24 -  Pictures as pictures: subject, depiction, movement, composition in world rock art.

A universal issue in rock-art, overlooked and under-researched, is the study of pictures as pictures: why are four-legged animals depicted this way? Snakes that way? Human beings the other way? Why are these conventions so often strongly consistent the world over ? With good reason – the subjects are often nearly the same, and the geometrical problem of how to reduce the complex three-dimensional shape to the simpler two-dimensional shape of the picture certainly is universal. By studying these issues, we can better understand the conventions of picture-making; we can infer better just what has been depicted; and we can explore how and if movement can be and is depicted, space and time even, and whether grouped figures do in truth make a composition. Papers are welcomed on any of these interests, using materials from any or many parts of the world in practical case-studies.

Christopher Chippindale
Curator for British Archaeology and Reader in Archaeology
Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology
University of Cambridge
Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, England
(44)-1223-333-513 landline; (44)-7875-833-751 mobile

Cris Buco
Doutoramento em Quaternário, Materiais e Cultura - UTAD/PT
Affiliation THE CAPES FOUNDATION,MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF BRAZIL
FUMDHAM - Fundação Museu do Homem Americano/ Brazil
ITM - Instituto Terra e Memória/ Mação – Portugal.

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