Back in the days when I was an undergraduate, I was introduced to the mystical world of social theory. My tutors – Christopher Tilley and, later, Michael Shanks – introduced me to an obscure branch of archaeology that I had never been exposed to. At that time, archaeology to me and my contemporaries was merely to dig a hole, record it, and, if anything interesting was revealed, research it. To my surprise, the notions of hermeneutics, phenomenology, and semiotics being somehow connected to archaeology appeared to make sense (just about). To add to this smorgasbord of philosophical thought, the late Mark Pluciennik introduced me to the term ‘ontology’: the concept of human existence, experience, and the interaction between the ‘self’, reality, and objects.
These sometimes left-field concepts have followed me through much of my academic career. The social theory revolution (for want of a better term) has largely disappeared from mainstream academic undergraduate teaching, sometimes featuring as an aside to more empiricist practical and technical approaches to interpreting archaeology. However, occasionally peeking above the parapets are gems such as this: Ontologies of Rock Art.
For those readers who are unsure what ‘ontology’ is and how it relates to rock art… fear no more! The editors have produced a readable introductory chapter that explains the various ontological elements that can be used as an interpretative tool, such as indigenous knowledge (art and its association between myth and storytelling), metaphysics, politics, and social interaction between people and objects, and how they reveal meaning in art and the ideology that supports it. The objects, in this case, are engraved and painted images and the rhetoric they command.
