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Stylistics
units in prehistoric art research. Archeofacts or realities? |
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Sketch of the animals painted
on Altamira cave by José de Argumosa,1880. |
The first scientific interest arose in Europe on the late 19-th Century, when engraved bones were found on paleolithic levels. People was amazed by the fact that prehistoric Man should have time enough to waste on artistic productions; early Man, and even the so called "primitive" living populations were seen as poor people that had to cope with a world too hard to allow high intellectual activities. In any case, the first scholars did not think that prehistoric art needed to be studied: they interpreted it as the expression of purely aesthetic expression, in conformity with the neo classic or Parnassian ideas about art.
The comparativist and evolutionnist period: magic and hunting
On the beginning of the XX century, as the same time there were a worldwide expansion of ethnological research, prehistorian remained evolutionnists and thought that the behaviour of modern "primitives" should explain past societies belonging to the same "evolutionnary stage". The time of analogy had come. Some aboriginal populations were said to paint animals before they hunt them, to catch their souls - and later, their body - in a "sympathic" magic way. So, scholars like H. Breuil pointed the frequence of animals in the just discovered rock art of Franco-Cantabrian Caves to interpret them in a hunting perspective. Linear geometric figures were supposed to be weapons and circular ones, representations of wounds. Every animal with a round belly would be the representation of pregnant female, to increase the reproduction of the preys. These explanations were used for the whole palaeolithic art of Europe.
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"The sorcerer".
Tracing by H.Breuil. |
Differences in the way animals were painted were mainly seen as the result of an evolution: primitive artists would have progressively discovered the laws of perspective from Aurignacian to Magdalenian period.
Rich rock art was soon discovered in non European regions like Tassili, where H. Lhote identified successive chronological periods, each one characterized by thematics: the first one, of hunter-gatherers - depicted wild animals (Bubalin period); during another one, pastoralists painted their livestock (Bovidian period); last, horse herders of bronze period represented charriots.
From such few regional sequences, evolutionists developped the idea (implicit or explicit) that each type of rock art should show the evolutionary stage of its authors. Such idea remain alive and is very clear for example, in Anati«s works (1993: 47) that lists what should be the dominant characteristics of archaic hunters art (wild animals, masked humans figures, psychograms; scenes rares), evolved hunters (anecdotal scenes, imaginary beings), pastoral breeders graphems (domestic animals, idealization of forms) and complex economies art (implements and weapons, mythological scenes, schematic and abstract graphems)...
Reaction against ethnographic comparativism: the structuralist approach
A new era began in the 1960', from the independent works of A. Laming-Emperaire and A. Leroi-Gourhan (that went on in a direction predicted by M. Raphael in the 40'). Both didn't accept naive ethnographic analogy; they considered than indigenous populations were not fossilized "primitive" and should not offer keys to interpret paintings made thousand years ago and thousand kilometers away. They pointed out that scholars like Breuil used, in their publications, always the same figures, to comprove their ideas; on fact, most of palaeolitical animals depicted are not wounded or pregnant...
As it was not possible anymore to use living people in order to explain prehistoric art, it was necessary to find in the very prehistoric corpus informations that should not be inspired by any ethnic discourse: nor european, nor aboriginal.
The new goal was to understand what themes were chosen by prehistoric Men, what ones were excluded, and the way they should be a coherent expression of organized symbols. Specific interelationship between horse and bovidian representations (later, Leroi-Gourhan added deer/goats), or between linear/round shaped geometric forms were recognized. They intended to find relationship between some type of symbols and topographic feature (horses and bovidians in central places; dots at the entry of corridors, "dangerous", animals at the end of corridors...). This associations, generally binary, were seen as oppositions in a structuralist way of thinking, influenciated by Boole's algebra. So, we should ask if this is really an universal or an historically determined vision of the world.
Though Leroi-Gourhan (like Breuil before him) recognized the existence of chronological modifications during the millenia (he proposed the existence of 4 successive styles), his approach let him to privilegiate statistics using the whole corpus of palaeolithic figures, as if they were the product of only one thinking. This was probably to underestimate possible variability during millenia and from one place to another one.
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Male symbols. Typology by
Leroi-Gourhan. |
After they showed some forms of organization in european palaeolithic rock art, Laming-Emperaire and Leroi-Gourhan tried to understand their meaning (for example, when they see the association bovidian/ equidian as the expression of male/female duality). This way, they were not anymore searching "objective" structures, but making subjective interpretations. Anyway, all the subsequent semiotic works on rock art (like those of Sauvet and Wlodenczyck, 1977) continue on the way opened by both French scholars.
Diversification of approaches on the late XX century
During the 70' and 80', hundreds of new sites were discovered in all continents; it was not anymore possible to study them in the same way and many new approaches appeared.
One of them, is ethnographic interpretation, where indigenous traditions might putativly offer informations about the traditional meaning of regional rock art; in western Canada or northern Australia, this has been used for regional purposes. But some interpretations are being also tentatively proposed as general keys for other places; for example, many scholars used the ideais of J. Lewis-William and T. Dowson that many paintings or engravings should depict visions of shamans when their conscience was altered by hallucinogenic mushrooms or other technics. Most geometric figures, found everywhere, should be phosphenes and for this reason, universal. As Lewis William accepted that south african animal representations were made to improve good results during hunting parties, the presence of geometric figures as phosphenes reinforced old BreuilÕs theories. At the same time, this idea contemplate our modern obsesssion with drugs; so, in several parts of the world began the search for hallucinogenic vegetal representations and like phosphene forms: San Pedro cactus was identified on Chavin sculptures in Peru; An old Salish woman explained north american engravings from visions and dreams of starving youngs during initiation phases (A. York, R. Daly and C. Arnett ,1993)...
In any case, it appeared that the Shamanistic theory should not explain all forms of rock art (Clottes & Lewis-William 1996).
The "information" theory of the 90' tried to show (mainly from european rock art examples) that prehistoric figures were didactic representation to improve hunting success (type of tracks, for example) also prooved not to be an all embracing-theory explanation. In any case, from this approach we know that some palaeolitical european paintings were far more naturalistic that has been thought before; sazonal diferences and behaviour are shown from antlers, fur and gestures, (Bouvier & Dubourg, 1997). Medical problems and specific pathologies are also pointed out in anthropomorphic figures (Duhard, 1993).
On the early 70', Marschack's and Ouy's works on european art, Prous' ones on southern brazilian cultures (Marshack, 1972. Ouy & Ouy-Parcszewska, 1972; Prous, 1977) tried to demonstrate the existance of mathematical or rythmic records. On the same period, archaeoastronomy turned fashionable, searching for celestial phenomenons (comets, supernova explosions...). Very recently have appeared observations upon acoustic properties of some sites (Dauvois 1992); there are also ethnographic evidences that Californian historical tribes used places with special sound propagation for ritual purposes (K. Hedges, 1993). Gender point of view was introduced, for instance in the study of the palaeolithic "Venus" body (McCoid & Mc Dermott, 1996).
Systematic experiences to replicate and analyse prehistoric preparations of pigments, that began with Couraud (Couraud & Laming-Emperaire, 1979) have had a great developpment in last years (Menu, Clottes, 1990) with chemist and archaeologist grewing cooperation. Chemists found how to extrate diminute quantities of organic material to be dated by AMS (Russ, Hyman, Shaffer & Rowe 1990): direct dating of some rock paintings and engraving turned thus possible. At the same time, the gesture and chronology of groove making on walls and bones was studied through the micro analysis of the grooves (d'Errico, 1989).
But what we should name "ethnicity research" turned a very important approach. Where evidences like frequent superimpositions showed that successive populations had painted the sites, each in a different way, scholars work to establish the chronology of styles or traditions, like Lhote had done in Sahara, Chaloupka in Australia, Prous in central Brazil... In Australia, ancient tribal territories identification from the study of their mythological representations, turned a priority, when aboriginal peoples where allowed to come back and claim their right to control the sites that symbolize their cultural identity. Notwithstanding, some ethoarchaeological studies refute the putative one-to one correspondance between styles and ethnic units (Franklin, 1989).
In Europe, regional styles are being valorized and the new dates allow the scholars to analyse the technic and thematic modifications during Late Palaeolitihic. They have speak of a "post stylistic era" (Lorblanchet), to make clear that the unilinear view of european rock art that characterized Breuil and Leroi-Gourhan periods is finished. But this doesn't mean that the style concept will not be used anymore, as it remains usefull when applied in a more restricted context.
Main approaches of rock art in Brazil
Artists and naturalists discussed the meaning of brazilian rock art from early XIX century: J. B. Debret (in 1839, from the drawings of Spix & Martius, that he retouched for this purpose) or T. Sampaio (op. cit. 1918) interpreted the paintings as description of travels, battles or funerary inscriptions.
On the late 1960', D. Aytai published a remarkable structuralist paper about Itapeva rock art (S‹o Paulo state), where he tried to find an organization of the pictographs in a way that remember Leroi-Gourhan's works - though he did not know the papers on rock art of this scholar; Aytai also suggested an interpretation, using Gê indians' mythologies (Aytai, 1969). This ethnographic analogy was renewed recently, when M. Beltrão explains some paintings of Bahia state from indigenous traditions (Beltrão, 1994); but she uses the ones of Tukano, a western amazonian tribe that live thousand kilometers far from the sites - what is rather problematic (moreover, the painting are claimed to be very ancient - some of them, of Pleistocene age). Even where there are indigenous traditions about the rock art existing in their present territory (as occurs with the Krenak indians, in Minas Gerais state), it is quite sure that their speech is a recent interpretation that helps them to built a new ethnic identity and not a fossilized original interpretation (A. Baeta 1998). For this reason, most of Brazilian scholars, even if they sometime mention interesting local ethnographic similarities (A. Victor, 1997), generally avoid this approach.
On the 70', scholars prefered a stylistic treatment, that should indicate social and cultural units (territories, ethnic groups...). In this moment, it was clear for V. Calderon (Bahia State), N. Guidon (Piaui state) and A. Prous (Minas Gerais state) that rock art was very different from one region to another. In the last state, we also pointed out drastic chronological modifications in the many places we were studying (Lagoa Santa region, Peruaçu valley, Montalvânia...) and tried to establish regional chronostylistic sequences. We also began to see how buried pigments could be characterized and used in a comparison with rock art (Prous, 1991); chemical analysis began to be made, in Piaui (Lages 1990) and Minas Gerais (Costa & alii 1989) states.
On the 80', it seemed possible to know who had made what; homogenous thematic complexes should be credited to authors which use a same code (código) and should be differenciated from other complexes, putatively made by other tribes. Traditions were defined to express cultural continuity; for example, one characterized by the dominance of specific geometrical drawings; another by human beings organized on ritual scenes, a third one by the association of some kinds of animals...
Technical attributes (the way of drawing, the morphology of the figures) or minor variations in thematic have been used to define stylistic sub-unities (varities, styles, facies) typical of a small region or periods within one tradition. The result should be seen, in a some way, as a like culture/historical approach (I. Wüst, 1991). This type of classification, that began with Prous and Guidon, has be very successful, in the sense that quite 200 traditions, styles etc. were created in one decenium. M. Consens and P. Seda discussed then this multiplication of "stylistic units", generally very poorly characterized; for example, the definition of one of them was: "engravings on boulders near/on waterflows", without other specific information (Consens & Seda 1989). In several papers, Prous and its collaborators also discussed what should be the meaning of differences and similarities that they used to create the stylistic units; for them, it was clear that they were not only ethnic markers (Solá, Prous & Silva 1981; Prous 1997).
3- The definition of stylistic units: what are the "good" criteria?
It is time to reflect upon the classifications that we, archaeologists, make, and upon the significance of the attributes we choose to make them.
Similarity and difference
When they create classifications for bones, ceramics, stones or petroglyphs, the archaeologists compare the artefacts, seeking theirs similarities and differences. The first question is: are we looking at what prehistoric man would have see? Or: what is significant for us, would be significant for prehistoric people too? The second question is: if our classifications would have made no sense for prehistoric "artists", are they worthy or not to increase our knowledge of the past?
About the first question, I'ld like to tell a story that happened to an anthropologist, when he was in a brazilian tribe. One indian showed two girls to him, saying they looked like very much each other. Looking at their faces, the Whiteman saw no similarity and told it. The indian answered "look at the shape of the breast". Obviously, we use to see the similarities between people mainly in the naked part of them: hands and face. Indians see others parts, because they don't hide their body; probably, in a traditional iranian village, people should compare the general silhouette, the way the girls would walk...
This way, we can see that, if we want perceive what was significant for one prehistoric culture, we must be ready to look at a great number of attributes, with the hope that some of them were really important (something like the so called emblemic categorie, in Wiessner sense) and that our study shall be able to demonstrate it. We must not use exclusively one or a few aspects, like iconography, to characterize a stylistic unit.
What attributes could be important?
In order to make comparisons among graphic complexes (regional complexes, sites of the same region; pannels in the same site; chronological levels in the same pannel...), we must look not only at the drawings themselves, but also at the natural and cultural context in which they appear.
The reasons of the choice of a site by prehistoric people has to be considered. It may be for its visibility on the landscape, upstanding topographic position, proximity of water supply, orientation and exposure to the sun... And we can judge this point only with caution; in 1976, we found 20 rock art sites during a survey in Montalvânia (Brazil), and pointed out that all had the same orientation; next year, we discovered more 30 in other geological alignements and it appeared that their orientation had not been an important point.
Inside a site, the selection of the wall to be worked is not neutral. In Lapa Vermelha dolina, near Lagoa Santa, the many wide, flat, smooth and well illuminated walls that every western modern man should have used were not decorated (Baeta, Silva & Prous 1992). Prehistoric artists prefered much less regular surfaces. In Peruaçu valley, each tradition had its own preferences: S. Francisco people chose the higher part of large and flat surfaces; in the same sites, Piolho do Urubu painted the lower part of the same pannels; Desenhos artists also used lower places, but mostly chose fallen blocks; Nordeste people used discrete and generally marginal places... In fact, it is so much important to know why a site or a pannel has not be used as it is to know why another one was choosen.
In the same way, when we study the iconograpy, it is not sufficient to point out what are the dominant and secondary themes; it is also worthy to identify what has not been depicted. In central Brazil, the more praized animals fot indian hunters are deer, peccari (wild american pigs) and tapir. But in the rock art of Minas Gerais state, deer are the dominant painted animals in Planalto tradition, while pecaris are quite completely absent and tapir cannot be seen; the same occurs in the subsistance refuse on archaeological layers: would one of them be good to be drawn and eaten, but not the other ones? Obviously, a dominant iconographic theme only is not sufficent to create a tradition; on the contrary, Planalto tradition would exist over several continents, where numerous deer are also depicted...
The way that the figures are made is full of informations, even if they might be more assertive than emblemic. In Brazil, for instance, anthropomorphic figures of Planalto Tradition are generally very little (more little than the associated animals) and schematic, but in Agreste tradition they are greatest and more naturalistic.
The very disposition of figures may be typical of a stylistic unit. For example, spear throwers appear always on the hand of a hunting human being in Nordeste tradition; in S. Francisco one, they are far from anthropomorphic figures; they can be isolated (in Januaria style) or they can make alignement (Montalvania facies).
Some aspects of the sensibility of prehistoric people can be found. In central Brazil, São Francisco people liked splendid drawings and bright colours that can be seen at distance; Nordeste liked to express movement in their little figures that must be seen from a very short distance; logic spatial and iconographic organization is characteristic of Montalvânia facies petroglyphs; Planalto paintings use to be profusely cast on the walls in a confuse manner.
We can go further than main great stylistic units (tradition, style, facies, variety...) that are supposed to characterize wide social groups. It is not an irrealistic goal to identify individuality through the observation of idiosyncratic patterns. May be the present moment of brazilian archaeology doesn't justify the high investment to reach this level of study, but it has occured that we recognized immediatly the manner of some artists in deer representation of serra do Cipó (Prous & Baeta, 1992/3).
4- The significancy of archaeological categories
What reality, if some, do our classifications reflect ?
We saw that the stylistic units that have been proposed in Brazil were, consciously or not, a temptative to identify prehistoric people, through what A. Leroi-Gourhan named "ethnic style".
Is it possible to do so? On the last years, it became clear that archaeology cannot help us to find cultures ou ethnies in the modern sense, but only the remains of some behaviours.
Let us consider historical examples. If we look at an european and a Viet Nam Catholic churches, we hope that iconography will be the same (Cross, Mary, some Saints) because they belong from the same tradition (this word in the way we use it in Brazil); but some stylistic patterns might be differents, that introduce oriental conventions (in this case, they should characterize an oriental or, at least, a southeastern asiatic) facies. We use to associate eastern culture not with Catholic religion (or iconography), but with stylistic patterns. But Viet Nam Catholics have quite the same rituals and ideas upon God that their european brothers in Faith, but are different of them in many ways. On the same manner, we cannot be sure that Nordeste rock art tradition was produced by one tribe, one linguistic or racial technological group; nor even we can suppose they have the same lithic technology... Even thus, the stylistic unit create by the archaeologist means something important: it expresses a kind of sensibility, of knowledge and thinking that is the same for every Nordeste drawing people.
On the contrary, we cannot be sure that every type of social unit must have only one stylistic expression. For example, there is, among Brazilian tribes, a great difference between womenÕs art and menÕs one, even in drawings made with a pencil on paper. The former produce angular geometric figures, that point out one detail to signify the whole reality. The Men draw generally curvilinear figures that fit better in our concept of "realism". Scholars explanation of this particularity is that coiling and baskettry activities, that allow only geometric figures, are strictly women technics and should have determined their perception of reality (Prous, 1977).
Such gender differenciations do exist in our culture: in France, baby girls traditionally uses mostly pink and baby boys, mostly blue clothes. Classic Ballet has been considered a feminine - or better, not male - activity from XIX century... In our society, there are also many styles that co-exist: classic music was for old people and rock, for youngs, in the 60'. Rock and classic belong to the same modern western tradition (heptatonic temperate tonal music from XVIII Century) but they are different styles, one of them showing non european influences. Would some brazilian rock art styles express the same thing?
To be sure that the styles we create are really chronological ones, we have to be sure that their figures are separated by a long time. In Lapa Vermelha dolina (Baeta, Silva e Prous, op. cit), we thus tried to see if different styles should have coexisted. I shall use once more an historic analogy. The iconography of Christian churches is not homogenous, even in the Western World: both Catholics and Orthodox pray the Virgin, but the Greek Church prays Saints (like St John Chrysostome) that don't appear in western Europe (where St. Francisco or St. Anton are typical Latin Saints). We can say that there are geographical facies in Christian mediterranean art. Other differences are less geographic, like the one between catholic and protestants churches: we'll not see the Virgin or Saints in the later ones, though both churches can be found in the same territory. We can also point out more subtle differences, like that we can see between churches that are of the same period, same region and belong to the same faith, like brightly decorated clunisian monuments and ascetic and plain cistercian ones. They express varieties within the same medieval christian community. Diversity can also be funcionals: in Ouro Preto, a barroque Brazilian town, two churches, both consacrated to St. Mary, exhibit the images of distinct Saints because one (Sta Maria do Rosário) was the temple of Blackpeople congregation and the other, the one of aristocrat's godmother (Sta Maria do Carmo). The same thing may have occured in prehistoric times and it is quite possible that moities, clans, genders, age classes etc... have left distinctive marks on the shelters. Obviously, there is also the progressive modifications of fashion during the millenia: a roman sculpture is different from a gothic one, that stays in the same church); the products of all these kinds of variation can be used by archaeologists to create stylistic units (styles, varieties) within a tradition.
It is sometimes possible to study the relationship between different traditions (Prous & Seda, 1987). In Peruaçu valley, we found an evidence of respect when figures of Caboclo style are painted on the periphery of eldest Januaria pictograms. We see neutrality among Januaria paintings, that don't avoid superimposition; but the authors of Desenhos petroglyphs expresses a negative appreciation of the eldest traditions, hiding them under a red layer of dye before they pecked zoomorphic figures. In Lagoa Santa and Serra do Cipo regions, the "artists" of a new tradition sometimes peeled the rock to destroyed previous works.
Attitudes like recovering or renewalling of ancient paintings are also frequents; the first one occurs when an ancient painting is put in a new context. Example of recovering should be an ancient isolated zoomorphic figure, that receives a new interpretation when surrounded by anthropomorphic ones, as if it were hunted; or, in Peruaçu valley, a geometric figure that has been transformed into a vegetal. Renewal occurs when some part of a figure is reinforced, like many old and patinated that received a new layer of dye (frequently, other colour) in Lagoa Santa; or the eyes of animals that were painted and painted again in australian desert.
These attitudes are the same we know from art history in Europe: when there is a social continuity, "classic" masterpieces that glorify the elites are preserved by their successors. But when there is an ideological gap, we see Protestants breaking the statues of Saints, French revolution breaking king images, Catholics and Hebreus destroy idols. But we also see missionaries recovering pagan sacred places, by a cross engravig.
The many possible classifications for one social group A question we have heard many times is "how can we justify the creation of rock art traditions, the works which have been produced by people that have also been classified from their stone or ceramic production? For example, would not be stupid we have two labels for the same people that made Serranopolis phase lithic instruments and should have painted São Francisco pictograms? First, we have to remember that it is very hard to make chronological correlation among art, technology etc. and we need classifications for all these kinds of reality. Last, but non the least, we use parallel classification for our own historic framework ; the same people or culture is said to be Catholic (religious concept) and mercantilist (economic one). We also know that nor every catholic is mercantilist, and nor every mercantilist is catholic. Today, the same person belongs to different memberships: family, social class, religious congregation, politic party etc. and can be analized within the different categories that are used to study each subject. It would be tragic if archaeology were more totalitarist than the others fields of knowledge and wanted lock up a multiface reality within only one rigourously labelled drawer...
5- Conclusion
As wrote Consens & Seda (op. cit., 1990) about the hundreds created stylistic units, if brazilian scholars have seen differences, these should be real. The archaeological categories probably express some kind of reality, if they are well defined. To give a name to the phenomena we can see is correct and usefull to discover cultural or social identities, but is not sufficient.
The problem is how to interpret these units. We have seen that the differences between rock art corpora are significant of several kinds of reality. Some of them may be similar to what we name ethnic groups. In fact, people that live in XIV century on southwestern part of France did not find them "ethnically" or politically "french", nor "english", nor even, maybe, "gascon" in the modern sense of these concepts. They know they were to-day subjects of the king of France and should be to-morrow those of the king of England, but really depended of the Earl of Pau; they belonged to an universal religion, had membership within a little peasant community and spoke regional dialect. On the same way, most people that lived in Gallia on the V century AD didn't know they were on the doorstep between Antiquity and Medieval periods (Prous, 1967); this fact doesnÕt invalidate these concepts that are ours, as they are useful from our point of view. What matters is we know that similarities and differences may expresses realities that are not those of our society.
Even if we diversify our observations, we can't be sure we'll be able to perceive what was essential for prehistoric indians. But even our typologies are valids if are useful to the approach we have chosen. We are not anymore searching for the old adaequatio rei et intellectu, but for an adequatio instrumentis et quaestionis. Our work is not an illusion, as he helps us to contrast our values with those of others cultures. We know that our point of view is not the only possible, but it can produce significant observations about the phenomena of which prehistoric men were not aware. Surely, our view of rock art manifestations is much more aware of their "artistic" aspect that prehistoric people's one was. This is because we express our linkage with a consumerist society in which art is a per se product. In its "art", Karajá indians should express their gender complementarity; other tribes should project their clanic o class values.
The archaeologists have, thus, to avoid three dangers. The first one is to create a great number of little significant stylistic units (a real danger in this moment of Brazilian archaeology). The second is to trust that these units are objectives realities; it is necessary we use them as simple instruments, used as long they are worthy, but to be cast when they are not anymore useful. A fossilization of the classifications would break the energy of the research. The third danger, maybe the worst in this post modern era, should be to desist because of the impossibility to fully understand the cultures of the past. This attitude will conduce, or to a sterile scepticism in relation to archaeological discourse, or to the ideia that we are free to make a subjective discurse without serious implications for a real - though partial - knowledge of the past.
As we intend to participate in the expansion of some kind of knowledge, we are not afraid if we have to use stylistic units that are archaeofacts (create by the archaeologist) for research purposes that express the kind of interest we have about the past. The descriptive units may change, but the reality that they express is not an illusion. This way, we reconcile the consciousness we have of our subjectivity with our scholarly exigency. We are not engaging an empty discurse upon ourselves, to excuse the pretext of an invented Other.
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Cómo citar este artículo:
PROUS,
andré. Stylistics
units in prehistoric art research. Archeofacts or realities?.
En Rupestreweb, http://www.rupestreweb.info/prous.html
2002
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