Introduction: depiction of weapons and tools in rock art as ambivalent symbols in time and space

Abstract

[Excerpt] The depiction of weapons and tools in rock art is a universal phenomenon found throughout the five continents, covering different chronological periods and cultural backgrounds. It reveals the different perceptions of human groups, from hunter-gatherer communities to state-run societies. It should be viewed as a complex phenomenon, where multiple inter pretative approaches are more than comprehensible and acceptable. Rock art may include engraved or painted representa tions and is found both in open-air rocky surfaces and rock shelters. In either case, the sites mark different places on a wider landscape. Identification and iconographic description of rock art sites is relatively easy, through the use of adequate tools and the latest technological improvements (e.g. photogramme try, 3D models or drones). However, their interpretation is extremely complicated and highly subjective. The exercise of interpreting rock art sites, and the depic tion of weapons and tools in particular, implies a suitable theoretical background, competences and methodological approaches, that vary according to the different lines of research or even in function of the available data. However, all these frameworks are important in order to build a wider and multivariate body of knowledge. These practices seek to explain why past societies decided to represent their ideo logical universe in rock outcrops and rocky shelters, and, in many cases, how and why they reused and celebrated, or even obliterated, such places, during more or less long diachronic periods. [...]