Weapons and Tools in Rock Art: A World Perspective

Weapons and tools are frequently found depicted in rock art in many parts of the globe and different periods and in varying social contexts. This collection of papers by leading rock art specialists examines the subjective and metaphorical value of weapons and tools in art, the actions that created them, and their contexts. It also takes into account that such representations incorporate and transmit some kind of understanding about the world and the relationship between objects and humans. Contributors analyse objects and weapons as status symbols, as evidences of cultural contacts, as ideological devices, etc. Divided into regional sections which, for once, do not focus on Scandinavia, chapters deal with the representations of weapons and certain kinds of tools (such as axes and sickles) in different prehistoric, protohistoric and traditional community contexts all over the world. Attention focuses on rock art, but also looks at stelae and statue-menhirs, as well as other kinds of ‘container’ or vehicle for this kind of depiction.

The major concern is to discuss the possible meanings of these embodied signs in different areas and periods, since meanings are permeable both to time and space. Papers either centre their attention in broader approaches based on a specific area, region or people, or focus on particular case studies.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Mar 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781789254914

Book preview

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Introduction: depiction of weapons and tools in rock art as ambivalent symbols in time and space

Ana M.S. Bettencourt, Manuel Santos-Estévez and Hugo Aluai Sampaio

The depiction of weapons and tools in rock art is a universal phenomenon found throughout the five continents, covering different chronological periods and cultural backgrounds. It reveals the different perceptions of human groups, from hunter-gatherer communities to state-run societies. It should be viewed as a complex phenomenon, where multiple interpretative approaches are more than comprehensible and acceptable.

Rock art may include engraved or painted representations and is found both in open-air rocky surfaces and rock shelters. In either case, the sites mark different places on a wider landscape.

Identification and iconographic description of rock art sites is relatively easy, through the use of adequate tools and the latest technological improvements (e.g. photogrammetry, 3D models or drones). However, their interpretation is extremely complicated and highly subjective.

The exercise of interpreting rock art sites, and the depiction of weapons and tools in particular, implies a suitable theoretical background, competences and methodological approaches, that vary according to the different lines of research or even in function of the available data. However, all these frameworks are important in order to build a wider and multivariate body of knowledge. These practices seek to explain why past societies decided to represent their ideological universe in rock outcrops and rocky shelters, and, in many cases, how and why they reused and celebrated, or even obliterated, such places, during more or less long diachronic periods.

Recent expansion in research and the availability of data on this topic, spanning different areas, including the use of different study methodologies to identify, record, analyse and interpret these places, and the need for conjoined discussion of this topic by specialists with different backgrounds, inspired the authors to organise and implement a session at the 20th International Rock Art Congress – IFRAO 2018, entitled Representations of Weapons and Tools in Prehistoric, Protohistoric and Traditional Communities: an Approach by Archaeology and Anthropology, held on 29 August 2018, in Darfo Boario Terme, Brescia, Lombardy, Italy. The session included presentations by researchers from different parts of the world: Australia, Greece, Israel, Portugal, Spain and South Africa. It compiled different perspectives, theoretical approaches, and scales of analysis (areas, regions, communities, or even specific case studies) about the same study object: weapons and tools.

On the basis of the discussions that arose during the session, participants were challenged by the organisers to publish their works with regard to broader geographical approaches and methodologies. This book results from their efforts and different contributions.

The book is divided into 14 chapters, resulting from the presentations made in the above-mentioned session and also invitations addressed to researchers from various parts of the world – from Europe to Australia, including Africa and North and South America. The absence of contributions from Asia is the result of social constraints that lie beyond the responsibility of the editors.

The structure of the book

After the Introduction (Chapter 1), this book is divided into three main parts, concerning the key methodological and general research lines of each group of contributions. Some texts clearly combine several approaches.

The different approaches can be divided among those focused on iconography (Part 1), context and iconography (Part 2) and ethnographic and documental parallels (Part 3). These are not however mutually exclusive categories, since they result from a practical need to organise the written works included in this book.

Part 1, entitled The Iconographic Approach, focuses on texts that analyse engraved and painted motifs – considering their associations, links, superimpositions, surface orientations and appearance, techniques, etc., wherein the baseline theoretical premises and objectives of each author may vary.

This part includes five texts, starting with the contribution of Patricia Dobrez (Chapter 2). Using a semiotic approach, she studies the relation between human body and artefacts in several Australian rock art sites, considering and defining two different opposite forms. One form includes ‘stencilled hands and tools’, where hands (painted in negative by blowing ink) and objects are not directly articulated. In other words, these depictions are statically represented ‘for their own sake’, although they reveal an intrinsic relationship due to their proximal positioning within the panels. The other form includes depictions of objects as extensions of body parts (where hands are absent or ‘incorporated’), indicating a ‘dynamic relationship with the human figure’ and a broadly narrative art. It is difficult to specify precise chronological dates for these productions.

Augustin F.C. Holl (Chapter 3) provides detailed analysis of rock art depictions of weapons, tools and objects from a pre-selected set of sites in Algeria and Namibia. Many representations are related to shepherding activities that reveal the idea of intentional directionality. These may include human representations, animals (both domestic and wild) and other elements, in many cases denouncing a pre-determined composition. In some cases, the presence of humans along with animals ‘appears to disrupt wildlife’, while in other cases it is clear that wildlife poses a danger to the young shepherds.

Many of these depicted scenes pretend to record ‘rites of passage and initiation ceremonies’ related to the passage from boyhood to manhood. In such scenes, each character holds a specific object that indicates its role-play in the ritual and ceremonial activity. Some depictions may also relate to matrimonial negotiations and celebrations. Representation of gender, age and status are common, identified by means of certain anthropomorphic features and the association of objects.

Migration movements related to nomadic lifestyles are also depicted – for example through the superimposition of some figures over others, denouncing structured palimpsests and ‘substitutions’. The importance of shamans is also recorded in several panels, comprising a ‘mentalscape’ that recorded ‘shamanistic gestures, events and episodes’ about the social life of a specific people – the San.

Jaâfar Ben Nasr (Chapter 4), also writing about Africa, presents a broad chronological representation of various depictions of weapons identified in central and southern Tunisia. Those manifestations cover a broad chronological timespan, from the middle of the 4th millennium BC to historical times. Unfortunately, and due to the absence of archaeological data related to rock art, the author bases his approach strictly on representations. Using the available tools, he proposes several chrono-cultural readings.

There are depictions of simple bows that appear in hunting scenes, and depictions of conflict scenes, including rectangular and rounded shields, which are sometimes decorated. Crescent-shaped shields in active and offensive contexts are also found. Representations of groups of shields could suggest some kind of cult in relation to an object that was extremely important for warriors, necessary for their protection, whose prestige indicated the holder’s social rank.

The other weapons depicted include axes – which can be used as a tool and also for hunting and warfare (as weapons) –, swords, spears, and javelins, among other objects (some of which difficult to determine). The presence of anthropomorphic figures related to these objects is recurrent. Functioning as warfare/killing objects or prestige goods for display, i.e. representing a function and/or a symbol, the depiction of weapons in hunting and war narratives reveal socio-ideological principles that help us understand local societies. The author proposes two groups of representations with different chronologies and subject matters. An older set of depictions, representing men with weapons pointed towards animals, reveal that hunting assumed an important socio-economical role. A second group, from the historical period, reflects a change in terms of the messages conveyed – showing men pointing weapons towards each other, including the handling of spears and shields, especially the latter, linked to protection. This conception seems to underline the importance of conflict and warfare in terms of social status and prestige.

Chapter 5 is written by Manuel Bea and Inés Domingo. The authors analyse the presence of weapons and other tools depicted in the rock art sites in Spain’s Levantine region. Located in the eastern Iberian Peninsula this is one of the most peculiar traditions in rock art from south-west Europe.

With a detailed examination of weapons and tools handled by human figures, the authors emphasise the possible implications of these objects for the chronological debate, which is still open to discussion. They also approach questions related to the genre attribution of some of the characters represented versus some artefacts.

Chapter 6, by Shemsi Krasniqi, reveals little-known rock art sites in Kosovo, in south-east Europe. The region includes different sets of iconographies that cover a wide timespan, from recent prehistory to the Middle Ages. Although extremely poorly documented and studied, the author believes that such motifs ‘represent the beliefs, concerns, reflections, needs, mutual connections in the community, but also the communications with the real and imaginary beings in which they believed’.

He concentrates on Zatriq rock art and the premise that the represented motifs are ideograms, considering, more objectively, the depictions of ploughs (tools) and swords (weapons). A third type, the ‘fence’, underlines the idea of protection but is clearly different from warfare scenes, that ‘stand as a metaphor for life, because having the role of protecting property, it functions as a protector of life resources’.

The depiction of a plough associated to the sun and a tree could be the ‘representation of nature in its process of seasonal revival’, reinforcing the agrarian lifestyle of the ‘artists’, displaying an agricultural lifestyle. Noticeably, the depiction of the plough and sword appears associated to vulvas (‘plough-vulva’ and ‘sword-vulva’), and the author considers that both symbols may be seen as a ‘metaphor for life’, ‘given their practical function as well as symbolic representation’. However, the link between a vulva and a sword does not seem to be a coincidence, since the ‘sword is a weapon, but it has become a symbol not only of life, but also of security, domination, prestige and power’. Such relations lead the author to chronologically propose a prehistoric origin to these items. Lastly, the depiction of fences, again associated with agrarian societies, also appears to be linked to the vulva. Since the purpose of the fence is to protect property, its association with a vulva in the first pillar may be intended to transform the fence into a ‘symbol of protection of wealth, the food base of the community’, also serving as ‘the metaphor of life’. This hypothesis is also rooted in local ethnographic ceremonies related to fertility rituals that even today are practiced every year in Zatriq rock art, making it possible to establish and reinforce ties between the past and present.

Lastly, Ulf Bertilsson, in Chapter 7, focuses on the depiction of different types of weapons and warriors and their chronology, with the aid of 3D recordings. His approach to rock art and the presence of weapons in Sweden considers a rupture in terms of the depiction of weapons and warriors, since it ‘must have been caused by something new in society’. One of the possible reasons is the emergence of metalworking during the 2nd millennium BC, which led to increasing development of warrior ideologies and inherent displays of power and prestige goods.

In many cases, the types of objects and the superimpositions and relations between different motifs makes it possible to position them more accurately over time. Swords, spears, axes, shields, helmets and bows and arrows appear among the represented weapons. These are commonly associated to human figures participating in warfare scenes. On the basis of the superimpositions and relations between different motifs (mainly between spears and humans carrying other warrior items that were added later) the author considers that the spears and axes are the oldest depictions, although distributed in different geographic locations. Swords, most of which are depicted as being sheathed, are extremely difficult to classify, and archers are rarely represented.

According to the geographical dispersion of the warfare scenes, the author concludes that their abundance in certain regions (such as Bohuslän) indicates the existence of peripheral areas to the phenomena (such as Ångermanland). Above all, it is important to underline that the strategic positioning in pivotal rock art sites ‘and areas of near sea contact is a clear reflection of the far-reaching network of metal and weapon trading during the Bronze Age’.

Part 2, entitled The Contextual Approach, is divided into three chapters, all covering European contexts, where the ethnographic tradition associated with rock art is less expressive. The authors chose to study the engraved motifs in certain contexts (both physical or constructed), taking as their point of departure, which is permanently (re)constructed, results from the dialogue between human agency and the environment over time (Ingold 2000). As such, the positioning of the engraved rocky outcrops is never randomly selected and observes social and ideological codes, incorporating meanings and feelings, values and memories that can be interpreted. The interlinking between the landscape and animistic powers (Bradley 2000; Gosden 2009) was also considered by some of the authors.

Chapter 8, by Rosa Barroso Bermejo, Primitiva Bueno-Ramírez and Rodrigo de Balbín-Behrmann, focuses on the symbols identified in megalithic funerary monuments from the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). Considering different scales of analysis, the authors consider the places selected to build the monument, their architectural features and the ‘decorated panels’ (orthostats). These monuments commonly include offerings of objects underlining the character of the deceased, but can also show rock art, including depictions of weapons. The use and reuse of many of these monuments reveal a wider presence of representations of weapons over time, from the regional Neolithic to the Bronze Age. Such an approach therefore valorises the types of depicted weapons, their distribution within the monument, their positioning in the ‘panels’ and their interrelations with other represented motifs. If ‘weapon-tools’ can combine a practical function and a socio-symbolic meaning and value, their depiction can also indicate similar features. According to a set of recent collected data identified in these structures, it may be possible to envisage ‘the transition from a personified collectiveness to a personification of individuals: identities renewed through objects of power’.

Several weapons are displayed, such as boomerangs/crooks, axes, knives, daggers, swords, spears, shields and bows. The scenes where they appear can reflect defensive and offensive uses of weapons, which may be connected to warfare. However, some of them – such as axes, daggers or bows – are blurred with a hypothetical domestic character, eventually related to hunting, farming or husbandry. In some cases, weapons are evidently associated to human representations and seem to ‘form part of the symbolic processes of the use of the past’.

In Chapter 9, Manuel Santos-Estévez approaches his analysis of rock art with the purpose of postulating certain hypotheses related to some of the objectives and meanings of the depiction of weapons. He analyses depictions of halberds and daggers in south-west Galicia, in north-west Spain, from the premise that there are two main compositions in these depictions: weapons in active and passive positions. The former shows their edges pointed upward, and may be related to parades or communal encounters, revealing a central positioning over the territory, but without including human representations. In fact, humans could be metonymically present. The latter, with their edges pointed downward, or engraved in horizontal surfaces, may metaphorically represent metal depositions. Based on these ideas, the author proposes two patterns of spatial positioning. In the first case, the features of the rock art sites could correspond to aggregation/meeting places. In the second case, due to the visibility and access to coastline, they may be linked to maritime routes.

Chapter 10, by Ana M.S. Bettencourt, focuses on the representations of halberds in open-air rock art sites in the north-west Iberian Peninsula (Galicia in Spain and the north of Portugal). Her approach values contextual and landscape archaeological theoretical premises, compared with the cultural and physical contextualisation of these places, including paleoenvironmental evidence available for the early Bronze Age in this region.

Since halberds can naturally be seen as both weapons and the prestigious display of goods, the author aims to consider the social and symbolic role of such objects and their depictions in rock art, and argues that their location was not randomly selected. In this sense, halberds may represent a kind of propaganda of a new ideological discourse, tending to reinforce the physical appropriation of the ancestors’ territories by Early Bronze Age populations. Due to their location on natural borders, positioned between hilltops and valleys (that could be seen from these rock art sites), and also due to their association with well-irrigated places (pools, water springs, etc.), such sites may represent contact with the underworld, mnemonically symbolising the world as a whole, wherein some of them become a true axis mundi. Their permanent association with water may be explained by the necessity of its real and symbolic control, and also its celebration, during a period when the climate was drier and warmer than the rest of the 3rd millennium BC. This paleoenvironmental evidence suggests that it had once again become possible to access higher altitudes, to perform multiple activities.

The loci with engraved weapons with the end of the blade pointed, usually more imposing, and in others positions, less impressive in the landscape, would materialise different places and ceremonies, although both complementing themselves, in the context of the propaganda of a new power ideology, both religious and secular, evoking and celebrating different properties and spirits that inhabit the world.

Part 3, entitled The Ethnographic and Historical Approach, encompasses texts that assume rock art sites were used and reused and interpreted and reinterpreted, in many times still persisting in the local imaginary universe through the connection to folklore and legends, in accordance with what Feld and Basso (1996) have called ‘sense of place’. As an interpretative tool, it is therefore possible to establish connections between living and past communities, as has been proposed by many authors (e.g. Halbwachs 1992 and Connerton 1989). This part also includes works that articulate old texts with rock art, as an interpretative procedure.

This part begins with Chapter 11, by David S. Whitley. It contemplates an overview of ethnographic rock art in western North America, from the Paiute and Shoshone (Great Basin), which is interpreted as combining iconography and a selected ethnographic repertoire collected from local populations. Using this methodology, the author considers that the symbolic meaning of rock art, including weaponry, served esoteric uses, linked to supernatural spirits and powers, with at least 1500 years of continuity.

The starting point for Chapter 12, by Daniel Castillo Benítez and María Susana Barrau is an inventory of rock art identified in the Chicama, Moche and Viru river valleys (Peru). According to archaeological and ethnographic analyses, of cases such as the Queneto site, strong evidence suggests the existence of a pilgrimage centre rooted in Andean societies that still persists today.

The careful selection of rock surfaces was used to record ‘mythology, boundaries and power’, which show the representation of opposite and complementary mythological forces (duality), in many cases including examples of attributes of power (weapons), underlining a social reproduction of identity and dominant ideologies. Rock art also seems to mark the beginning or end of ceremonial trails, which could be related to territorial boundaries and social interregional interactions and exchanges, established between communities from highland and lowland areas. The depiction of religious characters, or shamans, may be part of some processes of petrification of mythological or real heroes or ancestors.

In Chapter 13, Brent Sinclair-Thomson focuses on the depiction of weapons that ‘inspired and framed so many of the beliefs that were applied to firearms’ as well ‘as the meaning of hunter-gatherer rock art in southern Africa’. He analyses bows and arrows known from archaeological and historical sources in order to evaluate their role in material culture, including in rock art representation.

The content of such rock art productions reveals ‘a physical manifestation of religious thought and practice’ based on shamanistic conceptions. After a detailed approach to some of the issues related to bow-and-arrow chronologies, materials and uses, the author points out the representation of arrow-headdresses in rock art panels depicting groups of bandits, sometimes appearing to be associated to cattle or, in other cases, in hypothetical conflict scenes. Underlining that African rock art is imbued with an extreme ritualised character, such representations may ‘be depictions of ritual specialists with their supernaturally-charged bows and arrows influencing the outcome of conflict and stock raids’, and therefore the depiction of warriors recorded for eternity in the stone serves as a kind of protective measure.

Alessandra Bravin, in Chapter 14, addresses the rock art sites found in the mountains of Atlas, in Morocco, focusing on the site of Tizi ‘n Tirghyist (south of Tarbat n’Tirsal). For the proposed interpretations, the author recurs to archaeological parallels and also a critical valorisation of historical manuscripts.

The four main typologies of represented motifs are anthropomorphs, zoomorphs, weapons and others. The significance of weapons in the Jabel Rat rock art is shown by the variability and richness of the Bronze Age typologies depicted, that include knives, swords, halberds, axes, shields and points. Much of these weapons have parallels with similar objects recovered in the Iberian Peninsula. There are also local productions. Revealing the acquisition of expertise by local populations to produce these objects, the author focuses on two main types of weapons: shields and points. The shields, primarily interpreted as depictions of the sun, were later understood to be objects for protection in conflict, and in many occasions are decorated. Points belong to the representations of spears and are associated to round decorated shields, but none of these objects are handled by human figures.

A second rock art period, subsequent to the Bronze Age, includes depictions of horsemen and foot soldiers that were added to panels that already included shields and points. The represented scenes primarily indicate warfare, including narratives of battles where weapons ‘are particularly well made, which is rare in this phase’, contrary to rare hunting practices.

In Chapter 15, Stella Pilavaki focuses on rock art representations of weapons and tools in northern Greece. Methodologically, the author combines both structured and semiotic approaches with phenomenological and historical research lines. In this sense, she argues that weapons, tools and sun depictions related to anthropomorphic figures are meant to establish connections to fertility, hunting, celestial cults and warfare.

Women in childbirth positions, associated to agricultural tools and hypothetical depictions of calendars, link fertility to agricultural work and good crops, in many cases also including engravings of ploughs and agricultural implements. Hunting, especially of deer, was not only a way to afford meat and raw materials (antlers, skin, bones), but was also a noble activity, to achieve prestige and respect. The magical depiction of arrows seems to underline the importance of communication between the earth and the sky, a metaphor of the celestial ascent, perpetrated by chains of arrows, a belief identified in other cultures outside Europe. Warfare is represented by several types of different weapons and its congregation in specific places suggests warrior rites.

In some cases, there is also the relation with representations of the sun, and the location of such engraved panels, on mountain tops, indicate an even clearer metaphorical proximity to the sky. On the other hand, the depiction of warrior rites may also have functioned as a strategy of ‘transmitting the mythico-ideological structures’ and ‘warrior identity’ to younger members of society.

Concluding remarks

The different lines of research of this book show that the topic of rock art is rather complex and part of the present theoretical discussion agenda in archaeology, since it continually raises further questions according to new methodological and theoretical approaches that researchers are currently implementing.

However, this book also claims the importance of rock art (in this specific case, the depiction of weapons and tools) as a relevant source for the study of past societies. It is clear that such studies suggest new topics for forthcoming reflection and discussion. Between the several topics that can be enunciated, we underline the study of social structures; the strategies of ostentation and display of prestige, such as the maintenance and propaganda of power; intercommunal relations; questions related to identity; ideological universe; typologies of artefacts and weapons used in different chronological periods, regions, societies and historical contexts; ways of handling and different interactions of communities with the physical and cultural environment surrounding them.

It is important to remember that it is impossible to generalise the meanings of these depictions, given their ambivalent character. This is something we should always bear in mind, sometimes even within the societies in which they occur. Such limitations should not be seen as barriers, but instead serve to increase interest in rock art, further enhancing the discussion, and making this a current and relevant topic.

List of references

Bradley, R. 2000. An Archaeology of Natural Places, London and New York: Routledge.

Connerton, P. 1989. How Societies Remember, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Feld, S. and Basso, K.H. 1996. Senses of Place, Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press.

Gosden, C. 2009. ‘Afterword’, in B. O’Connor, G. Cooney & J. Chapman (eds), Materialitas. Working Stone, Carving Identity (Prehistoric Society Research Paper 3), Oxford: The Prehistoric Society/Oxbow Books, 181–4.

Halbwachs, M. 1992. On Collective Memory (edition and translation: L.A. Coser), Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Ingold, T. 2000. The Perception of the Environment: Essays in Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, London: Routledge.

Part 1. The Iconographic Approach

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The picturing of weapons, tools and other objects at Australian stencilled and painted rock art sites

Patricia Dobrez

Introduction

In order to comprehend what drives the representation of objects in rock art it is necessary to attend to the human body and the manner in which it functions in the world. Indeed, a body-centred approach is suggested by rock art panels whose stencilled images picture the link between bodies and implements through a juxtaposition of hands and objects (Fig. 2.1), and even more emphatically by dynamic figures showing the use of a weapon or tool, as illustrated by this painted example from South Africa of a hunter with his bow and arrow directed towards an eland (Fig. 2.2). Once we begin to focus on images of weapons and tools of one kind or another, not neglecting adornments like headdresses, bags and other items, it becomes clear that paraphernalia of identifiable kinds are ubiquitous in rock art. The opportunities such images present for rock art researchers to compare pictures with dated objects found in the archaeological record are readily taken up with the intention of amplifying our understanding of the identities and cultures of hypothesised societies. With its ecological rather than cultural emphasis, the present chapter takes a different approach by concentrating on what is universally involved in the situation of mark-making. Given the availability of ochre, an instrument, and suitable surface, what comes into play when humans make marks to represent objects? What of a bio-and ecological nature facilitates picture-making and what is the result?

There are of course many considerations, but the one I wish to bring into focus here is the neuro-physiological fact of a sense all healthy humans possess of their own position and movement and how this manifests in both descriptive (as I hope to demonstrate in the case of stencilled objects) and narrative rock art (i.e. dynamic compositions we would label ‘scenes’). This automatic modelling of our body’s relationship with the world is studied by physiologists, neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists under the heading of ‘proprioception’ – as well as numerous other encapsulations of a ‘sensing’ that is not local but ‘distributed throughout the body’ (Tuthill and Azim 2018, 194). These include: ‘body representation’, ‘body schema’, ‘body map’, Aristotle’s ‘common sensible’, ‘body consciousness’, ‘somatopsyche’, ‘body awareness’ (Gallagher 1986, 542–4; de Vignemont et al. 2006, 159–60; Corradi-Dell’Acqua and Rumati 2007, 50).

In an article that sets out to clarify terminology, Gallagher (1986) offers the following definition of his preferred expression ‘body schema’: that it is ‘a non-conscious performance of the body’. Gallagher (1986, 548) further elucidates:

In this performance the body acquires a certain organisation or style in relation with its environment. For example, it appropriates certain habitual postures and movements; it incorporates various significant parts of its environment into its own schema. The carpenter’s hammer becomes an operative extension of the carpenter’s hand, or as Head (1920) noted, the body schema extends to the feather in the woman’s hat (see Gorman 1969, 15).

In other words, it ‘is the way that the body experiences its environment’ (Gallagher 1986, 548). In what follows I shall be employing the terminology of ‘proprioception’ as used in neuro-physiological discussion (for an historical account of the development of the notion see Proske and Gandevia 2012), and ‘body schema’, as defined by Gallagher, and widely encountered in cognitive psychology (see Knoblich et al. 2006a). The relevance of these related concepts to two types of rock art depiction and the way meaning is established through either the imagistic suppression of information about proprioceptive incorporation of an object like a weapon, tool, or some form of adornment (cf. Gallagher’s hammer and hat) or, alternatively, through a celebration of it, will be elucidated in what follows.

Figure 2.1. Milbrodale Shelter panel (near Singleton, New South Wales, Australia), showing stencilled hands, boomerangs, and axes.

Figure 2.2. Detail of San hunter figure, Zaamenkomst panel (image courtesy of Iziko South African Museum, Cape Town, South Africa).

Defining tool use

In recent years discussions of tool use have moved in two directions: 1) tool use by animals (for example, the New Caledonian crow); 2) human body awareness and the incorporation of prostheses, implements, clothes, etc. Both developments are impacting on our notion of a ‘tool’ with our understanding of tool use being given new clarity through explorations of the phenomenon of ‘proprioceptive incorporation’ of external objects or the ‘remapping’ of body representations. All animals have the proprioceptive sense that tells them where they are positioned in the world. Since this sense is organised by body shape, human proprioception is determined sui generis by bipedality and the distinctive functioning of a hand that grasps.

Museum ethnographic collections, dictionaries, encyclopaedias – and in rock art studies, site surveys and documentation of motifs – have all contributed to an artefacts-centred way of approaching objects, including pictured ones. Classification and description of things, essential for comparative analysis of found objects and the mapping of their distribution, tends to overlook their relationship with agents. But nothing can be clearer than the fact that with no bowman there is no ‘bow’, no axeman no ‘axe’. In the case of weapons and tools, where there is no body to use such objects, there can be no claim that they are weapons or tools. If we accept the management of fluids as an example of tool use allowed by Beck (1980), Duchamp’s urinal (Fountain 1917) may be cited to illustrate the division between an object for use and an object in itself. Once it is in the art gallery, and we cease to manage our fluids by using it, it is no longer a urinal. For the purposes of understanding cultures, a focus on use in addition to appearance enables visualisations of human behaviour otherwise closed.

In the case of weapons and tools images recorded at rock art sites around the world we find both these approaches: an interest in the object for its own sake, separated from use, and a preoccupation with bodies engaged in using weapons and tools – of course, utensils too, such as bags and baskets. It should be remarked by the way that, since we have begun to identify historical gender bias in rock art studies following the reflexive turn in archaeology and anthropology, researchers are currently paying attention to a wider spectrum of stencilled and depicted objects. Of course we also need to acknowledge that the rock art itself is gendered and that in many instances the choice of weapons and tools as subjects will reflect a male warrior culture, although we need to be cautious about such readings, and not assume a cut-and-dried division of labour (Fig. 2.3).

In view of the relationship that exists between weapons and tools and their users, it is not surprising that archaeologists and ethologists have put the emphasis on ‘tools use’, rather than on objects in isolation. This is the approach of the much-quoted foundational theorist, zoologist Ben Beck (1980, 10) who, finding an adequate definition of ‘animal tool behaviour’ to be absent from the literature, famously set out to provide one:

The user must hold or carry the tool during or just prior to use and must establish the proper and effective orientation between the object and the incentive. The incentive includes alteration of the form, position, or condition of another object, or another organism, or the user itself.

When specifically considering objects used in fighting or predation Beck rejects an earlier distinction made by ‘major reviewers’ between agonistic and non-agonistic tool use (Beck 1980, 119–20), arguing that there is no point in separating objects employed in aggression from other kinds of tools where precise descriptions can be made of ‘functions to extend the user’s reach, amplify the mechanical force that the user can exert on the environment, enhance the effectiveness of the user’s display behaviors, or increase the efficiency with which the user can control fluids’ (Beck 1980, 122). An Australian Aboriginal ‘coolamon’ would be an example of this last category since one of its uses is to carry water.

Figure 2.3. Detail from Alexander Schramm (1850), Adelaide, a Tribe of Natives on the Banks of the River Torrens, displaying contact items including the newly introduced steel axe (Public Domain).

Beck’s (1980) definition has been discussed many times since the publication of his book Animal Tool Behavior. In ‘Revisiting the definition of animal tool use’, for example, St Amant and Horton (2008, 1207) see their contribution as focusing on ‘a description of the properties of behaviour that are centrally associated with tool use’. This allows them to take their definition beyond the idea of an extension of a tool user’s control over the environment to interactive communication as described in Beck’s example of a gorilla employing a sapling to repel an intruder (St Amant and Horton 2008, 1204). A broader dimension is opened up in the discussion of tool use in disciplines investigating body awareness ‘from the inside out’, as the subtitle of a major book of essays characterises the new conversation (Knoblich et al. 2006a).

In an environment where cognitive psychology and neurophysiology can make significant contributions to our understanding