by Chris Fowler
CONCLUSIONS
This chapter has examined the current position of research on rock art in the Iberian Peninsula. In the past decades great advances have been made with regard to the catalogue of sites known, the definition of their archaeological contexts and chronologies, and the analysis of their roles within society and in the landscape. Advances in rock art research have been so remarkable that this is no longer considered a separate or marginal field of research, but a source of evidence indispensable to understanding the Neolithic world. However, much work remains to be done, especially in redefining the concept of ‘schematic art’ and investigating the relationships between the different contemporary styles. At the same time, it is necessary to continue working on the identification of clear patterns in the archaeological and geographical contexts of rock art production at different scales. In addition to their regional variability, the emergence of the different Neolithic art styles in the Iberian Peninsula is part of a phenomenon that encompassed a broader macro-region. A broader perspective needs to be adopted if we are to understand how the emergence and development of Iberian rock art was related to transformations shared throughout Neolithic Europe.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Lara Bacelar Alves for allowing me to use her photographs of Antelas and Pala Pinta in this publication.
NOTE
1.These analyses form part of a wider project that also uses micro-Raman spectroscopy to study the pigment composition and microstratigraphy of several painted sites in the Serrania de Cuenca (Hernanz et al. 2008), with interesting and promising results. Similar analyses using a portable energy dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) spectrometer have been carried out in other Levantine sites (Roldán et al. 2010).
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CHAPTER 45
THE ROCK ART TRADITION OF VALCAMONICA–VALTELLINA DURING THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD*
ANGELO EUGENIO FOSSATI
IN the Alpine region, rock engravings and paintings have been produced on the walls of rock shelters and on the surfaces of erratic boulders or bedrocks as early as the end of the Upper Paleolithic. In particular the numerous engravings, realized by hammering, scratching, or polishing the rocks, are very varied: isolated or in scenes they can be abstract or geometric, figurative, symbolic or narrative (Arcà and Fossati 1995).
Of these rock art traditions, two are the most important in terms of quantity, quality, and chronological range: that of Mont Bego (Valleé des Merveilles and Fontanalba, France) to the west (De Lumley 1995), and that of Valcamonica and Valtellina in the central-eastern Italian Alps, which is the focus of this chapter. Besides these two focal points, other smaller areas with petroglyphs or pictographs exist. Sites with rock art and/or statue-menhir groups of Neolithic tradition (Casini et al. 1995) are known, from west to east, in the Swiss Valais around Sion and in Valle d’Aosta, Italy, and in Val Susa and Val Pellice (Italy, where there are also painted figures from rock shelters). In Trentino-Alto Adige and Lessinia (Veneto, Italy), only statue menhirs are so far known. Finally, in the Graubünden Canton (Switzerland), and reaching into the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy, there is only rock art. In these areas, during the most ancient phases (fifth to fourth millennium BC), it is possible to find non-figurative rock art, such as meanders, spirals, and topographic figures, whilst in the third millennium BC the phenomenon of the statue-menhirs appears, comprising figures that we see also on carved rocks, such as weapons, ornaments, ploughing scenes, solar circles, etc. (Fossati 2003; Arcà and Fossati 1995).
DATING THE ART
In the Valcamonica–Valtellina area, prehistoric rock art dates from the end of Palaeolithic to the arrival of the Romans (Anati 1976; De Marinis 1988; Fossati 1991, 2009). Obviously the rock art tradition does not always assume the same meaning for the populations that produced it, but in every period the significance of carving rock art appears to be different. The art is generally dated by the depiction of characteristic artefacts or by comparison with well-dated art in other areas, whilst superimpositions provide useful relative dating information. The most ancient period is represented by very few figures—only ten have been recognized so far and all depict animals, especially elks and deer (Anati 1974). This phase is connected to the style and chronology of open-air Ice Age art (Abreu et al. 1995, 1998; Zilhão 1997). The figures are outlined in contour and reach dimensions of up to 1m, bigger than the standard size of the zoomorphic figures of the later periods, which reach 20–30cm at most.
Emmanuel Anati divided the rock art traditions into four main different styles, termed Camunnian (i.e. ‘of Valcamonica’). The Neolithic rock art tradition comprises the first and second Camunnian styles and dates to between the first half of the fifth millennium BC and the end of the third millennium BC (including the Copper Age, in certain areas called final Neolithic). However, the dating of some motifs remains disputed. For instance, the frequent schematic anthropomorphic ‘praying figures’ (oranti in Italian) have been dated to the Neolithic by Anati and his followers (Sansoni and Gavaldo 2009) on the basis that they reflect what these authors termed ‘a Neolithic conception of society’ (for example there are many female figures in comparison with the successive periods). However, as De Marinis (1994b), Ferrario (1994), and Arcà (2001) have convincingly established, these chronological ideas are not supported by the study of the superimpositions between the figures: the overlaps in fact show that the praying anthropomorphs always cover spirals, topographic figures, ploughing scenes, and Bell Beaker or early Bronze Age daggers, which indicates that these figures are from the Bronze Age.
The third phase of the rock art of Valtellina and Valcamonica (the third B-C-D Camunnian style) is generally attributed to the Bronze Age (2200–900 BC). During this period, the Valcamonica area is included in the Polada culture (early Bronze Age) and subsequently, during the middle Bronze Age, in the Terramare-Benacense culture (De Marinis 1988). The Bronze Age engravings are certainly the least well studied. During the early Bronze Age most of the figures show weapons (axes, daggers, halberds), and these themes continue into the later periods (with the disappearance of the halberds and the addition of spears) (Fossati 2001b; Casini and Fossati 2007). From the middle Bronze Age onwards the schematic oranti appear. They are often of female sex, indicated with a small pecked circle in the middle of the legs, and sometimes are associated with shovels similar to objects used to work with fire (to cook or to remove ashes), often found in female tombs in contemporary cemeteries in northern Italy (Fossati 2008). The final Bronze Age anticipates the most common themes of the Iron Age rock art: ‘praying’ figures, parading warriors, duellists, and hunting scenes. Th
e engravings of the Iron Age represent the majority of the rock art tradition, probably 80% of the total (Fossati 1991). Rock art continues to be created until the arrival of the Romans in 16 BC (Fossati 1991). People returned to the rocky areas in medieval times to engrave Christian symbols: crosses, keys, shears, Solomon’s knots (a cabalistic design of a knot without end to the cords), warriors, castles, and dates and inscriptions (Anati 1976; Sansoni 1993).
Judging from the types of weapons represented, the carvings in the Mont Bego area date from the Chalcolithic to the early Bronze Age, that is from 3300 to 1600 BC (Arcà 2011). Carved daggers with short triangular blades and rectilinear bases evoke the daggers of the Remedello culture in Lombardy. Halberds with elongated blades are similar to those of the Villafranca culture. Axes with splayed distal extremities are comparable to Chalcolithic axes. Several carved axes in the Merveilles sector are comparable to the axe of the ‘Iceman’ found on the Similaun glacier and dated to around 3300 BC (see Fig. 45.2). Other daggers with elongated triangular blades evoke those of early Bronze Age cultures such as the Polada in Lombardy and the Rhodanian in southern France.