Round heads : the earliest rock paintings in the Sahara / Jitka Soukopova.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Soukopova, Jitka, 1976-

Contributor:

George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rock paintings--Sahara.

Rock paintings.

Sahara.

Physical Description:

viii, 186 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Newcastle : Cambridge Scholars, 2012.

Summary:

The Central Sahara is considered the greatest "museum" of rock art in the world, containing several thousand prehistoric and recent images. The oldest paintings, called Round Heads, originated during a humid phase in the 10th millennium before present and they were created by dark-skinned hunter-gatherers living in the Algerian and Libyan mountains.

Rock shelters show mainly anthropomorphic figures with body paintings and other embellishments testifying ancient rituals and ceremonies. Only two animal species - antelope and mouflon - appear to be as important as men and women; mixed with them on the same walls, these animals had a fundamental place in the ideology of the period.

Since the discovery by Europeans in the 19th century, research in the Sahara has been scarce due to the difficult working conditions and to the problematic politics associated with national permissions. The rock art and the archaeology have always been treated as separated disciplines and only rarely were the paintings associated with a material culture. They have been described and classified but not interpreted because it was considered unachievable. Using interdisciplinary studies, this book approaches the previously neglected fields of the study of Saharan rock art, and it proposes new ways to research the art and the societies that created it. Book jacket.

Contents:

Chapter 1 Central Sahara: Climate and Archaeology 1

History of the research

Climatic changes in the Central Sahara

Archaeology in the Central Sahara

Excavations in the Acacus and Tassili

Chapter 2 Rock Art Styles and Chronology 25

Bubaline engravings

Kel Essuf engravings

Kettles and cupules

Round Head paintings

Pastoral paintings and engravings

Caballine and Cameline paintings and engravings

Saharan rock art chronologies

Proposed high chronology

Chapter 3 Round Head Paintings and Landscape 45

Anthropomorphic figures

Zoomorphic figures

Styles and superimpositions

Analysis of sites

Lithic industry

Chapter 4 Chronology, Origins and Evolution of the Round Head Art 63

Information from the paintings

Information from the climatic and archaeological record

Early Holocene changes: a crucial phase for rock art

Mouflon as a chronological indicator

Pottery as an artistic and chronological indicator

Possible origins of the Round Head paintings

The relationship between the Kel Essuf and Round Heads

Possible Round Heads outside the Tassili, Algerian Tadrart and Acacus

Mobility of groups and/or ideas

Final stages of the Round Heads

Arrival of Pastoral populations: evidence from rock art

Hunter-gatherers versus pastoralists: archaeology and rock art

The end of the Round Head art

Summary of the chronology

Chapter 5 Interpretation 107

Landscape and image-making

Ethnographic record indicating functions of sites and shelters

Excavations as possible indicator of sites and shelters' functions

Paintings and morphology of sites as possible indicators of their functions

Proposed shamanistic interpretation of the Round Head paintings

Do rain animals exist in the Round Head art?

Relationship between paintings and water

Importance of mouflon and antelope

Importance of body attributes

Summary of the interpretation

Chapter 6 Conclusion 154.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the George Clapp Vaillant Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781443840071

1443840076

OCLC:

800647123

Publisher Number:

99949594529