SEMINAR: Archaeology Seminar Series 2017

Rock art motifs are appropriated and recontextualised in many different ways. Sacred images end up as integral parts of national and state symbols; in new artistic media; on the covers of academic journals and monographs; on T-shirts, trinkets, and other tat; and in many other contexts worldwide. Both on and off the rocks, Indigenous rock paintings and engravings are powerful tools that can be and are used to shape, manipulate, and challenge cultural and socio-political identities. In this talk, I present results from recent archival- and field-work in Canada, the USA, Scandinavia, southern Africa, and Australia. I also consider heritage centres concerned with job creation, promoting community archaeology, and – above all – challenging visitors’ preconceptions of rock art and of the Indigenous peoples who made it.