Envisioning San History
Problems in the Reading of History in the Rock Art of the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2137643 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Benjamin W Smith, Benjamin Smith (0000-0003-1215-4093, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Volume | 69 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 345-359 |
| Publication date | 2010-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-0184 • E-ISSN: 1469-2872 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00020184.2010.499205 |
| OpenAlex | W2144741259 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 21 |
| References cited | 29 |
This article considers what Geoff Blundell has called the 'Holy Grail of southern African rock art research' (2004:63): the vision of a South African history, based not on outsider colonial records, but on the insider evidence of rock art. It reviews two decades of research aimed at historicising our understanding of the rock art of the Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains and discusses the extent to which this work has provided the kind of histories 'owned by the San' that were called for by Aron Mazel in 1992 (see quote below). Has this work sought the unattainable, a Holy Grail, or does it open the door to more inclusive writings on the past
Archaeology · Colonialism · Geography · Holy Grail · Insider · Political science · Reading (process · Rock art · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · History · Law · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
Sangbor Petroglyphs in Bavanat County, Southern Iran
‘Waste-howling wilderness’
Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers and herders
Contributions of a Heritage Values-based Approach to Rock Art Management. Lessons from the Maloti-Drakensberg World Heritage Site, South Africa
Paint and Earth
Fluidities of personhood in the idioms of the Maloti-Drakensberg, past and present, and their use in incorporating contextual ethnographies in southern African rock art research
Outlaws, Anxiety, and Disorder in Southern Africa
Telling impressions
Identity Through Iteration
An Archaeological Contribution to the Kalahari Debate from the Middle Limpopo Valley, Southern Africa
The Many Meanings of “Integration”
Collections, Collecting and Collectives
Owning the Body, Embodying the Owner
The ‘Interior World’ of the Nineteenth-Century Maloti-Drakensberg Mountains
Cloaks and torsos
Things of the outside teach me
Towards a holistic approach to heritage values
Digital technologies in context
Art and Influence, Presence and Navigation in Southern African Forager Landscapes
The Impact of Contact and Colonization on Indigenous Worldviews, Rock Art, and the History of Southern Africa
Smoking Around the Campfire
Contested images
Images of power
The Archaeology of Southern Africa
Insiders and Outsiders
Art And Agency
Reading the Past
The Evolution of Theory, Method and Technique in Southern African Rock Art Research
Rock art and Natal Drakensberg hunter–gatherer history
Changing fortunes of Southern African archaeology
Southern African San Rock Painting as Social Intervention
Images of Power
Melikane and Upper Mangolong Revisited
Rock Paintings of the Drakensberg
Southern African Archaeology in the 1990s
Dancing with Two Sticks
Let's Walk before We Run
The Economic and Social Context of Southern San Rock Art [and Comments and Reply]
The impact of the horse on the AmaTola ‘bushmen
Like people in prehistory
Reading art, writing history
Images of war
Changing fortunes
Rock Paintings in South Africa
Symbiotic Interaction Between Black Farmers and South-Eastern San
Rock painting of horses in north-eastern orange free state
| Unique citing works | 21 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,62 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |