Centre de Recherche et d'Etudes pour l'Art Préhistorique Emile Cartailhac

Daureb/Brandberg, Namibia

by Tilman Lenssen-Erz

     This research program started from the University of Cologne in 1978 with a phase of recording (by the late Harald Pager) and continued until 2006 with publishing these recordings (supervised by Tilman Lenssen-Erz). At time the work in the region is running at a lower level, mainly in cooperation with local partners, but a new, larger archaeological project is under way.

     The Daureb (or Brandberg in its better known colonial name) is an isolated mountain formation 30 km in diameter, lying on the fringes of the Namib desert. Despite the desert climate the Brandberg landscapes have probably always been so rich that they have attracted people throughout the history of modern humankind. This landscape is embellished with about 1000 rock art sites, containing roughly 50.000 pictures, 80 % of which have been published (Pager 1989-2006). The art was largely produced between 4000 and 2000 years ago by hunter-gatherers, the forebears of the modern San ("Bushmen").

       

     Recent research into the meaning of the Daureb art by T. LENSSEN-ERZ has focused on three fields of significance. First are ecological aspects expressed in metaphorism of animals, particularly of springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis). Issues like harmonious social relations and harmony with nature are among the expressive repertoire of springbok. Rock art seems to have been a medium re-confirming to the prehistoric people their (ritual) agency in the face of crises such as drought that would endanger their basics of living.

     A second field of meaning in the art concerns the roles of women and men. Differently from what is evoked in many writings on southern African rock art, no confirmation can be found in the Daureb paintings regarding a conventional division of the gender roles. Rather, women in prehistoric times seem to have had a crucial role in ritual and the metaphysical world, while men were more closely related to daily, physical experiences, the empirical world as it were. However, this sexual dichotomy concerns only about 20 % of the paintings, while the vast majority is neither sexually marked nor displays behaviour typical for one or the other sex. This fact challenges conventional perceptions of gender relations among prehistoric hunter gatherers. It appears, thus, that the main concern of the painters of the Brandberg was the promotion of a 'zero-marked' human, i.e., a person without any indications of sex, age, role, status or rank.

     The third focus of research is on the rock art sites as one of the constituents of the meaning of the art. Structural analysis of the sites suggests that use of the Daureb was not a matter of long term planning but of short term crisis management with an according amount and type of ritual practice. By an analysis of several hundred sites seven types of sites were identified and from their quantity and distribution conclusions about the use of the landscape were drawn.

     In generalizing terms the essence of the meaning of the Brandberg rock art can be summarized in the three ideas 'community-equality-mobility'. This maxim is what the painters most often expressed in their art. Accordingly rock art was not only a means to maintain and pass on the encyclopaedic knowledge of a society but also a tool of social management to keep up the ideological foundations of the hunter-gatherer society.

       

           

       

     Click to enlarge.