7.1.4

Good afternoon, every one. This is the first seminar in preparation for our archaeological fieldwork in Namibia.

We are fantastically luck to have received partial research funding for this trip from my Institute, so I shall expect 200% attention and participation from you all.

First in this seminar, I’m going to give a brief introduction to contemporary research on rock art, and in the second part, I’m going to give you some do’s and don’ts for our fieldwork trip in April - so, please, listen very carefully.

I’m first going to focus on the interpretation of rock art on Namibia.

We are very fortunate to be going to an areas where you can find some of the most important sites in the entire world.

And I hope to show you how easy it is everyone to make mistakes in looking at cultures which are different from our own– the first and most important lesson we have to learn.

In Namibia, there both paintings and engravings, that’s where the surfaces of the rocks is cut out.

Many of the engraving show footprint of animals and most scholars used to think that the purpose of these was simple and obvious:

These rock art was like a school book with pictures to teach children about tracks: which tracks belonged to which animal -giraffe, lion and so on.

But there were some mysteries.

First, when you look at a typical Namibia painting or engraving, you see the tracks are repeated, there are dozens of the tracks for the same animal.

You’d expect just one clear illustration of the reason - the aim - was to teach tracking.

Now, there were two more problems.

Why are some of engravings animals very accurate as you’d expect - all clearly you identifiable, and others quite unrealistic.

And another mysteries, some of these unrealistic animals - that’s engravings- seem to be half human.

Some, for example, have got human faces.

Many researchers now think that these were pictures the wise men engraved of themselves.

They believed they could use magic to control the animals they had drawn, so the hunters could then catch them for food.

These shows you some of dangers of coming from one culture to another, as we’ll be doing, without understanding it fully.

Scholars imagined the children looked at rock art pictures to learn to track - just because they themselves had learnt skill from pictures;

Many researchers now believe that rock art had a much more complex purpose.

And we’ll talk more about that next week.

Now, before I invite you to join in a discussion in this second part of the seminar, I’d like to make some very important point about our fieldwork- and in fact any field trip to look at rock art.

We are going to a number of sites, and we won’t always be together.

The single largest problem faced by people who manage the sites is- yes, I sure you’ve guessed - damage caused by visitors, even though it’s usually unintentional.

Whenever you do go to a site, don’t forget you can learn many things from observing at a distance, instead of walking all over it.

This can really help to reduce visitor pressure.

People often say ‘well, there’s only two of us and just this one time’, but maybe thousands of people are saying the same things.

And then, some basic rules to guide you- we’ll have our own camp near a village, but remember never to camp on a site if you go on your own.

It maybe disrespectful to people of that culture, and certainly don’t make a fires, however romantic it may seem.

It’s really dangerous in dry areas, and you can easily burn priceless undiscovered material by doing so.

So, how are we going to enjoy the rock art on our field trip?

By looking at it, drawing it and photographing it- never by touching it or even tracing it.

Rock art is fragile and precious.

Remember that climbing on rocks and in caves can destroy in a moment what has lasted for centuries.

So, no heroics in Namibia, please.

Try to be extra careful and help others to be too.

And lastly, please don’t even move rocks or branches to take photographs -you should leave the site intact- I’m sure I can rely on you to do that.

Well, that’s about all I want to say before today’s first discussion.

But if you have any questions please ask now.

And don’t forget you’ll find some fascinating information about world-wide sites on the Internet.

Right, first question then?