Ethnogeology of rock art?

Abstract

A shared aspect of Native Amazonian theory-making on rock art seems to be the intertwining of rock art with complex systems of empirical and conceptual knowledge of geology and environment. Rock art seems to have epistemological articulations with its geo-environmental context. Ethnographic evidence suggests that to Native Amazonians, geological phenomena are as culturally and intentionally constructed as rock art, presenting patterns of cognitive organisation similar to those of sentient social life forms, with potential human-like mind states and behaviors, implying a multi-perspectival lithosphere loaded with agency and intentionality. These understandings are considered here as elements of Amazonian ethnogeologies . The aim of this chapter is to theorise on the connection between rock art and ethnogeology amongst Amazonian perspectives, through the review of Amazonianist ethnography and direct accounts of indigenous oral tradition.

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