War and Peace in Iberian Prehistory: The Chronology and Interpretation of the Depictions of Violence in Levantine Rock Art

Abstract

Spanish Levantine rock art is a unique prehistoric phenomenon from the Western Mediterranean. Long-standing difficulties with radiocarbon dating the pigments taken from the paintings have led to the formulation of disparate chronological hypotheses, ranging from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Chalcolithic. Recently, two hypotheses have been put forward to explain its origins and overall chronology: the rock art was produced by indigenous Mesolithic foragers as a response to the climatic deterioration brought about by the 8.2 k BP (c.6200 BC) cooling event; or it was a cultural reaction to the first encounters between autochthonous Mesolithic foragers and incoming Neolithic settlers in the mid-sixth millennium BC. Both hypotheses are carefully assessed in the chapter by means of a comparative analysis of the scenes of interpersonal and group violence depicted on the rock art panel, vis-a-vis the regional archaeological evidence for the late Mesolithic and the spread and consolidation of the Neolithic. The investigation reveals that the emergence of this pictorial tradition cannot be explained with either intergroup Mesolithic competition over natural resources or conflict between late Mesolithic and early Neolithic communities, but is instead grounded in the social dynamics of developed Neolithic communities in the subsequent millennia.