Research seminar of Ana Motta, Kiel, Germany:

Animal performance: on becoming human and animal in the Indigenous rock art from the north-east Kimberley, Australia, through a bi-constructivist approach 
 
In this talk I will present the main findings of my doctoral dissertation that sets to explore the contributions of animals to the construction of social identity/ies by looking at Pleistocene rock art from the Kimberley, Australia. Rock art is an ideal medium for exploring social identity/ies as it has been argued that it is closely linked to country, material culture, animals, plants, and other beings. Here, I am interested in deconstructing the ontological footing of humans and animal in north-east Kimberley rock art, with a special emphasis on those compositions where human and animals are engaged with each other (e.g., dancing, hunting, etc.). These associations are interpreted under a relational framework that highlights the transformability of things, where the boundary that separates humans from animals is blurred. This was done by developing a bi-constructivist framework that considered iconography, ethology, zooarchaeology, and ethnography. The linkage between theoretical approaches to identity theory and archaeological evidence, and the re-assessment of early stylistic sequences in the Kimberley form the basis of the work.  

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