"Images of power: why should we care about Indigenous rock art?" by Dr Jamie Hampson

Sacred Indigenous rock paintings and engravings are found in different landscapes in almost every country around the world. Some motifs are at least 75,000 years old; some were painted yesterday.

We do not always know exactly what the rock imagery means, but thanks to intertwining strands of evidence we do know a great deal – especially in regions where the descendants of the original artists still survive. Indeed, rock art motifs were – and often still are – ‘powerful things in themselves’, and an integral part of sacred Indigenous heritage. Tragically, however, rock art in some parts of the world is threatened by industrial development and climate change.

In this talk, I draw from 25 years of archaeological and anthropological fieldwork in southern Africa, the Americas, and Australia.

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