Undesrstanding variation: A stylistic ethnographic analysis of rock art from the Makgabeng Plateau, Limpopo province, South Africa

Abstract

Recent rock art studies have earmarked certain finger-painted geometric rock art motifs and attributed these to herder, or Khoekhoe, groups across southern Africa. This study investigated the authorship, spatial and temporal distribution, interaction and possible meanings of these geometric rock art motifs. Focusing on a specific area, the Makgabeng, Limpopo Province, South Africa, the relationship between two corpora (finger-painted geometric and fine-line naturalistic rock art) was investigated using a stylistic ethnographic method. A method that allows for a contextual understanding of change through time and space, a method that considers historicity, change and the complex interaction between groups in the area. A comparative study of motifs in the two styles was undertaken at 44 sites in the Makgabeng. In this area, the ethnographies support interpretations that emphasise specific ideas around the body and phenomenological approaches of embodiment for each motif cluster. Through statistical and comparative studies, it was found that it was unlikely that two distinct ethnic groups created two rock art syles. Rather than an introduction of new meanings with the migration of herders, a continuity in beliefs, shared by assimilated Khoe-San groups once extant in the Makgabeng, is demonstrated.