings made by recent non-Indigenous artists in rock shelters such as Brett Whitely (Frederick 2016).

There are numerous motivations for modern people to make marks at rock art sites, including ignorance, indifference, iconoclasm, racism, political motivations, the infuence of previously made marks, boredom, attention-seeking, signalling 'personal presence' and even revenge against tour operators, as outlined above. It is highly unlikely that new graffti at rock art sites can be universally prevented. However, better monitoring and management of sites open to the public, Indigenous/local community management of sites in concert with heritage managers and other experts, new educational awareness campaigns, and rock art heritage being valued as a part of living culture rather than just archaeological artefact (Taçon 2019; Taçon and Baker 2019) should help reduce the number of new instances of graffti where rock art is located.

It is very important to develop fexible conservation and management plans for rock art sites developed for tourism. Plans should be reviewed and updated at regular intervals. Tourism education about the site's history, context and cultural importance, as well as site visitor etiquette, can be accommodated by having visitors frst visit a nearby small museum or orientation facility. At these facilities, or in the open close to rock art sites, sometimes visitor books have been found to be an effective way to prevent graffti by providing an alternative place for visitors to leave their marks (Brown et al. 2003; Buhrich 2002; Dragovich 1993, 1995; Franklin 2011, 2014; Gunn 2001; Sullivan 1984). Visitor books are also useful for other management reasons, such as determining where visitors are coming from and how that has changed over time.

Besides protective infrastructure that facilitates visitation, rock art sites open to the public also need to be monitored for vandalism and natural deterioration on a regular basis (Franklin 2014; Marshall 2020), ideally with the assistance of associated Indigenous people or local communities. Involving relevant Aboriginal Traditional Owners in Australia, or in Southeast Asia culturally embedded custodians from nearby villages (Taçon et al. 2018, 38) or even Buddhist monks (Tan and Taçon 2014), also helps prevent unauthorised access to rock art sites and sometimes provides employment (e.g. Jalandoni and Taçon 2018, 55). It also can instil a sense of ownership and pride, resulting in sites being better managed. Thus, although there are global challenges to managing rock art, it has been demonstrated that the best way forward is with local solutions (Agnew et al. 2022) and via a 'Living Heritage' approach (Taçon and Baker 2019) in which:

heritage is not considered a monument of the past that has to be protected from the present community, for the sake of future generations; heritage is now seen and protected as an inseparable part of the life of the present community. Thus, past and present-future are not separated (discontinuity), but unifed into an ongoing present (continuity). Therefore, a living heritage approach attempts to mark the shift in heritage conservation from monuments to people, from the tangible fabric to intangible connections with heritage, and from discontinuity to continuity (Poulios 2014, 139).

This is in keeping with Australian Aboriginal perspectives about rock art sites being part of contemporary culture as much as heritage (Taçon 2019) and with those of many other cultures around the world.

Lastly, in terms of the challenge of defning and managing graffti, it is important to repeat Ursula Frederick's statement that it is 'diffcult to characterise graffti because it is a mode of expression and communication which comprises a vast array of media, technique, subject matter, form, and meanings. Yet despite the fact that people 'do graffti' in different ways for different ends, it is most often typifed as an act of vandalism or anti-social behaviour' (Frederick 2009, 212). It is possible that some custodial communities in the future may desire to add various forms of what others consider 'graffti' to sites to maintain their personal and group connections through this aspect of a living heritage approach, potentially horrifying some heritage managers, rock art researchers and others in the process. But, from their perspective, they may argue that they are genuinely adding to the long-term changing complexity of marks left at their rock art sites, continuing a tradition tens of thousands of years old in new ways. The history of global rock art research highlights the nature of changing imagery across time and space but are we ready to accept graffti as part of this and is graffti, like beauty, simply in the eye of the beholder?

**Acknowledgements** Research for this chapter was funded by an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship *'Australian rock art: history, conservation and Indigenous well-being'* (FL160100123) and Griffth University. The many Indigenous individuals and communities I have worked with across the world since 1981 are also acknowledged for supporting my long-term rock art research with their knowledge, perspectives, insights and friendship that ultimately led to this paper on an important aspect of rock art conservation.

#### **References**

et al. 2014. Pleistocene cave art from Sulawesi, Indonesia. *Nature* 514: 223–227. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13422.

Vladimir A. Levchenko. 2021. Ages for Australia's oldest rock paintings. *Nature Human Behaviour* 5: 310–318.

———. 2020. *Graffti dates and names as a rock art conservation and management tool*. www.bradshawfoundation.com/rockartnetwork/ graffti\_dates\_names.php.

Marshall, Melissa. 2020. *Rock art conservation and management: 21st century perspectives from northern Australia*. PhD dissertation, Australian National University.

**Paul S. C. Taçon** (FAHA, FSA) is a distinguished professor and an archaeologist and anthropologist, past ARC Australian Laureate Fellow (2016–2021), and chair in Rock Art Research at Griffth University, Queensland, Australia. He directs Griffth University's Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) and is a member of both the Griffth Centre for Social and Cultural Research and Griffth's Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution. He has conducted archaeological and ethnographic feldwork since 1980 and has over 95 months feld experience in remote parts of Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, southern Africa, Thailand, The Philippines, and the USA. He co-edited *The Archaeology of Rock-art* with Dr Christopher Chippindale and has published over 320 academic and popular papers on rock art, material culture, color, cultural evolution, and identity. In 2015, he co-authored a book that outlines a new strategy for the conservation of world rock art, and from 2016 to 2022 co-edited fve major books on rock art. In December 2016, he was awarded the top award at the annual Australian Archaeological Association conference, the Rhys Jones Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Archaeology. He also received the 2016 Griffth University Vice-Chancellor's Research Excellence Award for Research Leadership.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

**Part V**

**Rock Art and the Challenges of the Global Now**

#### **18 Translation and Transformation: The Materiality of Rock Art in a World of Bytes**

John Robb

#### **Abstract**

Rock art is fundamentally material and local in several ways: its substrate's material qualities affect how humans made it and interact with it (for instance, how visible it is), it is fxed in a specifc landscape location, and it participates in local systems of knowledge ranging from what it is ontologically to what specifc motifs represent. This article, working from a material culture perspective and using European rock art as an example, explores what happens when we translate rock art into other media, particularly digitised forms. The process of translation liberates rock art from its location and medium, heightens its visibility and representational clarity, passes it through flters prioritising some imagery (particularly narrative pictures) over others, and reinscribes it into new frames of reference. Thus, it often results in losing the fundamental material qualities that made it rock art, in the process refashioning it into an entirely new product that meets the needs of different people living in a different world.

#### **Keywords**

Neolithic · Copper age · Bronze age · Iron age · Europe · Materiality · Landscape · Translation

#### **18.1 Introduction: Rock Art in Translation?**

Consider two images. Figure 18.1 shows some prehistoric European rock art—in this case, a major group of imagery in Valcamonica, in the Italian Alps. This outcrop is covered with several hundred images, all pecked into the rock sometime in the Iron Age (800 BCE–100 BCE) (Anati 1961). Like much European rock art, this is open-air art, not deep cave art; it is pecked and carved rather than painted; and it dates to

J. Robb (\*)

University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
the last few millennia of prehistory, not the Ice Ages. It has dozens of small, poorly visible motifs; you can walk over a major site without noticing anything unless you are looking expressly for it. Many of the motifs are cryptic "abstract" iconography that make little immediate sense to a modern viewer. In contrast, Fig. 18.2 shows the top results when you type "rock art prehistoric Europe" into a Google search. It is dominated by a few images—above all, Ice Age paintings from a few sites, notably Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira and by a narrow range of images from these sites—large, colourful, eye-catching, self-explanatory animals.

The frst image gives a sense of what European prehistoric art mostly offers. The second image shows what happens when this is digested into the Internet, the bloodstream of the modern imagination. Are these the same thing? Clearly not. It is not merely that the popular images are often highly untypical in period, style, theme, location and material qualities. Beyond this, as the Surrealist painter Magritte pointed out in "*Çeci n'est pas une pipe*", the representation is not the thing represented.

Worldwide, there are many ways of encountering rock art. Some communities encounter rock art directly, both in its original locations and contextualised in a living tradition of ontological understandings, interpretive knowledge and engagement. This is especially the case in settings such as Australia, Southern Africa, and the American Southwest, where rock art may form a spiritually, politically and economically important part of life for indigenous stakeholder communities. Here I am discussing a different form of encounter with rock art: how it is communicated to audiences distant from it in time, space, or cultural background. This is common in Europe, for example, where, except perhaps in some Arctic contexts, rock art is distanced from any living traditions by gulfs of time, and most audiences are likely to encounter it indirectly and at a distance via books, museum exhibitions or the Internet rather than directly in place. For such encounters, the necessary frst step is to translate rock art into some form in which it is portable and

<sup>©</sup> The Author(s) 2024 259

**Fig. 18.1** Seradina, Valcamonica, Italy: a major rock art site. Rock surface in foreground is densely covered in petroglyphs. (Image: J. Robb)

**Fig. 18.2** Results of searching "rock art prehistoric Europe" on Google. (Image: J. Robb)

consumable in novel ways. Translation does not necessarily imply commodifcation and globalization; for example, scholars have been translating rock art into drawings and publications for their own use for over a century. But it is a fundamental frst step in the *chaîne opératoire* of commodifcation and globalization, as it allows rock art to be reinscribed in new experiential frameworks, circulated to new audiences and used in new ways.

Many of the chapters in this volume explore the commodifcation and globalization of rock art, particularly how it negotiates differences between groups encountering it in different ways. In this chapter, I ask a simple, more focused question. What Western audiences understand and consume is typically not rock art but representations of it. What do we accomplish in the act of producing these representations, of translating rock art into a new (im)material medium of transmission?

The simplest, most direct way to investigate this question is to trace the journey a rock art image typically follows between its millennia-long existence on a stone surface and the moment when it can be encountered by new audiences distant from it.

"Materiality" is a vague term, but all theorists agree that the material qualities of substances and objects are important, both for how we perceive and interact with things sensorially and for how they fow through history (Tilley 2004; Ingold 2007; Miller 2005). Material qualities themselves are not absolute but mediated socially by human capabilities and interests; for example, iron oxides can afford ores, colorants or other kinds of substances depending upon a group's capacities and interests. Affordances (sensu Gibson 1979) are possibilities for perception or action which make use of a thing's particular material qualities. As this implies, if you change the material nature of an object, you change its affordances; this may also shift its potential audiences, uses and historical transmission. For example, in the ffteenth century, when books moved from being hand-copied on vellum to being printed on paper, they became much more reproducible and circulatable, something refected not only in patterns of literacy, authorship and commerce at the time but in library holdings today.

Materiality and affordances underlie why, in the contemporary world, circulation and globalization have a strong digital dimension. Things and ideas circulate and travel. For physical objects, globalization involves huge oil tankers and container ships of consumer goods. For other things, increasingly, anything which is a form of information, or can be reduced to one, is circulated digitally. More and more things are being converted to information expressly for such circulation—correspondence, music, books, games, artwork, and even objects, via circulation of blueprints for automated production or 3D printing. This poses a conceptual paradox which is ground zero for problems of rock art. Even as material culture theorists of all theoretical stripes strive to foreground the agentive materiality of objects, underlying digital circulation is the Platonic assumption that all objects can be ontologically distilled into separate components of pure material substance and the information that structures it—so that, for instance, they can be dematerialised, circulated as pure information, and then rematerialized, rematerialized in a different form, or consumed simply as information such as pixels on a computer screen.

What happens to the materiality of rock art in this process?

#### **18.2 Rock Art Is about Context and Substance: Material Qualities, Placement, and Local Knowledge**

Prehistoric European rock art exemplifes how rock art may be transmitted to audiences distant from it. Although the Palaeolithic cave art of France and Spain is the most famous, Holocene rock art is far more widespread. The best-known traditions are the Bronze/Iron Age rock carvings of southern Scandinavia and of the Central Alps; there are also major groups in northern Britain and northern Scandinavia, and several major traditions in Iberia, as well as important sites in France, southern Italy, Sicily, Bulgaria and Greece (Robb 2015; Sandars 1985). The great majority of sites are open-air sites rather than deep caves, and most art consists of rock carvings rather than paintings. Simple geometric or "abstract" motifs are common in all periods, and in some periods, virtually all the art consists of such motifs (Robb 2020). One feature all except perhaps some Alpine art share is a distance from modern audiences. This is not only physical distance, but conceptual distance as well; without continuous traditions of rock art practice for several thousand years or more, modern audiences use European rock art by transporting it to new interpretive frameworks. Sometimes this has to do with the meanings attached to it (for instance, using it as symbols of exclusively modern political identities), sometimes with larger narratives (about, for instance, the development of "art" from "primitive" to modern), and sometimes with ontological defnition (for instance, classifying it as "art" and searching for representational meanings).

Like most rock art, European prehistoric rock art shares three fundamental qualities of substance and context: its material qualities, its placement, and its relationship to local knowledge.

#### **18.2.1 Material Qualities of Rock Art**

Rock art is carved into rock, or painted on it. What would be lost if it were carved into wood, Styrofoam or cheese, printed on a 3D printer, or reproduced as a two-dimensional line drawing? The materiality of rock art includes several important qualities (cf. Jones 2017; Jones and Cochrane 2018; Back Danielsson 2020).

**Fig. 18.3** Cemmo, Valcamonica, Italy: Copper Age rock art. (**a**) The rock art. (Image: J. Robb); (**b**) Transcription. (Image: J. Robb, combining information from Anati (1961), Parco Archeologico Nazionale dei Massi di Cemmo: public signboard at site, and own observations)

Rather, they often may not have been much concerned with rock art's visibility; perhaps rock art was an intervention which worked whether or not it was visible, or it was appropriate to achieve the ability to see it through accumulated experience rather than being able to see it instantly. Making rock art instantly legible is clearly necessary in translating it for modern use, but it may be a departure from its original intention; its degree of (in)visibility gives us valuable information about what people wanted it to do.

In losing these various qualities (compare Fig. 18.3a, b), we may gain a sense of rock art as an abstract design and array of information; what we lose is a sense of it as real, working material object.

#### **18.2.2 Place**

Rock art is fxed in the landscape. Location is an inherent characteristic of rock art which affects it in several ways (Jones et al. 2011; Bradley 1997, 2009):

Whatever its original location afforded to its original users, rock art is distant from many modern users. Modern population centres are predominantly urban and low-altitude, and translating rock art requires us to overcome distance through tactics such as moving actual rock art panels to museums in cities, circulating images, devising virtual experiences, or even building replicas (such as the reproduction of Altamira cave in the National Archaeological Museum, Madrid). But visiting a site often imparts a much more immediate and intuitive understanding, particularly of its landscape setting; the immediacy of this is lost when it is moved to the city, the page or the screen.

#### **18.2.3 Local Knowledge**

Rock art is fxed in systems of knowledge. These are basic understandings which may be supplied seamlessly by the system of knowledge and practices constituting a living tradition of indigenous knowledge, in places where rock art is "informed" by one (Chippindale and Taçon 1998); in regions such as Europe which lack such a tradition, they may be notable by their absence.

To translate rock art for accessibility by people distant from it, we have to supply an informational context for it; this is often done by ftting it into our own interpretive schema and narratives embedded in our disciplinary practices.

#### **18.3 Translating Rock Art: From Ancient Action to Modern Meme**

Refashioning rock art for consumption by audiences not encountering it directly within its living tradition requires six steps of transformation: making it visible, transcription, identifcation, selection, moving it to new venues, and reproducing it in new media (see Fig. 18.11).

#### **18.3.1 Making Rock Art Visible**

The frst step is to make rock art visible. Beyond discovery, removing soil and turf, and cleaning its surface, its visibility may be enhanced mechanically using tools such as raking light, chalk dust, charcoal or paint, which can dramatically reveal imagery, although not without conservation consequences (Fig. 18.4). Even without such physical interventions, rock art is often made visible by interpretive signboards which provide an on-the-spot fnding aid. All of these visibility-enhancing interventions also create a defnitive version of it: what we see is not the rock art but the painted or transcribed images. In the process, they correspondingly render invisible elements not highlighted, often misrepresenting its original visibility. They also eliminate ambiguity, promoting and authorising one interpretation of what is actually there and excluding others.

#### **18.3.2 Transcribing Rock Art**

To be studied and communicated, rock art must be transcribed in some form. Rubbing once was common, but requires can damage delicate surfaces, and the results can be diffcult to interpret. Rock art is notoriously diffcult to photograph effectively. Perceiving it often depends upon subtle gradations of shade and texture, and creating a photograph which shows a motif clearly often requires expertise, apparatus, and fne control of light and shadow. We are in the middle of a digital revolution in how rock art is recorded and represented, with increasing use of photogrammetry, image enhancement software such as D-Stretch, drones and aerial photography, and immersive reproductions. Such methods help convey the experience of encountering rock art, particularly in its landscape setting. However, they remain costly and labour intensive, and demand expertise beyond the resources of many rock art users, and platforms for circulating them in print media are still limited. It is unsurprising, thus, that even with such new methodological richness, the black-and-white line drawing remains the most common practice for basic rock art censuses, for exegetical interpretation and for publi-

**Fig. 18.4** Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art (Himmelstalund, Norrskoping, Sweden; images: J. Robb). (**a**) Rock surface covered with unpainted images. (**b**) Rock surface with modern paint added to identify images for visitors

cation. It can be carried out with simple technology and less expertise, and it creates a clear, interpretible image which looks like a "picture" to many consuming audiences, professional and otherwise (Fig. 18.5). Moreover, for most bodies of rock art, interpretation remains constrained by published corpora; often, a transcription made decades ago remains the only version available for our use.

What normally remains unappreciated is how much information such transcription discards. Drawing rock art converts the complex materiality of rock art into a simple binary decision: black or white? All other information—for instance, about colour, texture, technique, threedimensionality and features of the underlying surface—is discarded. Moreover, drawing is not a neutral or mechanical transcription. It requires ongoing decisions (is a mark on the rock random "noise", part of a design, or an error by the maker which is informative about process but complicates the fnal image? Should a natural fssure in the rock be recorded? does an animal have particularly wide legs or has the rock weathered there?). It is also a classic example of "interpretation at the trowel's edge" (Hodder 1997); the recorder normally decides upon an interpretation of a motif early in the process and that guides the micro-decisions of recording in a self-fulflling way.

**Fig. 18.5** Valcamonica, Italy: rock art in the process of transcription on transparent plastic laid over images. Note contrast between traced and untraced images in upper left of image, and decisions about what features of natural rock surface to include in tracing. Also note ambiguity, for example in the leg outline of the fgure leading the plow, and a decision about how to interpret the area where the fgure's staff overlaps with the leg of the (not yet transcribed) fgure above it. (Image: J. Robb)

#### **18.3.3 Identifying Rock Art**

In a textually-oriented society, it may be hard to look at an image without having been provided a verbal frame defning it. Hence, to make a rock art site visitable, it is standard to provide framing information, either physically (Fig. 18.6) or virtually. For rock art, the obligatory frame needed for a modern viewer to understand it comprehensibly includes a defnition of what is being seen ("boats", "a house", "a shaman"), its place in a historical sequence ("Bronze Age", "Iron Age") and exegesis about what it meant, and why it may have been made. Here, visitors to Naquane are told that the grid-like object is a "two-storied dwelling"; visitors to Lövåsen are specially directed to notice the otherwise inexplicable fgure of a "shaman".

Reframing rock art in this way looks transparent, but it is an essential part of translating rock art for modern consumption. Among other things, it defnes the rock art in a new temporal relation to the viewer, as heritage or tradition associated with a particular classifcatory period and way of life rather than contemporary. It also (usually implicitly) sets it within a representational framework, typically by answering the question "what does it depict" rather than questions such as "what effects did it have?"

#### **18.3.4 Selecting Images**

What is reproduced? Often a highly selective repertory. Holocene art from Europe shows a pattern already familiar from Palaeolithic art. The rock art itself includes many unin-

**Fig. 18.6** Presenting rock art, combining transcription, identifcation, contextualisation and exegesis to reframe it into modern discourses: (**a**) Valcamonica, Italy. (**b**) Tanum, Sweden. (Images: J. Robb)

terpretable geometric and irregular motifs. What is reproduced is "representational" images, particularly ones with a simple, comprehensible meaning today: humans, animals, boats, weapons, "ritual" fgures, handprints. This is generally true in venues in which rock art is presented to general audiences—books, websites, even signboards at sites. It is also obviously the case when images from rock art are reused as political symbols, logos, and in commercial products such as t-shirts and mugs. More surprisingly, it also happens in academic discussion. For example, at Porto Badisco Cave, Italy (Fig. 18.7) (Graziosi 1974; Graziosi 1980; Whitehouse 1992), well over 90% of motifs are "abstract" motifs; only a tiny minority are "representational". Yet what is reproduced from the cave, sourced both from Graziosi's original 1980s publications and from images by authorised visitors circu-

**Fig. 18.7** Porto Badisco Cave, Italy. (**a**) Some typical imagery from the cave (Graziosi 1980: Tav. 8). (**b**) A commonly-reproduced "hunting scene" panel (Graziosi 1980: Tav. 70b). (**c**) Google Image search results for "Porto Badisco arte preistorica"; note repetition of the same images

lated on websites, are one or two panels which can be read as portraying hunting scenes (indeed, the cave, "Grotta dei Cervi", is named after one of them). The next most popular image from Porto Badisco is an anthropomorphic image interpreted as a dancing shaman fgure, followed perhaps by handprints. These few images—deer, hunters, anthropomorphs—turn up not only on tourist, news and local history websites aimed at the public, but also in academic venues on monograph covers, in illustrations from scholarly publications, and as logos for professional associations and journals.

As this illustrates, there is a strong selection bias, even when professionals write for other professionals, in favour of art that has identifable motifs and, ideally, a composition that can bear some exegesis—things that look like "pictures" to us. Indeed, many descriptions of sites have only minimal visual documentation of other kinds of rock art. This also works in the marketplace of competition between sites and, indeed, between entire traditions of rock art. For example, Levantine art is much better-studied than other Iberian Holocene rock art traditions such as schematic art, megalithic art and Atlantic rock art, precisely because it shows interpretable scenes which are commonly used as illustrations of prehistoric hunting, warfare, pastoralism, ritual, and gender.

#### **18.3.5 Moving to New Venues**

Where is rock art found? On bleak rocky moors, in remote canyons, on the underside of boulders halfway up steep hillsides, deep in dark wet caves, in eroding sandstone pockets on cliffsides, above the treeline—and generally far from where modern urban, lowland populations live. Where is rock art encountered? *In situ*, for the minority of viewers who visit it in person (sometimes via adventure tourism with heritage foci). Most other people encounter rock art in books, journals, magazines, Wikipedia, websites, museum exhibitions, and as diffuse memes entering the bloodstream of culture via posters, cartoons, flms, t-shirts, coffee mugs, jewelry designs and so on. If you want to encounter the Neolithic art of Northumbria (UK), you can spend several days driving around rural roads, climbing fences and examining eroding rock outcrops to fnd a faded set of carved concentric rings—or you can sit at a computer anywhere and within minutes consult highly visible, easily located images on websites presenting it in various scholarly and unscholarly ways. Similarly, the Alpine valley of Valcamonica (Italy) has one of Europe's largest concentrations of rock art (Anati 1961). It is located 1.5 h by car or train from the nearest sizeable city, Brescia. The two most heavily visited rock art sites, Seradina (Fig. 18.1) and Naquane just outside the central valley-bottom town of Capo di Ponte, receive a moderate number of casual tourists and school groups; sites further afeld and at higher altitudes are visited only by hikers and serious enthusiasts. For other people, the rock art can be seen in casts and placards in the local archaeological museums and tourism centres, or encountered in pamphlets and books at the tourist offces, bookstores, and newsstands throughout the region. Decontextualised images and pastiches of the rock art turn up casually around town, familiarising local audiences with highly selected images and reminding them of its presence (Fig. 18.8). Increasingly, all of these pale in comparison with virtual spaces. While statistics on website hits are unavailable, more people probably encounter Valcamonica rock art through its Wikipedia page in a day than visit it in person in a year, and images of it turn up on many other websites. Such sites render the art not only more accessible, but also defne what is felt to be "typical". (Indeed, as the Wikipedia webpage for any major rock art site shows, such sites are a major point at which the range of imagery is strongly narrowed and selected). Moving rock art to a venue where people can encounter it is a fundamental step in translating it for modern audiences.

#### **18.3.6 New Media, New Objects**

The fnal liberation, and the moment when it is clear that rock art has achieved true memehood, is when it leaps off the rock face on to some other material object. This can certainly involve commodifcation or politicisation, but it can also involve reusing patterns and images from the past in new ways to meet today's needs in ways that are not patently anachronistic, exploitative or unethical. Palaeolithic art has already achieved the status of a free-foating, cartoonable cliché—or at least images of skin-wearing "artists" painting large animals in cave "art galleries" have. Some of the things rock art can turn into include (Figs. 18.9, and 18.10):

In fact, it is the same range of items one can get any image printed commercially on. Although these are material objects, virtually all of them pass through a digital stage of life in the design phase, and the globalised digital world is probably the major way they are circulated (the images in Fig. 18.10 are mostly culled from websites such as Etsy and Redbubble). They thus are progressively dematerialised as rock art and re-materialised as something else.

Such new incarnations are not mere ephemera or epiphenomena; they transform prehistoric art by giving it a new materiality and new affordances. You cannot wear a rock surface. Putting the image on a t-shirt not only makes it wearable; it also changes its social functionality. The rock art morphs from its original social functionality into the modern role of "image one prints on fgured personal paraphernalia to express one's identity", along with fowers, political symbols, puppies, photos of one's loved ones, Impressionist paintings, cartoon characters, and so on. It attaches meanings to one's personal identity in the way typical of modern social encounters. Such changes in function are partly responsible for the transformation of the image in other ways, notably the choice of images to use and the way they are reworked. They select a narrow range of clear, vivid images which resonate with modern narratives, and they simplify them, reducing three dimensions to two, texture to outline, and shadows to solid colour. This loses context and ambiguity, and it highlights above all iconography and meaning—effectively turn**Fig. 18.8** Moving rock art off the rocks and into new places in Capo di Ponte (Valcamonica, Italy). (Images: J. Robb)

**Fig. 18.9** Tanum (Sweden): gift shop at rock art visitor centre. (Image: J. Robb)

ing the prehistoric material object into a representational design identical to imagery we consume from other sources. Secondly, they harness prehistoric rock art to new narratives. Originally, it often may not have functioned principally as a signifer at all. Now, its ability to act materially is redefned semiotically: it supplies signifers for meanings of new kinds. One is a range of narratives about history, progress, civilisation, wildness, and so on. This is evident not only in the choice of imagery but in the terms mapped on to it: "shamans", "warriors", "primitive", "pagan", "mythical", "ancient", "prehistoric", and so on. It is also evident in the meanings referenced: claims to tradition, heritage, authenticity, and attitudes and identities which often would not have existed in the art's original social context.

#### **18.4 What Is Lost and What Is Gained, or the Tyranny of the Black and White Line Drawing**

The examples above could be repeated around the world. They build upon standard practices in archaeology and extend them into the globalised digital world. The six steps outlined above (summarised in Fig. 18.11) essentially constitute a method or formula for enabling modern audiences not connected to rock art by living traditions to access and consume it. Each step in the chain looks obvious and trivial. What is so remarkable is their cumulative effect. Taken all together, these steps constitute anything but a neutral process of transcription. As discussed above, three fundamental aspects of rock art's materiality are its material substance, location and informational context. Rock art is integrally bound to its material substrate, which may dictate the methods used to make it, its colour and texture; it is variably visible and, often, diffcult to see or ambiguous to distinguish; and it has a clearly defned scale relative to the human body. Transcribing it loses virtually all of these qualities, replacing them with a two-dimensional, fexibly scaled series of images processed to be visible and unambiguous. Spatially, rock art's location may originally have been one of its defning qualities—what kind of landscape it forms part of, who frequented it, what activities were associated with it, and other spatial qualities. Transcribing and circulating it renders it despatialised, associated with new place and contexts (the museum, the classroom, the library, the clothed body) or the no-space-every-space of digital space. In terms of local **Fig. 18.11** The translational process. (Images, from top: J. Robb, J. Robb, Ling and Bertilsson 2016: Fig. 18.3/ SFHA, J. Robb, Ling and Bertilsson 2016: Fig. 18.3/ SFHA, https://theatreofwar. bigcartel.com/category/ men-s-t-shirts?page=1, https://theatreofwar.bigcartel. com/product/ boat-warriors-t-shirt)

knowledge, rock art's informational context may originally have been implicit, polysemous, or differently accessible to different kinds of person; it often may not have been representational or communicational at all. In translation, this changes in several predictable ways. While all symbols are polysemous, reframing tends to prioritise a particular dimension prioritised as its discursive meaning. A narrow, highly selected range of motifs, strongly biased towards recognisable representations, stands for all; exegesis is added to make clear their meaning and inscribe it into modern frames of reference, and this is rendered fatly accessible to all viewers.

In other words, the process of translation removes most, if not all, of the qualities which actually made rock art rock art. It dematerialises rock art as one kind of thing, passes it through transformative informational flters, and reconstitutes it afresh as a different and new kind of object. The main effect is to transform our understanding of what the object actually is and how it acts. What did rock art do, originally? If we consider Gell's approach to art as a social technology (Gell 1998), some of it may have resembled the pictures on our walls or the religious icons in our places of worship. Some of it may have made spaces such as tombs appropriate for their function. Some of it may have recorded someone's presence or agreement or protest, like modern graffti. Some of it may have supported stories being narrated, or presenced ancestors or supernatural beings, or merged past, present and future temporalities, or united a landscape with an unseen dimension. It may have been spiritual infrastructure or channels for power. Differentiating such possibilities requires understanding all aspects of its materiality, location and context. Very little of this information survives the translational process.

**Table 18.1** Rock art, before and after its transformation

The black and white line drawing is the most common way of recording and presenting rock art, and it tends to form the condensed, portable version from which most digital and globalised versions are reconstituted. However, it is strongly tied to interpreting rock art as "art" in a modern sense. It effectively strips out all information except form; it serves to answer one question only: "what is it a picture of?" This in turn serves a prelude for the other obvious question: "what does it mean?" By reducing what we know about rock art to merely its form and signifcation, our disciplinary practices implicitly assume that rock art formed a signifer much as modern signs do. They enforce a semiotic or communicational view of what rock art is, reducing its capability of acting to this single dimension. Because this is how we usually understand our own representations as working, we don't even usually notice that we are doing this. It merely seems the obvious interpretive pathway (Table. 18.1).

#### **18.5 Rock Art: Translating Is Transforming**

Can anything and everything be globalised? Can anything and everything be converted to a product that can be universally transmitted and consumed regardless of location, setting and context?

Rock art provides a fascinating counter-example which has implications for materiality theory. Rock art is inherently rooted in its location; it generally cannot be moved, and even if it is, it defnes much of its social meaning from its physical context. It is shaped by its material substrate, which creates conditions of invisibility, visibility, heightened effect and scale. And many kinds of rock art are not intended for immediate interpretation by generic or universal eyes; they require layers of local informational context to be understood or used appropriately.

How does something which is fundamentally of its place and of its substance fare in a world oriented towards universal portability and consumption? One indication of the challenges posed is how variable the fortunes of different kinds of rock art are. Some kinds of rock art are inherently more translatable than others. In general, the more rock art approximates our visual sense of aesthetics—what a "picture" looks like to us—the more readily we take it up. The Lascaux horses and Altamira bison are reproduced so often in part because—unlike almost all other prehistoric European art they ft into an art historical narrative about "naturalistic" Western art. Similarly, in spite of its frequency, European Neolithic rock art is very poorly known to non-specialists, mostly because it tends to consist of jumbles of cryptic geometric motifs. In contrast, Bronze and Iron Age art tends to be better known because it has recognisable motifs such as boats, horses, riders, and dancers, often arranged into narrative scenes.

All forms of rock art require considerable work to be translated and transmitted. To be made into something consumable, rock art has to be brought out into the open, identifed and made visible. Then, it has to be identifed and labelled, screened to eliminate information not relevant to modern text-oriented consumers working in a tradition of representational imagery, and given a sharp, clear outline all aspects which explain the historical success of the preferred form of representation, the black and white line drawing. And it has to have layers of exegesis added (e.g. specifying its discursive "meaning"). All of these make rock art both transportable beyond its setting and interpretable as visual culture by any modern viewer, and ultimately able to leap off the rock and become part of a new narrative, array of images, or product.

But this process of translating rock art from its original form to something that can be encountered and consumed by modern audiences is not a neutral process. It loses most of the qualities that made rock art what it was, and it selectively focuses upon a narrow axis of form and signifcation. In the process, it refashions rock art from something originally capable of acting in many different modes, to something principally able to act as a signifer. What happens to materiality in the process? The technologies we use to know the world encourage or enforce their own presuppositions about the nature of the world (Introna 2011). Computers are an information technology; things pass through them by being reduced to binary (digital) information. They thus enforce the status of information as a basal ontological state separate from and opposed to the material constitution of things. If the substance of an object is a fundamental part of what it is, the object cannot be reproduced through a technology with dematerialises it and rematerializes it in another medium; as you rematerialize it, it becomes a different object. At most, one might attach a text saying, rather self-defeatingly, "the substance of this was important," and perhaps include a photograph of the rock and of the landscape in the webpage or museum placard. With rock art, the process of translation thus creates a chain of representations, each one shifting what it can do from the previous one, and the fnal one addressing different needs for different people.

Does this make a difference? To revisit Magritte, one obvious difference between a pipe and a painting of a pipe is that you can't smoke a painting of a pipe. Rock art in translation becomes something different, and it can be used for different goals and projects. In a practical sense, at a fundamental philosophical level, it is futile to rail about more and less authentic ways of accessing the past. We have no unmediated access to the past; whether through texts, objects or traditions, it is a book we can only read in translation. We cannot live outside of time and make and use rock art exactly as ancient people did; the only philosophically realistic goals we can aspire to are to understand how they made and used it, and to use it in our own ways, hopefully ethically. Why would people want to access rock art if they cannot necessarily understand or experience it as it was originally understood or experienced? The most obvious answer is that they are unaware of the translation-transformation and think they are accessing an "original" version; this is probably true not only for "the public" but for many scholars as well. Secondly, even if recognising that they are not approaching an "original" or "authentic" experience of it, they may nonetheless fnd it engaging for past-focused projects of their own, whether academic or non-academic (e.g. developing a stylistic chronology, understanding a land use history of a region, etc.). Finally, they may disregard the question of originalism and authenticity entirely and yoke the rock art to modern projects, giving entirely new meanings to ancient images. In many situations, this may involve commodifcation and the appropriation of other people's heritage and intellectual property, but in others (for instance, developing tourism or local identity in a place like Europe, or simply re-using an attractive motif) it may not. But while reinterpretation can be innocuous and respectful or factually wrong or yoked to dubious political causes, the process of reinterpretation-viatranslation in itself is not inherently harmful; it is merely the ongoing metabolism of the symbolic environment humans continually do.

However, if our goal is to try to understand the past we must recognise and work against what seems obvious. Translation is inescapable, but one can pursue multiple translations with different qualities. Indeed, used creatively, information technology may form part of new solutions (Guy and Wintjes 2009). In its elimination of extraneous information and reduction of ambiguity, the black and white line drawing is both helpful and limiting. Recording the whole corpus may overcome selection bias. Beyond this, fnding new ways of seeing (or not seeing) rock art may be a challenge we can respond to using new methodologies creatively. Orthogonal photographs of record with uniform lighting preserve fne details, but may need complementing with images replicating ordinary conditions of vision, including visibility with light from varying directions, and they have little sense of human scale. Three-dimensional reconstructions may show imagery draped over complex contours. RTI may show details never observed by prehistoric people but cast light on manufacturing processes. Photos with humans may give a sense of scale, orientation and immobility. Landscape photos may show the hillslope and the water running down it. Excavation records may show relations with contemporary contexts and activities. Artists' reconstructions may put prehistoric people into the picture and get beyond twenty-frst century landscapes. Videos may allow a sense of movement around a site. Audio recordings may show the ever-present wind, the noises of the river or forest. Animations may free our imagination from photographic verism. Videoconferencing may allow live real-time remote site visits. To communicate rock art as deeply as possible, and to open rather than close off understandings of it, we may need all of these and more.

Such practical solutions emphasise that, while translation cannot be avoided, it can be a creative and productive process, not merely a distortion or source of inauthenticity. However, in simultaneously creating something new growing out of globalised needs and concerns while foregrounding rock art's link to a past, perhaps one belonging to ancient or contemporary indigenous stakeholders distanced from modern consumers, translation also holds inherent potential for harm: the risk of cultural appropriation, the dilemmas of authenticity, and the danger of commodifcation.

**Acknowledgements** I am grateful to Chris Chippindale, Alberto Marretta and Craig Alexander for sharing their knowledge of the rock art of Valcamonica. I am also grateful to the editors and two anonymous reviewers for constructive critique that has improved the argument.

**Rights Retention Statement** For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CCBY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

#### **References**

Anati, Emanuele. 1961. *Camonica Valley*. New York: Knopf.

**John Robb** received his frst training in medieval English literature (BA, University of Chicago, 1983), and then went on to study anthropological archaeology at the University of Michigan (MA, 1989; PhD, 1995). His PhD thesis dealt with inequality and gender in Italian prehistory, combining evidence of human skeletons, archaeology, and prehistoric art. After a brief post-doc at Southern Illinois University (1995–1996), he taught at the University of Southampton for 5 years (1996–2001). Since 2001, he has been teaching at Cambridge, becoming professor in 2015. He became a fellow of Peterhouse in 2015. Professor Robb has run major projects on southern Italian archaeology, the biographies of ordinary people in medieval Cambridge, and the theoretical history of the human body. Besides these topics, he is interested in material culture theory, burial taphonomy and ritual, and prehistoric art.

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

#### **19 Cultures of Appropriation: Rock Art Ownership, Indigenous Intellectual Property, and Decolonisation**

Jamie Hampson and Sam Challis

#### **Abstract**

Both on and off the rocks, it is clear that many pictographs and petroglyphs are powerful cultural and social 'tools' as well as sacred beings. Indeed, in certain regions of many countries, cultural and socio-political identity is shaped, manipulated, and presented through rock paintings and engravings. In this chapter, we focus on re-contextualised and appropriated Indigenous heritage and rock art motifs, in commercial settings, in sports team mascots, and as integral components of political and national symbols there are illuminating similarities (as well as differences) that span the globe. Case studies include instances where descendants of the original artists have re-imagined and adapted the meanings and uses of motifs, and also where non-Indigenous/non-descendant groups have appropriated rock art imagery—often without consultation with or permission from Traditional Owners and heritage managers. We offer results from feldwork and study in North America, northern Australia, and southern Africa.

#### **Keywords**

Decolonisation · Intellectual property · Cultural appropriation · Commodifcation · Heritage · Rock art

#### J. Hampson (\*)

Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, UK e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
S. Challis

Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersand, Johannesburg, South Africa e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
#### **19.1 Introduction**

Images, symbols, and motifs are global phenomena, and have been for tens of thousands of years. They are 'in our heads', and they surround us—yet we so often take them for granted. Indeed, established notions of what images are and what they do are rarely challenged, which in turn discourages innovative approaches to visual heritage. At the same time, there are important debates concerning Indigenous rock art,1 and indeed the very nature of Indigenousness (from the local to the global scale) and how Indigenous groups and their heritages are perceived and used (e.g. Dowson 1996; Janke 2003; Nicholas and Bannister 2004; Nicholas and Hollowell 2007; McNiven and Russell 2005; Lydon and Ireland 2016; Nicholas 2017a).

To Westerners,2 many images and symbols may appear deceptively familiar today, regardless of the historical context of those images or where they originate. Thankfully, however, processes of decolonisation (including acknowledgement of the inappropriateness of casting non-Western cultures in Western moulds) are increasingly helping archaeologists, anthropologists, and members of the public to avoid the dangers of 'presentism' — that is to say, uncritically ascribing modern values to the past (Nicholas and Wylie 2009; Nicholas 2011). By interrogating the de- and recontextualisation of Indigenous rock art in settler (colonial) nations, this chapter aims to contribute to this discourse. We limit our case studies to southern Africa, Australia, and North America, and explicate both the differences and overarching similarities between and within these regions.

© The Author(s) 2024 275 O. Moro Abadía et al. (eds.), *Deep-Time Images in the Age of Globalization*, Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-54638-9\_19

<sup>1</sup>For a debate on whether the term 'art' is appropriate, or an incorrect categorisation (or arrogant imposition), see e.g. Chippindale and Taçon (1998); Townsend-Gault et al. (2013).

<sup>2</sup>Perhaps a better term than Western is 'non-Indigenous', although both epithets are problematic (see e.g. Miller 2003; Barnard 2004a). We also acknowledge here that there is rarely a sharp boundary between Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

Because rock art sites and motifs are implicated in—and often actively drawn upon for—identity formation *today*, there is a pressing need for sensitive and appropriate presentation and for educational campaigns against misconceptions of Indigenous rock art and the people who made it. Concepts of cultural identity, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, agency, multivocality, and social exclusion are made tangible at Indigenous heritage sites; important considerations include *who* decides *how*, *why*, and *which* rock art sites are conserved, managed, and presented to the public — including the all-important subject of site access (Ndlovu 2009). As we shall see, similar questions apply to the re-contextualisation of rock art and other Indigenous imagery around the world. All of which raises the question of the arguments for and against the policing of artistic expression (Brown 2003). We have previously suggested (Hampson 2013, 2015; see also Hampson and Weaver 2021) that re-contextualised rock art motifs can be divided into fve categories: commercial contexts; national symbols (Fig. 19.1); contemporary artworks 'inspired' by rock art; academic contexts; and removal to museums and art galleries.3 But who has the right to interpret—or even speak about—Indigenous visual heritage? Can the trivialisation of reproduced or re-contextualised rock art motifs be avoided? Does sensitive and careful presentation of heritage sites and rock paintings and engravings—both on and off the rocks—make a difference, challenging visitors' and viewers' preconceptions of rock art and of the Indigenous people who made (and make) it? Perhaps the central thread of this contribution is to advocate for the combination of 'common courtesy' of community consultation (earning respect, trust and recognition), the (sad) necessity of hard legislation, and the public education that informs and encompasses these.

Indigenous art functions at both the performative/ritual as well as (what many Westerners would consider) an 'aesthetic' level (e.g. Atalay 2008; Townsend-Gault 2001; Schaafsma 2013; Townsend-Gault et al. 2013; Hampson 2016a, b; Nicholas 2017a). Indeed, the physical or virtual removal of rock art from its original context (i.e. *de*contextualisation) by non-Indigenous individuals separates performative and aesthetic aspects, often with harmful results—there is an alarming disconnect that needs to be acknowledged (e.g. Dowson 1996; Henry 2007; Nicholas and Smith 2020).4 Sometimes rock art is removed in circumstances of 'inevitable' land engineering, and it is deemed the best thing for the motifs even when context of place is irrevocably gone—these decisions, of course, are still largely driven by the Western mindset (Arthur et al. 2021). In short, Western predilections and desires for that which is deemed to be 'aesthetically pleasing', 'progressive', and 'benefcial'

**Fig. 19.1** Indigenous rock art motifs are often found on stamps. Left: San motifs feature in this 1977 Swaziland/eSwatini set. Right: stamp and postmark celebrating the 1996 Centennial Games in Atlanta, USA,

using the South African Olympic team logo, based on San motifs, on ebay.com. (See also Smith 2016: 142, Fig. 7.7)

<sup>3</sup>These categories are of course not mutually exclusive; they are intended merely as helpful, albeit arbitrary, guidelines (Hampson and Weaver 2021; see also other chapters in Rozwadowski and Hampson 2021).

<sup>4</sup>For appraisals of the situation in *Murujuga*, Western Australia, where many rock engravings have been removed or destroyed, see McDonald 2016; Zarandona 2020.

are often dangerous and offensive to Indigenous groups (Fig. 19.2). After all, Indigenous images are not just pretty pictures; they are powerful things in themselves.

Because painted and engraved symbols are often materialisations of contested identities, and the result of specifc 'modes of action' and agencies (Hodder 1986; Gell 1998; Dobres and Robb 2014; Brady et al. 2016), the presentation, manipulation, de- and re-contextualisation of images have profound consequences for many stakeholders. Indeed, perceptions of Indigenous art—especially rock art—tell us much about cultural identity and modes of being (e.g. Schaafsma 1980, 1997; Whitley 2000, 2001; Hampson 2015; Loubser 2013; Brady et al. 2016). Although tourists who visit and engage with public rock art sites and Indigenous motifs are of course part of a public that comprises manifold and ever-changing communities, there are widely shared beliefs about Indigenousness, self, and 'other' (Blundell 1996; Ouzman 2006). Some of these beliefs extend across continents; it is clearly useful to consider this topic from global, as well as regional and local, perspectives. Moreover, the use of Indigenous peoples and their rock arts in identity formation worldwide has often objectifed those people as homogenous entities frozen in a mythic time—and sometimes overlooked their very existence today (see below; also see Dowson and David Lewis-Williams 1994; Lewis-Williams 1995; Hoff 1997, 1998; Smith 2016; Skinner 2022). Perceiving Indigenous groups as nothing more than mediators (or worse, as extinct, or vanishing) opens the door to the perpetuation of egregious stereotypes.

On all scales—individual, group, regional, or larger—cultural identities, and how others perceive those identities, is a recurring theme in the humanities and social sciences (e.g. Bourdieu 1977; Handler 1988; Shennan 1989; Miller 1994; Jones 1997; Blundell 2004; Nicholas and Hollowell 2007). Researchers often fail to specify, however, exactly *how* identities are formed, revised, and perceived, and how they differ through time. These omissions often lead to the idea that identity formation is an end in itself, the ultimate goal of all cultural processes—an approach labelled essentialist or 'primordialist' (Rowlands 1994). In contrast, Malkii (1992) and

**Fig. 19.2** Top left: stock image from 'dreamstime.com' titled 'Primitive fgures looks like cave painting – primitive art', which simplifes and trivialises the original southern African San art, not least because the spiritually signifcant rain animals have been removed. Top right: the historical copy made by Joseph Orpen in 1873 from which it

was abstracted (photograph by Justine Wintjes). Bottom: the archaeological tracing and re-drawing of the original rock art by Patricia Vinnicombe (Courtesy Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, the KwaZulu-Natal Museum and Lucas Smits). For further discussion see Wintjes 2014

**Fig. 19.3** The sacred 'sun symbol' is found on Indigenous rock art panels (left) as well as the state fag of New Mexico (right). (Photos: Jamie Hampson)

others defne identity as 'always mobile … partly selfconstruction, partly categorisation by others, partly … a label, a weapon, a shield, a fund of memories'. Following Malkii, we employ such an 'interactionist' approach to identity, and fnd it particularly applicable when addressing Indigenous art and image diversity, as well as the recontextualisation of symbols (Rowlands 1994; Blundell 1998, 2004, cf. Latour 2005; Hampson 2015). Indeed in some contexts, especially in the colonial era, identity is mutable in the extreme and, accordingly, creolisation theory is most germane (e.g. Challis 2018a).

#### **19.2 Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property: Decolonising Ownership and Rethinking Value**

When non-Indigenous people take rock art images and place them into new—and often commercial, money-making contexts, they are (knowingly or otherwise) practising a form of neo-colonialism. The appropriation and recontextualisation of the Zia sun symbol in New Mexico, for instance, is both shocking and illuminating. In 1923, when the New Mexican chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution held a competition for a new state symbol, the winning entry was the famous sun symbol (Fig. 19.3)—a motif 'borrowed' from the Indigenous Zia group's Fire Society by physician and avocational archaeologist Harry Mera (Pino and Fugate 2012; Turner 2012; Montoya 2018; Nelson 2019).5 Mera had seen the design on a ceremonial pot that had been removed (under suspicious circumstances) from the Zia pueblo in the late nineteenth century (Pino and Fugate 2012). Importantly, although the symbol itself has been used in ceremonies and on rock art panels by the Zia since 1200 AD (Turner 2012; Montoya 2018; Nelson 2019), according to Zia tribal administrator Peter Pino 'Mera probably had no idea that the pot was anything special' (Pino and Fugate 2012). Nor, however, did it occur to Mera to ask Zia Pueblo if they had any reservations about his using their design. In the 1920s, Zia had a population of perhaps 120 people, and, as Pino and Fugate (2012, 3) point out,

none of them knew where their pot was or how to get it back. In 1925 the Indians of New Mexico couldn't vote; some non-Indians considered them less than human, much less to have civil rights. Zia had few if any avenues for launching a complaint about the use of their symbol.

Pino and Fugate (2012) observe further that the sun symbol is copyrighted by the State of New Mexico and used on the state fag and on federal coins—but the Zia's use of their own symbol is not! In short, 'The Zia people would like some acknowledgement that the symbol originally belonged to Zia and that it was appropriated without their knowledge or blessing' (Pino and Fugate 2012, 4).

The sacred sun symbol motif is found, sometimes with distorted dimensions and almost always without permission, on the products of hundreds of commercial companies (selling everything from motorbikes to beer to portable toilets) in the Southwest USA (Turner 2012; Montoya 2018; Nelson 2019). After successful negotiations, plus donations to an Indigenous scholarship fund, on the other hand, some companies (e.g. Southwest airlines, Organ Mountain Outftters) *do* have permission to use the Zia symbol. It seems that the Zia—and indeed other Indigenous groups—have had more success in protecting their sacred symbols and intellectual property (IP) rights by *negotiating*, and by employing nonlegal (i.e. non-statutory) pressure, than via the trademark law courts (Turner 2012; Montoya 2018; Nelson 2019). As for proft-making companies, some of them are (at last) learning that the best way to proceed is to approach the Indigenous groups and ask permission to use sacred symbols—for an appropriate fee—rather than simply 'borrowing' them and hoping the commodifcation goes unnoticed and/or unchallenged (or 'ask frst'; see Australian Heritage Commission

<sup>5</sup>Pueblo Governor Anthony Delgarito makes clear that the centre circle in the motif is 'where we are born and where we return to after this life… So when I see the symbol added to with art covering [the circle] or inside the circle, it frustrates me' (Montoya 2018). Pino and Fugate (2012) point out that 'There is pride in the recognition of an important symbol on the state fag, but there is also regret that it has been appropriated for less lofty uses'.

2002; Museums Australia 2005). As should by now be apparent, much of this debate revolves around not just value judgements, but also common courtesy, respect, and open communication (Davidson et al. 1995; Schaafsma 2013; Montoya 2018; for discussion see below cf*.* NAVA n.d.; Mellor and Janke 2001; SASI 2017).

Another illuminating case study focuses on the Snuneymuxw First Nation rock engravings on Gabriola Island near the city of Nanaimo (Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada). The motifs here—including the 'Dancing Man' and 'Kingfsher' petroglyphs—were given protection in 2000 by Canadian law under Sect. 9(1)(n)(iii) of the *Trademarks Act*, which is applicable to any 'badge, crest, emblem or mark adopted and used by public authority' (Adams 2003; Brown 2003, 84; Bell et al. 2009, 395; Nicholas 2013, 2017a; Hampson and Weaver 2021). Prior to this trademarking, reproductions of engraved motifs were used without permission on T-shirts, postcards, and items of jewellery for sale in a local museum—and the profts from sales did not go back to First Nations' groups. After the ruling in 2000, and since obtaining permission from the Snuneymuxw community, souvenirs featuring the petroglyphs are still for sale but a share of the profts now go back to the original 'owners' of the motifs. In addition, images of the original *in situ* petroglyphs have been removed from the museum's website, and visitors are no longer allowed to make rubbings of the petroglyph reproductions (Brown 2003, 84). Shortly after the trademark ruling, too, the Dancing Man Music Festival removed the image from its logo (Bell et al. 2009, 395).

Put simply, appropriation and inappropriate commodifcation of the petroglyphs are no longer legally possible. Although this is not a 'one-size-fts-all' ruling, from this case study we can begin to understand how, to the Snuneymuxw, the agencies (e.g. Gosden 2005) and powers of the engravings have migrated and expanded into a modern, contemporary framework (see also Appadurai 1986; Hodder 1986). Indeed, according to First Nations groups, the powerful Snuneymuxw images (and indeed the rules governing their production and use) travelled symbolically from rock surfaces to inclusion within a new, *Western* legal system (Brown 2003, 83–87; Bell et al. 2009). Tellingly, most of the Indigenous groups who have successfully protected sacred motifs under intellectual property laws have ultimately only been able to do so through *Western* forms of legislation. In some cases, the age-old concept of 'inalienable possessions' (Weiner 1992) only seems to apply when Indigenous 'possessions' are acknowledged and re-framed within colonial legal systems (Nicholas et al. 2010; Geismar 2013; Honanie and Lomahquaha 2015). How much of this debate—and other discussions around intellectual property rights—is about fnancial compensation? Kathleen Johnnie, the Lands and Resources Coordinator for the Snuneymuxw First Nation Treaty Negotiation offce, explained that the decision to push for legal protection was taken primarily for *religious* rather than commercial or fnancial reasons (Brown 2003, 84). Snuneymuxw community elders succeeded in restricting what they consider to be the insulting, superfcial, and trivialising use of their community's sacred symbols; they had no choice but to fully engage with a European-derived, non-Indigenous legislative system in order to protect rightful sovereignty (Brown 2003; Bell et al. 2009).

#### **19.3 Commodifcation, Performance, Access, and Afect**

Replication does not always *necessarily* equal trivialisation. For example, the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century invention of flm and the subsequent 'democratisation' of the reproduced or replicated image was a seminal moment in the history of art in a Western context (Sontag 1977; Hanssen 2005). For the polymath Walter Benjamin, flm photography was *the* transformational pivot of the modern era (Berger 1972; Hanssen 2005)—and it is clear that from the early days of the study of the anthropology of art there was an interest in the implications of an image travelling between different forms of expression (e.g. Heidegger 1950; Arendt 1968; Adorno 1970; Taussig 1993).6 What Westerners failed to see, however, was the harm this might cause to Indigenous artists and communities (e.g. Silliman 2010; Nicholas 2011; Nicholas and Wylie 2012).

When discussing the implications of commodifcation and commercial advertising in a wider sense, Peter Pels (2010) usefully employs a concept similar to Bennett's (2001) notion of the 'enchanted materialism of modern life'—that is, the idea that capitalism employs 'magic' to construct and capture its markets (see also Hampson 2013, 160; Hampson and Weaver 2021). Also, and as suggested above, we know that objects with agency 'do things' to and for humans (Gosden 2005). Commodities, like people, have histories, and, as Pels (2010, 625) makes clear, 'like people, [commodities] do some things better than others; like people, their performance changes from one situation to another.'7 The starting point in advertising is that the product has to be made to 'perform' (Pepsi cures dyspepsia, for instance); the product is then reifed and 'mythically multi-

<sup>6</sup>Drawing from Hegelian ideas of sublation, too, it is worth remembering that it is possible to *re*-appropriate part of a form that has been alienated (Hampson 2013, 161).

<sup>7</sup>Consumption *per se* is not necessarily a negative act. It is the insensitive alteration and simplistic re-confguration of images into new contexts *without permission*, not their mere adoption, which trivialises rock art heritage. Consumption is part of a complex dialectic process central to identity formation, and those who criticise consumption without caveats in fact 'confuse the vehicle with the message it carries' (Blundell 1996).

**Fig. 19.4** Left: Sign in one of the visitor centres in Kakadu National Park, northern Australia. Centre: Reproductions of Kokopelli—an important being in Native American ontologies—are found in numer-

ous commercial contexts, some more offensive than others. Right: caricaturistic renditions of rock art on the 'Bushman Curios' shop in Oudtshoorn, South Africa. (Photos: Jamie Hampson and Sam Challis)

plied' (Barthes 1957; Pels 2010, 628). Arguably, this is what has happened to the multiply re-contextualised Zia sun symbol—and indeed to any 'brandable' image, Indigenous or otherwise.

Pels's argument is akin to Peircian ideals of indexing (Peirce 1955), a cornerstone of rock art and art history research—objects point to, or *reveal*, at the same time as they *conceal* something else. Here then is a sense of not only Marxist alienation but also an 'iconoclastic moment of denying the object's inherent value' (Pels 2010, 628). In other words, sacred cultural property and fetishised commodities are not always mutually exclusive—and wherever there is an image, there is always some form of iconoclastic fetishisation (Hampson 2015; see also Weiner 1992; Geismar 2013). Appadurai (1986) draws our attention to the nuances of this debate when he defnes commodities as 'vital arenas' for detecting the 'politics of value'.

The Snuneymuxw/Gabriola Island example above highlights different and often conficting perspectives on the societal role of artists. How, if at all, do the Indigenous peoples of coastal Canada and non-Indigenous societies differ in their views of art and artists? Indigenous peoples are the 'original storytellers' (Kovach 2009). For many Northwest Coast First Nation peoples, there is a long tradition of drawing upon performative and ritualistic tropes, as well as Indigenous prescriptive rules, in order to produce a 'sense of meaning' for audiences, both Indigenous and *non*-Indigenous (Roy 2010, 80). Coast Salish people, for example, associate specifc individuals with ancestral fgures, names and stories (Roth 2019, 109)—but many Coast Salish artists keep this spiritual importance private when selling artistic works to outsiders. *Within* Indigenous groups, too, it is important to remember that some individuals have greater access to spiritually important myths and artworks, depending on the individual's age, gender, status, and other factors (e.g. Brown 1988; Brown 2003; Schaafsma 2013; Roth 2019).8

As the Snuneymuxw and Nuu-chah-nulth lawyer and scholar Douglas White (2013, 643) points out, the role of Indigenous artists from the Northwest Coast of Canada has been 'nothing less than to assist in the formulation and expression of the philosophical and normative foundations underlying sovereignty and constitution of Indigenous nations'. Thus, while non-Indigenous individuals might be accustomed to the idea of artists 'breaking rules', for many Indigenous groups artists are supposed to work alongside lawmakers in order to thoughtfully and publicly express responsibilities, rights, and privileges (Roth 2019: 109).

When viewing and engaging with Indigenous symbols, then, we clearly need to go beyond Western notions of aesthetics, and the unhelpful notion of 'art-for-art's-sake'. In a new, non-Indigenous context we might consider whether we even recognise when an Indigenous rock art motif is being used out of context, or inappropriately. Roth (2019) argues that when an 'uninitiated' non-Indigenous person is confronted with an image that is clearly derived from, or indicative of, a different cultural context, there is often (but not always) a physical and psychological reaction of dissonance (see Fig. 19.4). That should not surprise us. On an emotional

<sup>8</sup>Michael Brown (1988, 198), drawing from Elizabeth Brandt (1980), who worked in the Southwest USA with Taos farming groups, argues that 'the primary motivation for closing religious knowledge to outsiders … is to prevent it from cycling back to *Pueblo* individuals who are not authorised to possess it. Strict compartmentalisation of knowledge is necessary to maintain the community's religious hierarchy and ultimately the integrity of traditional institutions, which are based on theocratic principles. Of equal importance is the conviction that in the wrong hands, religious knowledge loses its power or assumes destructive forms.' (See also Keen 1994 and Whitley 2001.)

281

level, too, it is likely that, even if for a split second only, Westerners can recognise when an Indigenous image is being used insensitively.9 Who decides, though, on what is or is not insensitive or whether or not an image is 'out of place'? Here, we would do well to remember that ethical and moral value judgements are often—some would say always bound up in power imbalances and confict-driven agendas. Moreover, it is only by considering Indigenous views and ontologies that non-Indigenous outsiders will come to better understand which re-contextualisations are more offensive or insensitive than others (Hollowell and Nicholas 2009; Nicholas 2017b).

#### **19.4 Indigenous Motifs and Sport**

Sport can be seen as a microcosm of contemporary life. Indeed, sport encompasses ideas of cultural belonging, market economies, and moral training; 'wrapped in the rhetoric of enjoyment and character building', it is 'play around consumptive behavior' and a 'privileged space' with millions of contributors generating millions of dollars of revenue (Giuliano 2013).10 Rock art images used in sport at a regional or national level are undoubtedly meant to convey, in part, a pride in that region's past (as per the 1996 South African Olympic team logo above), but such images are nonetheless taken out of context and often without consent.

In the USA, there are approximately 90 universities and 1200 high schools with Native American sports mascots (Chaney et al. 2011, 43). While these mascots rarely include direct referents to rock art, they are pertinent to discussions surrounding Indigenous identity. Despite schools and individuals claiming that these mascot symbols are intended to honour Indigenous groups (e.g. Steinfeldt et al. 2010; Turner Strong 2014), studies show that mascots are often seen as a simple refection, or equivalent, of Native Americans and their culture; that is, many non-Indigenous individuals 'perceive that AI [American Indian] mascots and AI people are one and the same' (Chaney et al. 2011: 42). Moreover, a study by the Harvard Law Review (1999) found that regardless of intent, Indigenous mascots—and team names such as 'Braves', 'Warriors', or 'Fighting Sioux'—portray Native Americans in a stereotypic, inauthentic, and insensitive manner. Indeed, other recent studies have found that the mere presence of Native American mascots in schools engender hostile learning environments for Indigenous students (Baca 2004; Fryberg et al. 2008; see also Chaney et al. 2011; Giuliano 2013).

Native Americans, like other Indigenous groups around the world, have of course been seen by European colonists as wild and dangerous (and sometimes 'noble') savages; Chaney et al. (2011, 43) contend that 'the boundary between *American Indian as human* and *American Indian as mascot* has become blurred in American culture' (see also Deloria 1998; Farnell 2004). According to Slowikowski (1993, 28), one consequence of Native American sports mascots is that they keep Indigenous people 'allegorically fxed as a kind of "cultural souvenir" preserved in the American identity; as a result, efforts to eliminate Native American mascots are sometimes seen 'by the majority [i.e. non-Indigenous] culture as an encroachment on quintessentially American tradition' (see also Davis 1993; Chaney et al. 2011). Using Native Americans as mascot symbols amounts to social control (Giuliano 2013; see also Springwood 2004; Turner Strong 2014). Non-Indians are denying the rights of Indians to express their own identity in a space free from judgement and commercialism.

In the UK, the team previously known as Exeter Rugby Football Club underwent a rebranding in 1999 to become the 'Exeter Chiefs', and included in their logo an image of a Native American dressed in a 'war bonnet'. Unsurprisingly, there have been numerous critiques of the club (Mackay and Stirrup 2013, 9–10; Herrman 2016; Pratt 2016, 2018). Although the offensive logo has recently been replaced, there is *still* a mascot named 'Big Chief', a fan website titled 'The Tribe', and a sports chant named the 'Tomahawk Chop'. The 1999 rebrand was fnancially lucrative, but David Stirrup (2013, 10) points out that this success—like almost all forms of appropriation and caricature—is made possible only by the troubling 'absence of resistance', partly because of the vague and generic nature of the appropriation (i.e. of all Native Americans, not just one specifc group). Is this Exeter example more or less problematic because the team plays in a nation (i.e. the UK) thousands of miles from the Indigenous groups whose symbol has been appropriated (i.e. Native Americans in the USA)? This is arguably a prime example of what Coll Thrush (2016) refers to as 'post-Imperial amnesia' and the 'disavowal of colonial histories'.

<sup>9</sup>Most researchers agree that it is diffcult—and perhaps impossible—to separate emotional responses from the physical (for further discussion, see e.g. Peirce 1955; Bourdieu 1993; Errington 1998; Gell 1998; Saul and Waterton 2019). In a reworking of Walter Benjamin's famous 'work of art' essay from the 1930s, Susan Buck-Morss (1992) argues that the original feld of Western aesthetics had connotations with sensory reality and emotional response: every response to an image has an emotional element. Following this, Theresa Brennan (2004, 1) developed the idea that affect is an *embodied* reaction which can be registered physiologically, psychologically, and neurologically. (For more on rock art and embodiment, and the fact that images are, once again, not simply 'decorative', see e.g. Blundell 2004 and Hampson 2016b.)

<sup>10</sup>For excellent discussions on the use of Aboriginal *wandjina* fgures/ beings in the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, see Graber 2009; Blundell and Woolagoodja 2012; Nicholas and Wylie 2012; Nicholas 2017b; Ouzman 2021. This is a rare example of the sensitive re-contextualisation of a sacred symbol carried out in partnership with Indigenous groups, with full and fair remuneration.

**Fig. 19.5** Photograph of an Australian \$10 banknote. Note the rock art motifs as well as the Morning Star Pole

#### **19.5 Indigenous Motifs and National Symbols**

There are many examples of Indigenous motifs, rock art and otherwise, appearing on bank notes, stamps, and other national symbols—including the South African coat of arms (e.g. Smith et al. 2000; Jenkins 2012; Smith 2016; Hampson and Weaver 2021), which we return to later. In Australia, Riccardo Mazzola (2020) makes clear that trials have exposed many conceptual and practical diffculties in applying Western intellectual property categories to describe and protect Indigenous artworks (see also Keen 1988, 2010; Janke 2003; Morphy 2007). In 1991, for example, Yolngu artist Terry Yumbulul commenced proceedings against the Reserve Bank of Australia because of their use of rock art and a 'likeness' of his sculpture *Morning Star Pole* on the Australian nation's bi-centennial \$10 note (Fig. 19.5).

The note's non-Aboriginal 'designer', Harry Williamson, had seen Yumbulul's *Morning Star Pole* in the Australian Museum in Sydney, and, allegedly, permission to use a likeness of the work was given by someone in the Aboriginal Artist Agency (AAA) acting on Yumbulul's behalf. Elders in the Yolngu community were appalled, and strongly asserted a communal interest in the artwork; they asserted that Yumbulul was only permitted to sell the work where it would be permanently displayed to educate the wider community about Yolngu culture (Mazzola 2020). The elders stated that authority had *not* been given to allow such an important and sacred item to be reproduced on money. In his affdavit, Yumbulul declared:

Yumbulul also embraced Western concepts of intellectual property rights and 'originality' when stating that:

The particular yam […] design is unique to me. I have not copied anyone else's version of this design. While other artists paint yam designs, I believe that my version of the yam design is unique to me. Each artist has his own interpretation of the yam story and the yam spirit […] I made it without any assistance from other person. (Mazzola 2020, 890.)

The dispute was eventually settled 'by agreement', and the judge in Darwin even noted the inadequacy of Australian copyright laws (see below for South Africa) to deal with community claims and customary laws dealing with ancestral designs (Mazzola 2020). Indeed, as the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA's) 'code of practice' makes clear, in Australia 'current copyright law does not protect rock art works that are older than 70 years from the death of the artist. Permission for reproduction of rock art or other such cultural images should be sought from appropriate local Indigenous groups or custodians.' (NAVA n.d., 112; see also Mellor and Janke 2001).

The situation in southern Africa is quite different. While in Australia there is an Indigenous Art Code (2010) as well as a national code of conduct for the marketing, sale and exhibiting of Indigenous art (NAVA n.d.; see also Pham and Janke 2009), South Africa has no such protocol specifc to art and heritage (van de Weg and Barnabas 2011, 290), except for the San Code of Research Ethics (SASI 2017) which guides current studies. Both codes, however, rely on the integrity of outsiders and are thus very diffcult to implement in legal terms (although see Schroeder et al. 2019). Perhaps the main reason is that the complicated modern mosaic of Khoe-San11 survivals and struggles today belies a simple truth: that owing to processes of contact and colonisation

I was particularly upset because I believe that the reproduction of the *Morning Star Pole* in this way was inappropriate […] It is a caricature of my culture and religion, particularly as only I have the rights to depict the designs which are shown on the Pole in that way by virtue of my Yolngu heritage. I felt that it is my Yolngu rights which have been attacked. Furthermore, I am offended from a Yolngu point of view, as I believe that it is insulting to my mother's clan for the design to be reproduced by a person who does not have rights under our Yolngu law to do so. (Mazzola 2020, 889.)

<sup>11</sup>We follow Morris (e.g. 2006) and Hollmann (2007) in their use of 'Khoe-San', hyphenated to distinguish it from the linguistic terms 'khoisan' or 'khoesan'*,* and to highlight that culturally Khoe and San can be, and often are, separate, though their material culture can be indistinguishable in the archaeological record. We reject any pejorative connotations associated with the word 'Bushman' in addition to 'San' (see Challis and Sinclair-Thomson (2022) for discussion).

there are no longer any rock art producers (Challis and Sinclair-Thomson 2022). Although Khoe-San rights are protected to varying degrees across the nations they inhabit (Angola, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa), the most immediate legal concerns are, of course, concerning land use rights (e.g. Chennels 2004). The IP of Indigenous Knowledge Systems came to the fore with the infamous Hoodia debate (Wynberg et al. 2009) but artistic IP seems non-existent for living Khoe-San, let alone a code of ethics for using ancient rock art. Thus the use of rock art in the public domain goes unchecked (cf. Dowson 1996).

Wendy van de Weg and Shanade Barnabas (2011, 289) observe that living San artists, whose modern work is separated temporally, geographically and stylistically from rock art (Guenther 2003, 95), though relatively safe in terms of copyright is nonetheless subject to the continued stereotyping of the San as childlike and close-to-nature. Their untrained and 'naïve' art is highly desirable to collectors yet (often knowingly) plays into 'discourses of primitivism':

The quandary is this: the mythologising of the contemporary art increases sales (which is benefcial to artists), but it also recreates a notion of Bushman-ness as prescribed by those dominant in society (which is detrimental to communities).

So marginalised and disenfranchised are the San/Bushmen in southern Africa (including Botswana and Namibia) that not only are they 'good' to think with in the sense that they embody indigeneity, but they are 'safe' to think with in the sense that they are virtually powerless to contest the use of ancient rock art (Barnard 2004b, 19). The new South African national coat of arms (please see Fig. 19.6), commissioned in 2000 by President Thabo Mbeki, takes San rock art as its central motif; it has certainly raised the profle of Indigenous issues in South Africa and beyond (e.g. Smith et al. 2000; Barnard 2004b; Hampson 2013, 162). The irony is that the image chosen comes from a well-known rock art panel that was removed from its mountain location by Europeans in 1917 and transported over hundreds of kilometres to be displayed, for aesthetic purposes, in Cape Town (Henry 2007). It is at once African, South African and Indigenous, 'safely' out of copyright, while the motto beneath it is written in a San language no longer spoken—that of the |Xam—so as not to favour any of the 11 extant offcial languages. In 2022, as a move towards giving voice to San descendants, the artists' collective at the Bushman Heritage Museum at Nieu Bethesda was commissioned to create an artwork referencing themes in the national coat of arms *as they see them*. It forms part of a more nuanced reading of the original rock art and coat of arms at the Origins Centre Museum at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

During the negotiations with the artists' collective, it became apparent that the traditional legal approach to commissioned artwork favours buyers at the expense of tradi-

**Fig. 19.6** The South African coat of arms and motto, created with the assistance of the Rock Art Research Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, intended to centre frst peoples, has drawn debate concerning their continued marginalisation (e.g. Barnard 2004b). Image courtesy Bureau of Heraldry, non-free media 'illustration in an educational article' gcis.gov.za

tional artists. It is commonplace that agreements for the sale of commissioned artworks include a transfer of an artist's copyright to the buyer, thus elevating Western private property rights over any collective beneft that may accrue to traditional communities.