Book review: Rock Art Science: The Scientific Study of Palaeoart by Robert Bednarik

Robert Bednarik has an innovative approach to rock-art studies. As many people, including myself, have long advocated, we need multi-disciplinary approaches, rigorous methods and new theoretical frameworks in order to gain better understanding of this important component of world cultural heritage. In many areas of rock-art research, Australians and overseas-based individuals working in Australia have made important advances in recent years (eg. See Bednarik 2001 and Taçon 2001 for summaries). Bednarik's book follows on the heels of Chippindale and Taçon's (eds.) 1998 The Archaeology of Rock-art (Cambridge University Press) and Whitley's (ed.) 2001 Handbook of Rock Art Research (Altamira Press) and in some ways is a response to them. Other key recent publications in this field include Helskog's 2001 Theoretical Perspectives in Rock Art Research (Novus Forlag, Oslo) and David and Wilson's (eds.) 2002 Inscribed Landscapes (University of Hawaii Press). Unfortunately, while the other four volumes are inclusive in spirit, Bednarik admonishes approaches other than his own and denounces the archaeological approach to rock-art as being without merit. A book is uncomfortable to read when the author has such a high opinion of his own work, and a low one of others', and may not persuade the reader that knowledge is actually that simply structured into good and poor.

Rock Art Science is the first of a new series of rock-art publications produced by IFRAO by Brepol Publishers, Belgium. Essentially, Rock-art Science is philosophy with a scientific method approach to understanding the past. It contains much anti-archaeology rhetoric. The book begins with a discussion about ''reality'' and unknown superior ''alien'' intelligence to set the stage for a discussion about rock-art. Aspects of reality and the alien reappear at various times throughout the book.

Archaeologists are also cast as aliens, but with perhaps inferior intelligence. The only research declared valid by Bednarik is that framed around hypotheses that can be tested and refuted, the classic Karl Popper position. Notably, this precludes many techniques and approaches currently used with apparent success by rock art practitioners, such as subject identifications and classifications, the use of ''style'', the use of statistics and any interpretation of search for meaning. In other words, most things archaeologists do are seen as not valid or relevant, but to quote Bednarik are ''myth-making'' activities that tell us more about archaeologists than anything else. Some of the few areas deemed not to involve myth-making by Bednarik are the detailed investigations of the technological underpinnings of rock-art production, differentiation between art and natural marks, and rock-art dating. Bednarik advocates his own micro-erosion dating method as one of the best and most reliable dating methods, although he admits it is inaccurate (page 127).

Rock art practitioners and researchers owe Bednarik a great debt for establishing the Australian Rock Art Research Association, the internationally refereed journal Rock Art Research and his efforts to establish IFRAO, the International Federation of Rock Art Organisations. The journal has contributed significantly to the generation of data and information on rock-art research from Australia and many other parts of the world. He has tirelessly led campaigns to save rock-art from development-related destruction in many parts of the world and has published hundreds of papers. In Rock Art Science, he brings together many things previously published separately, and offers his overall vision for the study of rock-art.

The weakness of Bednarik's singular stance is shown by his recent ''identification'' and ''interpretation'' of Pilbara rock-art as resulting from an early Portuguese shipwreck (see Bednarik 2000 and reports in The Australian newspaper on 2-3 and 4 December 2000). This proposition cannot be scientifically refuted - nor is it apparently based on any sound historically-based hypothesis. It is, to use his term, more ''myth-making''. Like interpretations of the past Bednarik has published world-wide, it is just as ''fanciful'' and untestable as those of many archaeologists. Much of our present understanding, interpretation, conception or perception of the past is not testable in a strict Popperian sense. And, curiously, in many of Bednarik''s publications he writes in that archaeological manner or as if he were striving to be an archaeologist. In regard to his ground-breaking Pilbara research, he stated recently: ''Wanting to place Pilbara rock art into an archaeological context rendered it essential for me to focus particularly on the question of antiquity, because rock art can only become an archaeologically meaningful resource if its age is known'' (Bednarik 2002:30).

As I have previously pointed out (Taçon 1999), what many people fail to realise is that the study of the past is a combination of a scavenger hunt, detective story and jigsaw puzzle, all rolled into one. The challenge is that there is no list, plot or picture on a box to refer to. Each discipline's techniques, methods and theories provide new and different pieces of the puzzle; not only do we never find all the pieces but also, we are never sure how exactly what we do find makes sense. Rigour, thoroughness, accuracy and reliability are essential. Wherever possible a scientific approach is advocated (see Feder 1996) but we must never forget that the study of the past - through whatever framework - can never be complete and is always open to different levels of interpretation (Hassan 1997:1022). A careful, considered multi-disciplinary investigation is thus best practice. As Rosenfeld (2000:58) has concluded, the study of the past is a social science, ideally grounded in social theory, relevant ethnography and an understanding of fundamental human processes:

Understandings of the past can only be constructed by archaeological approaches to the material record of the past grounded in social theory. Our perception of this material record can be greatly enhanced by characterizations that science and its dating technologies provide, but they are characterizations in a conceptual language of the present. The interpretation of their past significance is neither demonstratable nor refutable in a Popperian sense.

As Susan Johnston (1993:144) expressed it:

... interpretations ... are assessed in terms of how well they account for the evidence, and not whether they can be proven to be true in any absolute sense.

Besides failing to come to grips with this, Rock Art Science has other deficiencies. There is no conclusion or concluding section and no succinct statement about what Bednarik thinks the role of his ''rock art science'' is. Many paragraphs and some whole sections are repeated in two or more chapters. Particular repeated slurs against archaeology become nauseating after the third, fourth and fifth recitation. And as the book is supposed to be about rock-art, more pictures would have been beneficial.

However, I do recommend rock-art researchers and archaeologists more generally to read this book, sieving out important finds from the spoil. Indeed, rock-art students and long-time practitioners alike, no matter what their background, status or theoretical bent, would do well by a thorough reading of all five titles mentioned in the first paragraph of this review. They could then decide for themselves what best synthetic approach of their own to bring to the rock-art bodies they study. There are many commendable and valid ways of studying the past. Bednarik's is only one, not the only one, as he would have us believe.

As Christopher Chippindale has remarked in a number of recent publications, rock-art will always be about pictures and stories: pictures of stories and stories of pictures. We all should remember this. Perhaps we need to better tell our stories about pictures. Certainly, it is a fallacy to say that archaeologists do not use science in rock-art research or other endeavours; indeed, such hypotheses can easily be refuted (for a very recent example of rock-art research by a group of archaeologists using a science-based approach see Ouzman et al. 2002). Contemporary archaeology promotes many stories and a ''critical reflexivity'' (Shanks 2002:173) but blanket negative generalisations by Bednarik or others about archaeology and archaeologists are ultimately self-defeatist. Instead of furthering an ''us'' versus ''them'' divide between archaeologists and other rock-art researchers, we need to promote constructive dialogue so that we all might benefit from different approaches to the past.

References

Bednarik, R.G. 2000 Earliest known historical rock art in Australia. Rock Art Research 17(2):131-133.

Bednarik, R.G. 2001 Australian rock art research at the advent of a new millenium. AURA Newsletter 18(1):1-6.

Bednarik, R.G. 2002 The survival of Murujuga (Burrup) petroglyphs. Rock Art Research 19(1):29-40.

Feder, K.L. 1996 Frauds, Myths and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology. Mountain View, California: Mayfield Publishing Company.

Hassan, F.A. 1997 Beyond the surface: Comments on Hodder's reflexive excavation methodology. Antiquity 71:1020-1025.

Johnston, S. 1993 The utility of ''Style'' in the analysis of prehistoric Irish rock art. In M. Lorblanchet and P. Bahn (eds.) Rock Art Studies: The Post-Stylistic Era, or Where Do We Go From Here?, pp. 143-150. Oxford: Oxbow Monograph 35.

Ouzman, S., Taçon, P.S.C., Mulvaney, K. and Fullagar, R. 2002 Extraordinary engraved bird track from North Australia: extinct fauna, Dreaming Being and/or aesthetic masterpiece? Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12(2):103-112.

Rosenfeld, A. 2000 Meanings in chronology: ''direct dating'' and style. In G.K. Ward and C. Tuniz (eds) Advances in Dating Australian Rock-Markings: Papers from the First Australian Rock-Picture Dating Workshop, pp. 55-58. Melbourne: Australian Rock Art Research Association. Occasional AURA Publication 10.\r\n\r\nShanks, M. 2002 Hybrid art and science. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 12(1):171-173.

Taçon, P.S.C. 1999 Andr?e Rosenfeld and the Archaeology of Rock-Art. Archaeology in Oceania 34(3):95-102.

Taçon, P.S.C. 2001 Australia. In D. Whitley (ed.) Handbook of Rock Art Research, pp. 530-75. Walnut Creek, California: Altamira Press.