Rock art’s materiality, paint recipes performances and techno visual affordances. A short biography of a theoretical-methodological model developed in Fuego-Patagonia and its current application to Levantine rock art (Spain).

FIORE, D.; SANTOS DA ROSA, N.

Congreso; Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) Conference - 43rd; 2022

Following an idealist ontology based on a Cartesianmind/body dichotomy, archaeology has often established a straightforward and univocalassociation between rock art and supposedly mainly-mental aspects of human experience –symbolism,worldviews, ideology, etc. In this paper we present a short biography of atheoretical-methodological framework that has effectively challenged this viewpoint and has offeredan alternative perspective to the archaeology of art, based on a materialist-relationalontology. Originally developed in South America, this framework has proposed several conceptsand models to research, analyse and interpret various Indigenous art forms (rock art,portable art, body art) of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. Viewing art as a material culture product,this perspective has aimed to unravel the relational links between the economy of art (e.g. thework process underlying art production and use, involving context-related and agent-orientedlabour investment and labour divisions); the technological means used along the productionsequences of image/objects (i.e. the specific performances and techno-visual affordances offered byeach raw material and technique); and the cognitive aspects (e.g. knowledge,values, perceptions) involved in the production and engagement with materials, techniques, image/objects,bodies and landscapes. We apply this framework to the study of paint recipes of Levantinerock art (Spain). In this sense, through a series of systematic experiments, we tested theefficiency of 112 simple-structure and complex-structure pictorial recipes –produced with 6 types ofpigments and 11 binders– regarding their ease of applicability, coverage capacity andadhesiveness. The results of this experimental research made it possible to determine the performanceeach pigment and binder, which served as diagnostic criteria to study an archaeologicalsample consisting of nine rock art sites. This allowed us to establish, for the first time,empirically supported inferences about the economy of art, the techno-visual affordances of each paintrecipe and the cognitive aspects underlying the Levantine paint production process.