The space of flow at Telperion Shelter: the rock art of a recycled, reused and reimagined place

Abstract

ABSTRACTTelperion Shelter is a multi-component rock art site in western Mpumalanga, South Africa. The shelter’s back wall contains the artwork of Bushman foragers, Kheokhoe herders, Sotho-Tswana farmers and South African War-period (1899–1902) occupants, amongst more recent graffiti. Thus, the site was used by culturally disparate communities who left their mark on the wall. The site presents an interesting space to examine place-making over the last several thousand years. Referring to Manuel Castells (2000, The Rise of the Network Society. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers) and his ‘space of flow’ concept, we test his theoretical approach as a framework for examining place-making and archaeological palimpsests, which in Telperion’s case is a multi-cultural rock art panel. In this framework, space, defined as a material product in relation to other material products, is a changing variable with its significance determined by its connectivity and nodality, and the influence people with power placed upon it. We consider the landscape biography of Telperion and its immediate surroundings in a way that captures the shifting functions and roles of the site as it was used by culturally different groups over time. The site and its painted back wall becomes an articulatory channel through which the disparate, culturally dependent, shifting meaning of ‘place’ can be explored.