Rock Art and the Wild Mind presents a study of Mesolithic rock art on the Scandinavian peninsula, including the large rock art sites in Alta, Nämforsen and Vingen.
Hunters’ rock art of this area, despite local styles, bears a strong commonality in what it depicts, most often terrestrial big game in diverse confrontations with the human realm. The various types of compositions are defined as visual thematizations of the enigmatic relationship between humans and big game animals. These thematizations, here defined as motemes, are explained as being products of the Mesolithic mind ‘in action’, observed through repetitions, variations and transformations of a number of defined motemes. Through a transformational logic, the transition from ‘animic’ to ‘totemic’ rock art is observed. Totemic rock art reaches a peak during the final stages of the Late Mesolithic, and it is suggested that this can be interpreted as representing an increasing focus on human society towards the end of this era. The move from animism to totemism is explained as being part of the overall social development on the Scandinavian peninsula.
This book will be of interest to students of rock art generally and scholars working on the historical developments of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in northern Europe. It will also appeal to students and academics in the fields of art history and aesthetics and to those interested in the work of Lévi-Strauss.
Author(s): Ingrid Fuglestvedt
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 458
Cover
Title
Copyright
Contents
Figures
Tables
Acknowledgements
0 Archaic meetings – a prologue
Rock art and great meetings
The dynamics of archaic meetings and its imprint in stone
1 Object and objectives
Sketching the approaches
The meeting of minds
Nature and culture – not quite beyond
2 The setting
Study area
Settlement
From extended families to clans
Evidence of Late Mesolithic meetings and rituals “outside” the context of rock art
Meetings at the large rock art areas; the example of Nämforsen
Hunters’ rock art
Types of landscape locations for rock art
Location in time
Absolute and relative chronology of Mesolithic rock art
PART I The structure of Mesolithic hunters’ rock art
3 Northern European hunters’ rock art – products of the ‘wild mind’ in action
Introduction
Encapsulated in nature
Mind in the wild
Myths and mythical thinking
Hunters’ rock art and post-structuralism
A preliminary defi nition of the moteme
Art and wild thinking: a chapter epilogue
4 The ‘key moteme’ and its transformations: visual paths of a Late Mesolithic analogical logic
Method
Metaphoric and metonymic animals
The basic homology: approaching its contents
Leitmotif and key moteme
The herd of big game
Discerning the herd moteme
Defining motemes through the agency of hunting
Mediation and confrontation
Return of the great herds
Giving back, or going back
List of motemes
Defining motemes through visual transformations
Examples of visual transformation of the key moteme
Vingen: example of visual transformation of the herd moteme
From key homology to circles and graphic designs: starting at Kåfjord Upper
Digression: example of a lost connection
The origin of graphic design: contraction and simplification of repeated and “accumulated” figures
A Late Mesolithic ‘motemic geography’
The meaning of rock art
Repetitions, transformations and variations over the leitmotif
Mirror play and chiasms
Hunters’ rock art and music
5 Mediating nature and culture, or body design in the eastern Norwegian group of hunters’ rock art
Introduction: ‘naturalism’ and ‘schematicism’
Earlier positions on body fill and graphic designs
‘Nature-to-culture’ in the eastern Norwegian group of rock art
Åskollen
Skogerveien
Geithus
Ekeberg, Møllerstufossen, Glemmestad and Drotten (Dokkfløy and Eidefossen)
The structure and origin of graphic design in eastern Norway
The nature of culture: conclusive remarks
Appendix to Chapter 5: consequences for the relative chronology
6 Design patterns as an autonomous system of references
Introduction: further analogical opportunities
A reinforcement of connections
The diamond pattern and its visual associations
Patterns of association
The “re-invention” of Mesolithic design patterns
PART II Mesolithic hunters’ rock art as animism and totemism
7 Approaching rock art through animism and totemism
Outer versus inner
Mind and nature: testimonies of rock art
Early Mesolithic/early Middle Mesolithic Nordland and Trøndelag
The early Late Mesolithic
Late Mesolithic and earliest Early Neolithic
Mind and nature: comments
From epistemology to ontology
From animism and totemism – to ‘animic’ and ‘totemic’ rock art
Animism
Animism in Scandinavian hunters’ rock art
Totemism
Totemism in hunters’ rock art and in the archaeological record of western Norway
Animism and totemism in Mesolithic and Early Neolithic rock art
Is animism to totemism as nature is to culture?
Totemism and animism – a chiasmatic relationship
8 “Measuring” the totemic impact
The totemic impact and its temporal placement
The LM4/LM5 totemic impact
Measuring totemism
Calculations
Commenting on the ‘totemic impact’, or no definite conclusion
Appendix to Chapter 8: on methodology
9 The mapping of design patterns, or fragments of a totemic geography
Background and aims
The patterns and their geographical distribution
Defining a totemic geography
Do ‘clan landscapes’ align with ‘clan territories’?
10 The Late Mesolithic ‘lines of contact’
What is a ‘line of contact’?
‘Lines of contact’
From Alta to Ausevik
From Alta to Holtås-Lamtrøa
From Vingen to Holtås
From Ausevik-Vingen to Tennes
From Skogerveien to Vingen
From Alta to Møllerstufossen
Alta and Nämforsen
Alta and Gamnes
Comments to ‘lines of contact’
PART III Rock art, sexe and the symbolic gift
11 Late Mesolithic sexe in rock art
The concept of ‘sexe’
Sexe in Late Mesolithic rock art: degree of presence and its context
The male elk as metaphor of society
Independent women and great men?
Appendix to Chapter 11: sexual markers in human depictions
12 Animism and totemism through time, and the introduction of the symbolic gift
The animic-totemic divide and “animism regained” in the North
Totemism and the symbolic gift: a hypothesis
References
Index
