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San rock art: evidence and argument

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2015

J. David Lewis-Williams  and
David G. Pearce
J. David Lewis-Williams
Affiliation:
Rock Art Research Institute, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa (Email: davidp@rockart.wits.ac.za)
David G. Pearce
Affiliation:
Rock Art Research Institute, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa (Email: davidp@rockart.wits.ac.za)
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Abstract

Whether or not a ‘trance-dance’ akin to that of today's Kalahari San (Bushmen) was performed by southern /Xam San in the nineteenth century has long been the subject of intense debate. Here the authors point to parallels between nineteenth-century records of San life and beliefs and twentieth-century San ethnography from the Kalahari Desert in order to argue that this cultural practice was shared by these two geographically and chronologically distant groups. More significantly, it is suggested that these ethnographic parallels allow a clearer understanding of the religious and ritual practices depicted in the southern San rock art images.

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Type
Debate
Information
Antiquity , Volume 89 , Issue 345 , June 2015 , pp. 732 - 739
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2015 

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