An animist shamanism: the world behind San Rock Art
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 2023-04-14

Sam Challis (University of Witwatersrand) & Andrew Skinner (University of South Africa)

Hunter-gatherer cosmology in southern Africa is very clearly multinatural; persons human and 
non-human working to behave intelligibly to each other so that relations are brokered and 
maintained. Until recently, however, rock art interpretations have implied a physical division 
between realms animal and human, spiritual and mundane. Ironically, the dominant paradigm 
was founded on the principle that the images did not represent everyday life. The New 
Animisms have offered up a palette of colours with which to paint a new picture of San rock 
art, one which emphasises negotiation-as-navigation, social topographies and the ontological 
consequences of place, position, and perspective. Instead of showcasing shamans’ power, it 
transpires that images were rather made to broker ‘proper’ relations between entities on a 
shared landscape.