ISSN 2499-1341

EXPRESSION
quaterly e-journal of atelier in cooperation with uispp-cisnep. international scientific commission on
the intellectual and spiritual expressions of non-literate peoples

N°23 MARCH 2019

THE AGES OF MEMORY,

THE MEMORY OF AGES
 CONTENTS

Emmanuel Anati (Italy)

The Typology of Rock Art ...............................................................................................................................7
Fernando A. Coimbra (Portugal)
Rock art as a Mnemonic Process Among Non-Literate Societies ................................................................... 24
Leo Dubal (France)
Tracing Back the Ages Of Myths Behind Calendar Eras ............................................................................... 29
Santiago Wolnei Ferreira Guimarães (Brazil)
Human Memory as Archetype: Implications for Rock Art ........................................................................... 32
Liudmila Lbova, Tatyana Rostyazhenko (Siberian Federal District, Russia)
Ornamental Artefacts as a Way to Transfer and Store Information in the Upper Palaeolithic:
the Mal’ta Collection (Siberia) ........................................................................................................................35
Aixa Vidal (Argentina)
Memories of the Ocean ................................................................................................................................. 45

6 EXPRESSION N° 23
ROCK ART AS A MNEMONIC PROCESS AMONG whose more interesting examples are found among the
NON-LITERATE SOCIETIES San in South Africa (Woodhouse, 1986; Fraser, 2007;
Ouzman, 2010).
According to Fraser (2007) the San, living near na-
Fernando A. Coimbra
Polytechnic Institute of Tomar, Geosciences Centre ture, would be extremely attentive to unusual events
University of Coimbra, Portugal happening around them. Astronomical events such as
comets and meteors probably would have made a deep
impact on them, as a happening in the sky that should
Introductory note be remembered and transmitted to future generations
Non-literate societies did not have writing to preserve by depicting it over a rock surface. As a matter of fact,
their memories. But in those human groups, rock art in San rock art, the panels with the depiction of come-
seems to have functioned as a primordial language, tary phenomena represent these events integrated into
transmitting memories of special events such as comet scenes of ritual character, for example, some paintings
phenomena and eclipses or daily events such as mu- from Bethlehem District, where a meteor is associated
sic and dancing sessions, among other narrative rep- with three anthropomorphic figures with feathers in
resentations, such as hunting and ploughing. This way their arms, which are simulating a flight attitude (Co-
rock art can be considered the oldest archive of hu- imbra, 2008: Fig. 5.2), a representative image of the
mankind, preserving memories for future generations San astral voyage (Ouzman, 2010).
(Coimbra, 2012b). Another example, from Fouriesbourg, is the rep-
In this paper we focus on two themes: rock art and resentation of a fireball (a meteor with a highly visible
its capacity to record unusual events, rock art and tail), which is being observed by a group of people,
the depiction of daily life. These two subjects of rep- some of them clapping hands, two figures adopting
resentation had certainly a mnemonic function. Re- “the ‘arms-back’ posture diagnostic of attainment of
garding the second theme we will only consider music altered states of consciousness” (Ouzman, 2010: 20)
and dancing scenes, leaving out other images of daily and two cattle-headed therianthropes, among other
life represented in rock art, which may have also mne- figures with feathers typical of trance dances (fig. 1).
monic characteristics.

Rock art and the record of unusual events

Among prehistoric societies, unusual happenings in
the sky such as comet phenomena and eclipses must
have left a deep impression on the minds of the ob-
servers, due to the visual impact that they produced.
Probably they could have been interpreted as mani-
festations of the gods and thus represented on rock
surfaces in order that future generations should re-
member the presence of the divinity. They can have
been used as historical milestones, being remembered
by several generations and used at the same time as a
mnemonic process (Coimbra, 2012b).
In previous articles we already mentioned some exam-
ples of the representation of comets and meteors in
rock art (Coimbra, 2007, 2010, 2012a, 2012b; 2017).
Therefore we are not going to repeat here a list of those
engravings, but instead focus on cases that may be
Fig. 1. Meteor and trance dance from Fouriesbourg (after Ouzman,
related to mnemonic processes in rock art, some of 2010).

24 EXPRESSION N° 23
 Fig. 2. Paintings from Pala Pinta interpreted
as a cometary representation (left) (photo: F.
Coimbra).

The topography of these rock art sites is “a mnemonic technicians of 3D photography, arguing that some
for the San cosmos” (Ouzman, 2010: 28), being also figures may depict the passage of a comet (Coimbra,
large spaces with abundant evidence of intense social- 2017).
ization, suggesting a culture centre of the San world. A database of known comets shows that in the peri-
Interestingly, each site is located near deep waterholes od between 5500 BC and the year 1 BC, about 680
or natural springs. According to San beliefs, “water comets passed the area of Pala Pinta. Among them,
provides an earthly anchor for heavenly bodies. Struc- four comets had a trajectory similar to the paintings
turally, heavenly bodies have their origin in an upper depicted on the rock shelter: Comet Biela, Comet
spirit world. They then travel brightly and ominously Kowal-Vavrova, Comet Väisälä 1, and Comet P/2004
through the sky before falling into a waterpit, which VR8, which is the one with most possibilities of being
constitutes an earthly access to the underworld” (Ou- represented, since it was visible during 143 days in the
zman, 2010: 29). year 4626 BC (Projecto Pala Pinta, 2014). Such a long
Comet phenomena are also represented in rock art in period of visibility certainly would have been a fact to
other parts of the world. For example, several tribes of remember.
Native Americans interpreted comets and meteors as It is not easy to find unambiguous examples of the
the voyage of a shaman’s soul to the afterlife (Coim- representation of eclipses in rock art. Indeed, some
bra, 2010), an event that surely should be registered published examples are too speculative. Nevertheless,
and remembered. Could this be the interpretation of astronomical research done by NASA provides maps
some comet rock paintings from the cave of Burro of visible eclipses (total and partial) since the fourth
Flats, in California? millennium BC (Espenak, undated). For example, be-
In Europe there are also some depictions of comets tween the fourth millennium and the third millenni-
in rock art. Among other possibilities, one of the best um BC, 634 total eclipses occurred, which means 63.4
studied cases is the painted rock shelter of Pala Pin- eclipses by century and 6. 34 by decade. This means
ta (Alijó, Portugal). These late prehistoric paintings that in a lifetime of about 40 years, 25 total eclipses
(fig. 2), were the subject of some multidisciplinary would be visible in the world (Coimbra, 2017). Surely
research, involving archaeologists, astronomers, and these examples were not seen everywhere at the same

25 EXPRESSION N° 23
time, but certainly there were enough cases to con- time, and which remained alive in the memory of the
stitute a reason to be remembered and registered in person who has experienced it. The sequence of move-
prehistoric art.1Interestingly, traditional Aboriginal ments linked to that event is rendered with a unique
Australian cultures provide less subjective informa- mark in such a way that its observer (believer, mem-
tion, which “includes a significant astronomical com- ber of the society, priest) can recognize the image as a
ponent, perpetuated through oral tradition and cere- formalization of the event” (Ragazzi, 2015: 312–13).
mony (Norris and Hamacher, 2010: 1). Indeed, some Dance scenes appear, therefore, with a high mnemon-
of these cultures explained eclipses as a conjunction of ic characteristic, and there are also many examples
the sun and moon (Coimbra, 2017), “caused by the represented on ceramics since the Neolithic in many
Sun-woman being hidden by the Moon-man as they parts of the world.
make love” (Norris and Hamacher, 2010: 4). However, itis important not to forget that general-
ly these dances certainly had the sound support of
Rock art and the record of daily life drumming or some kind of music. As a matter of fact,
Rock art has many narrative scenes such as ploughing the archaeological record shows the existence of clay
and hunting, which may have mnemonic character- Neolithic clay drums covered with animal skin, from
istics.2 Besides these examples we must be aware that several parts of Europe, for example Sjane (Sweden),
in many prehistoric cultures music is an integral part Knabstrup and Garup (Denmark), Mecklenburg
of daily life, used to keep and transmit knowledge, to (Germany), and Mrowino (Poland) (Aiano, 2006).
summon protection, to remember ancestors or to reg- Furthermore, rock art depicts some drums, such as in
ulate social and economic activities (Torres, undated). the Bronze Age engravings from Bhimbetka, in India
Interestingly, several late prehistoric paintings from (Meshkeris, 1999). Smaller drums can be seen on a
different parts of the world depict dancing scenes (cer- Neolithic wall painting from Çatal Hüyük (Turkey),
tainly using some kind of sound or music), that were where a man is represented holding a hand drum (Mel-
registered on rock surfaces possibly to remember some laart, 1967: figs 61–63), and also on a rock art scene
rituals connected with those dances. It seems to be the from Wadi Harash (Negev, Israel), dated from the sec-
case of the Neolithic paintings from Wed Mertoutek ond millennium BC, where a human figure is playing
(Algeria), showing two girls dancing in a very dynamic a hand drum, together with two persons playing lyres
way (Anati, 1994: fig. 76). Also from North Africa, and four people dancing (Anati, 1994: fig. 156).
an example from Tadrart Acacus (Libya) depicts three Recent research in sound archaeology (or archaeo-
girls, one of them clapping hands and the other two acoustics) has been paying attention to mind/bodily
holding tree branches (Anati, 1994: Fig. 53), prob- experiences caused by sound. Interestingly, back in
ably in order to produce some sound. From Saima- 1967, the anthropologist R. Needham (1967: 610)
ly-Tash (Kazakhstan) there is a group of engravings, had already mentioned that “there is no doubt that
dating from the second millennium BC, which seems sound-waves have neural and organic effects on hu-
to show a ritual dance in front of a man holding a man beings, irrespective of the cultural formation of
sun image (Coimbra, 2012a: fig.3), a figure with an the latter. The reverberations produced by musical in-
intense symbolic meaning. struments thus have not only aesthetic but also bod-
Dance scenes with different chronologies have been ily effects.” For example, B. Watson (2009) argued
studied by the Italian researcher G. Ragazzi, who ar- that frenetic dancing (to the sound of drums), which
gues that “in the analysis of a dance scene we are facing was probably used in several prehistoric rituals, may
a representation which is … reproducing a continuous have resulted in a trance, or maybe in altered states
series of images epitomizing a real event occurring in of consciousness. There are several San paintings from
the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg National Park that ap-
1 For more complete examples of eclipses in rock art see Coim- pear to relate to trance dances, healing rituals, and
bra, 2012b; 2017. rain-making, and often show therianthropes such as
2 Due to the limit of space for this article we will focus only on elongated human figures with antelope heads and
dance scenes. hooves (Bradshaw Foundation, undated).

26 EXPRESSION N° 23
 Fig. 3. Dance scene from Toca do
Estevo 4, Serra da Capivara (photo:
F. Coimbra).

In South America, some cases of dance scenes can be into the Eridanus River, which is considered by several
found in the painted rock shelters from the region of astronomers as the fall of a meteorite.
Serra da Capivara (Piauí, Brazil), dating from the pe- In daily life, prehistoric societies believed in the pres-
riod of early agriculturalist peoples (fig. 3). ence and actions of evil beings, which could bring
There is an interesting example with a similar chro- illness, disaster, and natural catastrophes. Probably
nology3 at Toro Muerto (Peru), with some figures these people thought that certain actions such as mu-
dancing, each one having “a different mask which in- sic and dance could protect them against such things
dicates his identity (or the identity he represents in the (Lund, 2018), so that these activities became organ-
dance)” (Anati, 1994: 153; fig. 157). ized as rituals and therefore necessary to be known by
all members of society and remembered for the future.
Final statements For this purpose, nothing better than to register those
In their need of survival, non-literate societies had to actions, rough paintings or carvings, on rock surfaces,
be aware of changes in time. Besides the use of calen- which seem to have an everlasting durability.
dars based on moon and sun observation (Coimbra,
2012a), they would need a mnemonic to explain and References
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3 There are also dance scenes in Chile with the same chronology (Undated) The Rock Art Archive of South Africa
(Marcela Sepulveda, personal communication). http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/south_africa/
4 For more examples see Coimbra, 2010. south_africa_gallery.php.

27 EXPRESSION N° 23
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