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- Convenors:
-
Noel Tan
(SEAMEO-SPAFA)
Rachel Hoerman (University of Hawai'i-Manoa)
Victoria Scott (School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS))
- Location:
- B015
- Start time:
- 7 July, 2015 at
Time zone: Europe/Paris
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
Rock Art in Southeast Asia: Calling for research on new sites and regional perspectives, as well as understanding challenges and best practices for site management.
Long Abstract:
Southeast Asia rock art has come into increasing prominence in the world stage, most recently due to announcement of 40,000-year-old dates of rock art from Sulawesi, and also through the continued discovery of new sites throughout the region. The antiquity of rock art from Island Southeast Asia suggests that older sites may yet be discovered in Mainland Southeast Asia. As more and more rock art sites come to be discovered, new challenges emerge in the documentation, preservation and management of such rock art sites.
The purpose of this panel is twofold: first, to feature new site discoveries, recording techniques, ethnographic links with rock art, and new regional and theoretical perspectives to the study and understanding of rock art. Secondly, as rock art sites do not stand alone but are often used today as tourist sites and religious sites, the protection and appreciation of such sites can be challenging. As such, we call for papers pertaining to best practices and case studies in rock art site management.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The identification of rock art at Andomo and Lampetia caves extended the known distribution of painted rock art in Sulawesi. The motifs are predominantly hand stencils and show similarities with the hand-stencil motifs in the Maros region
Paper long abstract:
Andomo and Lampetia are limestone caves located in the Lake Towuti area in South Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi provinces. The caves contain burials and associated funerary goods, as well as painted rock art. Both sites were located in 2011 during a survey of the Towuti region and excavated the following year (2012) by a joint team of Australian and Indonesian archaeologists.
The identification of rock art at Andomo and Lampetia caves extended the known distribution of painted rock art in Sulawesi. The motifs are predominantly hand stencils and show similarities with the hand-stencil motifs in the Maros region, most notably in that they include examples of hands which have been over-stenciled to create the appearance of pointed ends to the fingers. However these caves lack the figurative animals found in the caves further south.
Paper short abstract:
This paper describes the rock art found in caves and shelters in the islands of Timor and Alor and compares this corpus with art found throughout the broader region of Island Southeast Asia and the western Pacific.
Paper long abstract:
This paper describes the rock art found in caves and shelters in the island of Timor and compares this corpus with art found throughout the broader region of Island Southeast Asia and the western Pacific. The art sites discussed include both painted art and engravings. The painted art has previously been identified as fitting the criteria used to define the Austronesian Painting Tradition (APT), a body of art sharing motifs, stylistic and locational attributes which is thought to have accompanied the spread of Austronesian-speaking communities through ISEA and into the Pacific after 4000 BP. But is there evidence for this style of art in the homeland of Proto Austronesian, Taiwan, and if not where did it develop?. Previous assessments of the painted and engraved art from Timor are reviewed in a broader regional context and in the light of new finds from the neighbouring island of Alor.
Paper short abstract:
Activities and outcomes from SEAMEO-SPAFA’s rock art workshops between 2011 and 2013
Paper long abstract:
From 2011 to 2013 the SEAMEO Regional Centre for Archaeology and Fine Arts organized a series of workshops focusing on the rock art of Southeast Asia, drawing perspectives on different aspects of rock art research from around the region and beyond. This paper presents the activities and outcomes of the three workshops held during that period, and how they advanced the appreciation and research of rock art in the region. This paper highlights some of the larger trends and needs for future research.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will introduce three lesser-known rock art sites from Kanchanaburi province, western Thailand and assess their research potential on the region and Thai rock art in general.
Paper long abstract:
The western region of Thailand boasts a number of prehistoric rock art sites, in particular a total of six rock art sites in the province of Kanchanaburi have been registered with the Fine Arts Department of Thailand. Three of the six sites are more widely known to the international academic community (Pha Daeng, Tham Ta Duang and Tham Roob). This paper will introduce the three lesser-known rock art sites and assess their research potential on the region and Thai rock art in general.
Paper short abstract:
In 2013-2014, we reinvestigated Zuojiang rock art sites by some advanced technologies. Based on these work, Zuojiang rock arts are featured by the repeated appearance of social assembly scenes, which are sacred landscape represented both religious and political meanings of ancient indigenous.
Paper long abstract:
The fundamental materials for ancient rock art research is the systematic and objective image data base. In 2013-2014, cooperated the preservation project of Zuojiang rock painting cultural heritages, we applied new technologies such as low altitude photogrammetry, High-definition digital records, 3D laser scanning measurement technology and some protection facilities to re-observe the painting images and landscapes of typical locations of Zuojiang rock art sites. The field works helped update the rock art image data base and revise some important details for specific image research, and the field work also provided more objective and detailed information for relative chronology and nature discussion of Zuojiang rock art. Based on the exploration of image and landscape materials, we suggest that the repeated appearance of social assembly scenes are the most important feature of Zuojiang rock art sites. The themes of Zuojiang rock painting are consisted with group of people images of specific scenes. Combined with their landscape, these rock art sites are sacred landscapes for ancient indigenous population who created the paintings. These rock art sites may have both religious and political meaning, and they also presented the cultural and social features of specific spatio-temporal context.
Paper short abstract:
Large results gained from two different karstic area rock art surveys from inner rainforest of East Kalimantan and Misool's fjord-like environment should permit to compare convergences as much as divergences in basic invariants in the function of rock art expressions.
Paper long abstract:
As more and more research programs on Rock Art and its corresponding prehistoric anthropology are conducted throughout I SEA, the author has had the opportunity to observe and thus compare some Rock Art sites from Kalimantan/Borneo and those of Misool's island (Rajah Ampat District/West Papua) area. Their common rough karstic environment being similar, they are nevertheless totally opposed, the first located far inside the inland rain forest, while the second is embedded in a marine/lacustre space. It is nevertheless interesting to try to compare on a structuralist approach on what their supposed differences would be built and if actually, they would not display the same answer to the same problems or universal questions, from Pleistocene to mid-holocene periods. The common, if not almost universal presence of stencilled hands on cliffs or caves panels besides representations of local fauna being thus possibly one of the linking bind.