Rock art in the Northern Cape

283 Pages·2012·22 MB·English

by  David Morris

Rock art

in the Northern Cape:
the implications of variability
in engravings and paintings
relative to issues of
social context and change
in the precolonial past

by

David Roger Neacalbánn McIntyre Morris

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of Philosophiae Doctor in the Department of
Anthropology and Sociology, University of the Western Cape.

November 2011

& February 2012

Supervisor: Professor A.J.B. Humphreys
I declare that

Rock art in the Northern Cape: The implications of variability in engravings
and paintings relative to issues of social context and change in the precolonial
past

is my own work, that it has not been submitted for any degree or examination
in any other university, and that all the sources I have used or quoted have
been indicated and acknowledged by complete references.

Full name:

Signed:

Date:
i
I dedicate this thesis to

my wife Noeleen
and sons Jonathan and Benjamin

and

to the memory of my parents
Harold Roger and Norah Cecilia Morris
ii
ABSTRACT

This thesis follows and builds upon a previous study at the rock engraving site of
Driekopseiland (Morris 2002). The earlier findings are here contrasted with another

site in the area, namely Wildebeest Kuil, as a means to highlight the variability which
is a feature of the rock art of the Northern Cape as a whole. The main thrust of the
thesis, which refers to a number of other rock art sites in the region, is to model the
implications of this variability relative to social context and history in the precolonial
past. Significant empirical obstacles, particularly the difficulties associated with dating
rock art, render some aspects of the enterprise intractable for the time being. But
opportunities are pursued to advance and evaluate ideas as to the social
mechanisms and processes which might be implicated in the making and re-making
of images on rock and in the generation of the diversity that is manifest in the rock art
as it is found today. Whereas other approaches have tended to explain difference
relative to social entities such as ‘cultures’ or ‘ethnic groups’, this thesis offers, as a
point of departure, a critique of received concepts, reconsidering some of the
fundamental metaphors and assessing the elaboration of analogies that have been
used in the past. It proposes that better theoretical footholds might be those that
explain variability relative to process and movement. It invokes Tim Ingold’s concept
of a meshwork of dynamic relationships of people immersed in the world, of
‘entanglements’ that refer to multiple mechanisms that might explain how rock art has
changed in place and time. The pertinence of these ideas is shown with reference to
specific instances in the Northern Cape.

As a parallel weave in this study, there is a concern over the social role of
archaeology, with discussion on the burgeoning salience of rock art beyond the
academy, in the heritage and tourism sectors and amongst descendants of the Khoe-
San. The thesis gives consideration to the role of museums and research in terms of
“heritage in practice,” and seeks to develop a discourse in which, following Alexander,
“everything can be perceived as changing and changeable” – an underlying theme
throughout the study.

The thesis does not bring empirical closure to the topic but suggests a programme for
future engagement, having opened up and shown the relevance of wider theoretical
insights for addressing the variability in the rock art of the Northern Cape.

iii
Co ntents

Chapter Page

Declaration i
Dedication ii
Abstract iii
Table of contents iv
Lists of Figures and Plates vi
Acknowledgements ix

I Representations 1
Rock art and its contexts 1
Initial concerns: beyond emics and etics 6
Previous work: picking up the threads 9
Chapter outline 12
Praxis, approximations and world-making 16
Heritage in practice 22
What is heritage good for? 24

II All things flow: rock art and its settings 32
Nature: “inherently and intensely political” 37
Rock art 46
Landscape setting 52
Hills and plains and the rivers running through 52
Rain 55
Plants 63
Animals 65

III Theoretical footholds 69
Metaphors 73
Culture, society and the conception of social cohesion 82
Nature versus culture 88
The quest to be “true enough” 93

IV Knowledge and “the vicissitudes of history” 95
Embedded activity 95
An emergent understanding of Northern Cape rock art 99
The “either-or” approach 101
The fixing of categories and stereotypes 104
New concerns: the roles of ethnicity and culture 109
A hundred years after Specimens 116
Analogy 120

iv
V Encountering rock art in the landscape of the Northern Cape 132

In the landscape 135
‘Sites’ 140

Zones of entanglement 141
Palimpsests 144

End times 148
Implicating the archive 155
Connections in regions 158
Connections through time 167
Images and variability 171
Geometric rock art – entoptics, non-entoptics and
a Khoekhoen rock art tradition 177
‘Fusion’ or response to complexity? 181
Driekopseiland revisited 184
Ubiety 194
Wildebeest Kuil 195
Contrasting entanglements 204
Rock paintings 206
Summing up 208

VI Powerful places revisited 210
Change and continuity 210
Aggregation or territoriality? 216
On thinking through variability in the rock art of the Northern Cape 223
In conclusion 231

Bibliography 235

v
List of Figures and Plates

Figures

Figure 1. Map. The principal places mentioned in the text. 3

Figure 2. Climate zones: the study area falls within the semi-arid 56
plateau characterised by cool dry winters and hopt summers with
variable rainfall (after Atlas of Southern Africa, Reader’s Digest
1984:19).

Figure 3. Flow cycle of the Orange River at Bethulie reflecting a 58
pattern probably similar to that of the Vaal and Riet/Modder under
natural conditions, showing stronger late summer and spring flow
in response to rainfall and flow reduction in the dry months (after
Atlas of Southern Africa, Reader’s Digest 1984:20).

Plates

Plate 1. A view from the crest of the hill at Wildebeest Kuil showing 14
the site’s proximity to pans.

Plate 2. One of the well-known images from Wildebeest Kuil. 14

Plate 3. View of Driekopseiland, situated on glaciated andesite in 15
the bed of the Riet River.

Plate 4. Driekopseiland, situated on glaciated andesite in the bed 15
of the Riet River.

Plate 5. Some of the more than 3500 ‘geometric’ images 16
characteristic of the Driekopseiland engravings.

Plate 6. The breaking up of the glacially striated surfaces at 33
Nooitgedacht – in this case part of the image of a hippo has been
lost.

Plate 7. Google Earth image of the landscape near Driekopseiland: 39
roads, fence-lines, centre-pivot irrigation along the Riet, and alluvial
diamond mining in the vicinity of Schutsekamma are recent
histories congealed in highly visible impacts.

Plate 8. Driekopseiland under water, March 2011. 59

Plate 9. Flood aftermath – unusual late summer rains in 2011 59
pushed the flood level over the top of the +15 m bank (indicated by
vi
arrow).

Plate 10. Rock engravings at Nooitgedacht under flood waters, 60

February 2010.

Plate 11. Late afternoon rain in the Karoo. 63

Plate 12. Scraped engraving of gemsbok, Grootkolk, Upper Karoo. 151

Plate 13. Scraped engraving of eland, Springbok Oog – the 151
pronounced dewlap is a disntinguishing feature commonly shown.

Plate 14. One of a pair of roan antelope made in the hairline 160
technique, Vaalpan, near Kimberley.

Plate 15. Cross-hatched motif in hairline technique, Springbok 161
Oog.

Plate 16. Scraped engraving of ostrich, Springbok Oog. 162

Plate 17. ‘Recent scratched’ horses and other markings incised 163
over older engravings, Kalabasput, Upper Karoo.

Plate 18. Outline pecked engraving of blue wildebeest, Wildebeest 164
Kuil.

Plate 19. Fully pecked engravings of eland, near Vosburg. 164

Plate 20. A panel with pecked engravings of elephant, human 165
figures and rhino, near Petrusville.

Plate 21. Coarse-pecked rhino at Nooitgedacht. 165

Plate 22. Finger paintings at Rietfontein, Ulco. 166

Plate 23. Rare engraving of an agama lizard, Klipfontein near 172
Kimberley.

Plate 24. Connected motifs, Keurfontein. 174

Plate 25. Elephant and man, Wildebeest Kuil. 175

Plate 26. Ostrich engraving – interaction of image and support. 199

Plate 27. Eland emerging from crack. 200

Plate 28. Surfaces and spiritual dimensions at Wildebeest Kuil: a 201
finely engraved eland, its neck ending, headless, at the edge of the
vii
rock.

Plate 29. Finger paintings at Ulco Kloof placed at edges and steps 208

in the rock.

viii
Acknowledgements

The research and reading for this the sis has been carried out under the
auspices of the McGregor Museum in Kimberley. I thank, particularly, the
Director, Mr Colin Fortune, and all th ose staff, especially in the archaeology
department and at Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre, who have provided help
and encouragement. I am grateful to faculty members and library staff at the
University of the Western Cape who have assisted with various matters from
time to time.

I am indebted to my supervisor, Professor Anthony Humphreys, whose own
research in the Northern Cape has been an inspiration to me. Additionally
Professor John Parkington and Professor Janette Deacon have helped shape
some of the ideas that I have sought to build. The imperfections that remain,
obviously, are my own – and the thesis defines not closure on questions
raised but perhaps pointers for future engagement.

I acknowledge the work of Prof David Lewis-Williams and the Rock Art
Research Institute, Dr Benjamin Smith and colleagues; and am grateful for
sundry discussions with or inputs from, amongst others, Miss Fiona Barbour,
Mrs Hanne Baumecher (to whose late mother, Dora Fock, and late step-
father, Dr Gerhard Fock, I owe so much as predecessors in rock art at the
McGregor Museum), Mr Peter Beaumont, Ms Liz Crossley, Dr Leon Jacobson,
Mrs Mary Lange, Dr Chris Low, Ds Mario Mahongo and Mr Wentzel Katjarra
and other members of the !Xun and Khwe CPA who co-manage Wildebeest
Kuil, Dr Mark McGranaghan, Mr Sephai Mngqolo, Mr and Mrs Michael and
Sharon Morris, Dr Sven Ouzman, Dr Jose de Prada Samper, Mr Folke
Richardt, Mr Neil Rusch, and Dr Linda Waldman. Many others have
contributed in this way or that – my thanks go to one and all.

Prof Julia Martin and her husband Michael Cope have inspired me with their
enthusiasm derived inter alia from shared readings of Ingold. I am especially
grateful to Dr Lindsay Weiss and her husband Dr Ron Jennings for friendship
and conversations during and since their work in Kimberley and for their
enormous generosity, not least of a bibliographic kind.

Finally, my wife, Noeleen, and sons Jonathan and Benjamin, have wonderfully
tolerated my devoting much time after-hours at the keyboard, deliberating over
my topic, and working towards the completion of this thesis. Thank you for
your part in this!
ix