Nets and fully recurved bows: Rock paintings and hunting methods in the Western Cape, South Africa

Abstract

This paper is presented from the perspective that the past cannot be cast in the light of the present which is the end point of a trajectory of change. As such, the reconstruction of past lifestyles, either by using historic or contemporary ethnography, must proceed with caution. A two way interaction of ethnography and archaeology is argued for, with one equally informing on the other. To this end, two sets of painted images are chosen to explore the possibility of deriving technological and economic information from rock paintings without benefit of a direct ethnography.