From Top Down Under: New Insights into the Social Significance of Superimpositions in the Rock Art of Northern Kimberley, Australia

Abstract

Rock-art researchers have long acknowledged the importance of discerning superimposition sequences as a means for exploring chronology. Despite their potential for reconstructing painting events and thus informing on a site's production sequences, the social significance of superimpositions and their associated meanings have been little explored. In the Kimberley Region of northwestern Australia, interpretations of superimpositions as an analytical lens have often lingered on the ‘negative’ connotations of this practice (e.g. to destroy supernatural power embedded in previous paintings and/or to show cultural dominance). As a result, it has been proposed that the overpainting of previous images was tantamount to defacing, leading to the proposition that new images constituted a form of vandalism of older art. In this paper, a sample of rock-art sites from the northwestern and northeastern Kimberley is analysed with the aim of grounding the study of superimpositions in more nuanced practices, leading researchers to contemplate the role they played among populations within the same area. It is argued here that superimpositions brought together past and present experiences that served to reinforce the links between contemporary art production and the inherited landscape.

Resistance and remembering through rock art: Contact‐period rock art in Wardaman country, Northern Australia

“…As Morphy (2012: 302) further notes, rock art “provides a reservoir of images for succeeding generations, who not only view and interpret this record but also additionally use it as a source of information and inspiration that influences their present practice”. This inspired Motta and colleagues (Motta, 2019: 1; Motta et al ., 2020) to further note that the superimposition of one rock art image over another, and the re‐incorporation of past images into later (and present) ones, expresses a recursive engagement between contemporary artists and past artworks (for an example of this from Torres Strait, see David & McNiven, 2005). A detailed analysis of superimpositions and other visual relationships between images can, thus, reveal to an outside observer some of the threads that bring the past into the present and link the present to the past (Motta et al ., 2020: 147).…”

“…Taylor 1987, 1996) in Arnhem Land. However, as Morphy (2012) and Motta (2019) recently noted, in both archaeology and social anthropology research has focused on relationality across space rather than through time. For Morphy, archaeologists are in a disciplinary position to explore relational approaches to temporal analysis via the recursive elements of rock art, where recursivity refers to the ways that artists “draw upon a past repertoire of images or components of images to bring them into the present” (Morphy, 2012: 297).…”

grabados rupestres del sitio Curapil, en el piedemonte septentrional de la meseta de Somuncurá (Río Negro, Argentina)

“…Dentro de la secuencia de arte rupestre se buscaron, además, evidencias de reciclado, (Tabla 1. Continuación) integración, mantenimiento y obliteración de los motivos (Aschero, 1988;Martel et al, 2012;Pastor, 2012;Quesada y Gheco, 2015;Re, 2016b;Vergara y Troncoso, 2016;Motta, 2019).…”

“…Sin embargo, en coincidencia con Vergara y Troncoso (2015), se observa que las pilas están mostrando una estrecha conexión con las prácticas pretéritas desarrolladas en el lugar al marcar los mismos espacios que los grabados. En este sentido, señalan la recreación y reapropiación de un paisaje heredado (Motta, 2019).…”

Memorias Superpuestas. Análisis De Las Superposiciones en El Arte Rupestre De Cerro Colorado Como Instancias De Negociación Social (Sierras Del Norte, Córdoba, Argentina)

“…En este sentido, el análisis de las superposiciones, entendidas según la IFRAO como una instancia en la que un motivo es ejecutado sobre uno previo (IFRAO Rock Art Glossary), señala una clara elección, por parte de quien intervino el soporte, de interactuar o no con la imagen preexistente (i.e. Aschero 1988;Fiore 2007;Gallardo 2001;Motta 2019;Nash 2012:13;Re 2016;Troncoso 2002). Como propone Jones (2007:21), "the objects are physical traces of past action", por lo que la referencia, en este caso, a un motivo o a una escena anterior objetiva la memoria.…”