Rock Art Research and Knowledge-Production in the Context of Globalizations. A Comparative Approach to the Cases of Patagonia-Argentina and Eastern Canada

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter, we discuss the impacts different globalizations (in plural) have had on the development of rock art research in Argentina and Canada over time. In particular, we focus on: (1) the initial or pioneer views on deep-time rock art in Eastern Canada and Patagonia (those of voyagers, explorers, militaries, and missionaries); (2) the development of archaeologies of art in the strict academic sense of the term (e.g. culture-history and stylistic approaches as well as processual approaches, following and creatively adapting international academic trends); and (3) a number of new theoretical approaches associated with post-processualism, including landscape archaeology, ecological approaches, materiality, and, more recently, the ‘ontological turn’. These three periods in the history of Western thought on deep-time rock art emerged in different contexts and under specific historical conditions, yet are characterised by the globalization of theoretical concepts from central areas of traditional academic theoretical production (i.e. Europe and USA), towards South America and Canada. In sum, we show how interpretations of deep-time Indigenous rock art in Eastern Canada and in Argentinean Patagonia were conceived under different conceptual frameworks according to different contexts of globalizations over time.