RASSA (Rock Art Scotland and South Africa): working with local communities to record and...
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2023-04-17

Jon Henderson (University of Edinburgh) & Sam Challis (University of 
Witwatersrand)

People in rural communities, especially in post-apartheid South Africa, are seldom able to 
contribute to archaeological projects that are essentially investigations of their own past. There 
are hundreds of rock paintings and engravings in the subcontinent, many of them on traditional, 
communally owned land and in difficult, high mountain terrain. They are often overlooked as 
unimportant because they are not sufficiently valorized in the public eye. The Rock Art 
Scotland and South Africa (RASSA) pilot project was implemented to redress this problem. 
The approach taken was to stimulate effective change in the way that local community groups 
view and value their own heritage, how they present rock art sites to visitors and how this 
activity can create economic and social opportunities with a focus on how rock art sites can be 
safeguarded for future generations. The project set out to achieve 1) the archaeological research 
goal of locating rock art sites, 2) recording of sites by local groups using accessible digital 
photogrammetry and 3) the heritage management goal of valorising rock art, partly through 
income generation. These challenges were addressed by consulting with local communities and 
putting together a team of local Field Technicians, equipped with low-cost rock art 
enhancement software, and remunerating them for their time. This is what happened.