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Painting as relationship: interactions between people and paintings on rock walls

Abstract

This paper proposes a dialog between Brazilian archaeology and ethnology in order to understand intensive relationships among rock art elements. These interactions in rock art panels are analyzed in two regions of Minas Gerais (central Brazil), the Peruaçu River Valley and Diamantina, which have been studied by teams from the Archeology Sector of the Natural History Museum and Botanical Garden at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. We focus in this paper on the former region, but both are considered and feature many cases of interactions, in which new paintings or etchings are made on panels that already contain such rock art. The dialogue with ethnology focuses on some of the central notions presented in ethnographic studies and ethnological syntheses about Amerindian societies, mostly the strong relational character in their cosmologies and their understandings of non-human agency. The main finding from studying the broad-spanning indigenous graphic heritage from these two regions is to consider these relationships as a major element in the practice of rock art, a relationship in which both people and paintings are actors.

Palavras-chave
Grafismos rupestres; Arte rupestre; Teoria arqueológica; Etnologia; Agência; Relacionalidade

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