Art and Influence, Presence and Navigation in Southern African Forager Landscapes

Bibliographic Data

ID3213055
AuthorsChalli (0000-0002-9137-2680, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author), Andrew Skinner (0000-0003-2057-0265, University of the Witwatersrand)
Year2021
Volume12
Issue12
Pages1099
Publication date2021-12-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReligions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444
PublisherMDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT)
DOI10.3390/rel12121099
OpenAlexW4200121803
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited57

With earlier origins and a rebirth in the late 1990s, the New Animisms and the precipitate 'ontological turn' have now been in full swing since the mid-2000s. They make a valuable contribution to the interpretation of the rock arts of numerous societies, particularly in their finding that in animist societies, there is little distinction between nature and culture, religious belief and practicality, the sacred and the profane. In the process, a problem of perspective arises: the perspectives of such societies, and the analogical sources that illuminate them, diverge in more foundational terms from Western perspectives than is often accounted for. This is why archaeologists of religion need to be anthropologists of the wider world, to recognise where animistic and shamanistic ontologies are represented, and perhaps where there is reason to look closely at how religious systems are used to imply Cartesian separations of nature and culture, religious and mundane, human/person and animal/non-person, and where these dichotomies may obscure other forms of being-in-the-world. Inspired by Bird-David, Descola, Hallowell, Ingold, Vieiros de Castro, and Willerslev, and acting through the lens of navigation in a populated, enculturated, and multinatural world, this contribution locates southern African shamanic expressions of rock art within broader contexts of shamanisms that are animist

Dichotomy · Sketch · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

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