Abstract
AbstractThe ontological turn has opened multiples avenues of inquiry in archaeology and rock art research. Goals of this theoretical approach include unfolding and describing other worlds, understanding the differences between modern worldviews and past ontologies, and defining the ontologies materialized in rock images. This paper discusses the relationship(s) between rock art and ontology with reference to the idea of cosmopolitics and the political role of other-than-humans in social life. We suggest that rock art is grounded on historical modes of existence or, in other words, that rock images unfold particular fields of relations, affections, and political agencies through time and space. To illustrate this point, we focus on two Northern Chilean rock art examples: the El Medano hunter-gatherer-fisher rock paintings on the Pacific coast of the Atacama Desert; and carved Incan outcrops of the Atacama Desert. These examples allow us to discuss how rock art images produce historical cosmopolitics that disclose specific relationships between humans, other-than-humans, and politics. A discussion about the relationships between rock art and cosmopolitics is not only relevant to understand past ontologies, but it can also be a useful tool to think about the future, our current relationships with other-than-humans and ‘nature,’ and the need to create new models of development based on a new way of understanding the relationships between humans, landscape, and other-than-humans.
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
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