The economic side of rock art: concepts on the production of visual images

FIORE, D.

Rock Art Research

IFRAO

Año: 2007 vol. 24 p. 149 - 160

This paper focuses on the analysis of the economic aspects of rock art production. Such analysis is based on a theoretical perspective that widens the narrow association between art and ideology and centres on the economic processes that occur within art creation. These are analysed by studying the organization of art's work process. The paper proposes a production sequence model constituted by three operative chains, and provides criteria to analyse each of its stages. It discusses possible interpretations of this model in terms of labour investment, stressing that such investment was not always guided by optimal (cost-minimising) choices. It is argued that assessment of the labour invested in rock art production can shed light on the reasons behind raw materials, techniques and bedrock-space selection. The paper also includes some brief examples from Patagonia and the North-West area (Argentina) which illustrate the potential of these concepts when applied to rock art research.