Rock Art Research

Since André Leroi-Gourhan has severely condemned the kind of comparatism which looks for disparate data in the ethnographic literature in order to have Palaeolithic man speaking Inuit or Arrernte, rock art specialists are divided in two opposite factions: one group thinks that searching for the meaning of the pictures is a senseless task or at least a non-scientific project; while the other considers that the signification of the images is still attainable. Some bring to light underlying structures without any basis of understanding their meanings, others are intent on unveiling once more the signification of the pictures with the help of a ring of keys borrowed from various domains, such as psychoanalysis, phenomenology of religion, or anthropology of shamanism. In some rare circumstances, however, it is possible to progress on a medial way, but one needs to discover some Rosetta Stones. If such clues are missing, any search of that sense must definitely be discarded.