More than art, other than human: recognising rock art as Indigenous knowledge bundles

Abstract

Traditional studies of rock art draw from art historical or archaeological lenses, where researchers study the images as if they were art and emblematic pieces of material culture. This framing does not lend itself to understanding the images within their full cultural and social contexts. To understand the images that Indigenous ancestors created for future generations, we must read them as Indigenous knowledge. In my work in the Northwestern Plains of the United States, I look to Indigenous archaeological theories and methods to elevate the voices of descendant community members whose ancestors created the images. Indigenous archaeological scholarship and methods can uniquely frame interpretations of this particularly understudied material type. This results in seeing the images as manifestations of ancestral knowledge and memory given to community members through dreaming that act as archives of critical information and other than human kin existing as part of a larger relational knowledge bundle.