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Meaning in the Later Prehistoric Rock-Engravings of Mont Bégo, Alpes-Maritimes, France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 February 2014

Lawrence Barfield  and
Christopher Chippindale
Lawrence Barfield
Affiliation:
Department of Ancient History & Archaeology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT
Christopher Chippindale
Affiliation:
Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ
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Abstract

The later prehistoric rock-engravings of Mont Bégo, in the Maritime Alps on the French–Italian border, provide a rare possibility of grasping the meaning of a group in prehistoric art. Two elements in their limited repertoire of forms are daggers and halberds, which also occur as physical objects or as images in the contemporary sites of adjacent north Italy; their contexts show they are, in that area, associated with the status of adult males in society. That same interpretation is applied to the Mont Bégo figures, and this is found congruent with other motifs — especially ploughs and cattle — in the repertoire. It may explain also the other common motif, a geometrical form interpreted as a map of a prehistoric farmstead, by associating it with plough agriculture and land division. The insights developed from the study for what ‘meaning’ amounts to in the study of prehistory are set down.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society , Volume 63 , 1997 , pp. 103 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © The Prehistoric Society 1997

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References

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