Engendering the rock art archaeology of the north Eastern Cape, South Africa Ritual specialists, novices, and social conditioning

Engendering the rock art archaeology of the north Eastern Cape, South Africa Ritual specialists, novices, and social conditioning Green, Dawn Rock art affords unique opportunities for engendered research because it provides emic views of how specific people re-presented themselves. My feminist study investigates under-researched ‘San/Bushman’ gendered identities to understand more about area-specific constructions of personhood through analysing 2852 rock paintings from two adjacent areas of the northern Eastern Cape, South Africa. Using quantitative and qualitative methods and evidence from excavation archaeology, ethnography, ethology, and neurocognitive research, I identify three categories of ritual specialists: experienced and preeminent; ordinary; and novice. These paintings show that wo/men ritual specialists could transcend the identity norms of ordinary people, but men ritual specialists may have had more status and power. I suggest the paintings acted as a controlling mechanism for the potency of women, indoctrination of novices, and present an ideal for the practice of ritual specialists and ordinary people. This research has important implications for identifying different types of identity marking by different groups of southern African San.