Archaeologists studying ancient rock art have long recognized that sites typically comprise several scales of organization from individual images to large-scale sets of motifs reflecting specific narratives important to the makers. This edited book focuses on such sets of meaningful images and how they might be recognized and interpreted. The book has 20 chapters, each one focused on either methodological questions or applications of the notion of “scenes” to specific case studies of rock art sites from around the world. Margaret Conkey provides an insightful preface to the volume. The book's subject matters are introduced and summed up in bookend chapters by the editors.
In their introduction, Iain Davidson and April Nowell provide a definition of “scene” that grounds the succeeding chapters: “A scene can be identified from a set of images in spatial proximity . . . from which, without any knowledge other that the images themselves, an observer can infer actions taking place among the actors represented in the images.” Thus, scenes are graphic, they contain elements that have organized spatial relationships, and they depict action by the actors or elements. Usually, a number of images comprise a scene, although it is possible for a single image to do so if it displays action and narrative. Scenes, therefore, are amenable to quantitative and qualitative spatial analysis that may elucidate patterns among the elements—the compositions—that were meaningful to the makers.
Space precludes detailed consideration of each chapter, but the case studies are quite varied. Six continents are represented, with sites in Namibia, South Africa, India, Jordan, Iran, Argentina, Canada, Spain, France, Australia, and the United States. The number of sites examined and the number of images entailed also vary among the chapters. One striking aspect of these studies is their diversity in analytic methods, which vary from intuitive examination to large-scale, computer-assisted data mining. Methodological exploration and, especially, the variety in approaches to analyzing spatial relationships among images are two great strengths of this book.
I have two concerns about Making Scenes. The first is quite minor but reflects an implication that a focus on scenes—that is, on spatial relationships, action, composition, and narrative content—is new. I would argue that scholars of rock art have long recognized and emphasized composition in ancient images, including those concerned with Paleolithic art in Europe. Marcelino Sanz de Sautuola illustrated the entire ceiling of Altamira in 1880 and discussed the movement and relationships among the bison. Henri Breuil saw composition and action everywhere in Paleolithic art. Andre Leroi-Gourhan's masterful studies of composition in Paleolithic cave art were certainly focused on scenes at various scales. Scenes also dominated early studies of San rock art, work in Australia, and some of the earliest observations of rock art in the Americas. The idea that rock art is composed of scenes as defined in this book has always been part of rock art scholarship.
My second concern is the absence of Indigenous voices. To me, this is a curious lack, given the book's interest in inferring meaning from scenes and the movement in archaeology today toward decolonizing approaches to intellectual property and engaging in collaborative work with descendant communities. By collaborative work, I do not mean only using ethnographic information—something rock art scholars have done for many years—but the direct engagement of descendants in the process of analysis and interpretation. True, five of the 20 chapters deal with Upper Paleolithic through Iron Age rock art sites in Europe, so descendant connections might well be lost. The other case studies, however, treat geographic regions where Indigenous people still live and where some of those people have expressed their interest in rock art studies. An Indigenous archaeology, according to Joe Watkins (Indigenous Archaeology, 2000, p. 170), is founded in part on “the wish of the Indigenous population to gain control over the construction of their culture history.” This movement has an international range, so it is surprising that, in a book covering much of the world, only one author (working in Australia) acknowledges Native collaboration. Given that this book contains so much innovative work, the lack of descendant community engagement in both theoretical formulations and applied studies is unexpected.
Despite these caveats, this book provides an important view of varied and powerful methods for analyzing the spatial dimension of ancient rock art. It should be read by all students of rock art who hope to go beyond the mere description of these ubiquitous and important cultural records.
