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Incorporating indigenous management in rock art sites in KwaZulu-NatalNdlovu, Ndukuyakhe January 2005 (has links)
The majestic mountains of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg, formed many millennia ago were home to the Bushmen[footnote 1] or San people. They lived at these mountains for thousands of years before they were colonised by the Bantu speakers and the Europeans. Academic writings for many years have perpetuated the thinking that Bushman people were largely extinct. The dominance of this view in the academic writings was encouraged by historical evidence that Europeans and Bantu speakers hunted and killed Bushmen over the last several centuries. Researchers argue that the extermination of the Bushmen was because they were less human in the eyes of the foreigners, due to cattle raiding. There is still some element of this thinking amongst today’s academics, although research in the last decade is questioning this thinking. The question of whether descendants do exist is relevant to issues of rights of access to ancestral sacred sites, in particular rock art sites. At present, access to rock art sites is granted on qualification as an authentic fee-paying tourist (or affordability) rather than on group rights to a cultural heritage resource (cultural rights). Based on this, I argue that access to rock art sites is based on qualification rather than by right. This is largely driven by an approach that emphasises the physical conservation and financial sustainability of a site, rather than its spiritual maintenance. It has become clear that the interests in rock art by tourists and Bushman descendants are distinct from each other. Tourists have an aesthetic significance for rock art while Bushmen descendants have a spiritual significance for the paintings. Beyond any doubt, the physically based and financially driven approach has brought new challenges to today’s Bushmen descendants, whom in reaffirming their identities now have a new challenge to overcome. Not only are the rock art sites physically threatened but also they have lost much of their spiritual powers. Their fate lies in the hands of heritage officers who must determine access rights to the painted shelters. Both the National Heritage Resources Act and the KwaZulu-Natal Heritage Act acknowledge living heritage. However, the existence of this heritage is judged against the physical approach to rock art management. If the practises of descendants are perceived to be a threat to the rock art, they will not be approved. The case of the Duma is a classic example. Prior to the ritual ceremony at Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg, they were informed of the minimum standards for opening a rock art site to public and rules of how people should behave while visiting painted shelters. While it was evident that there are problems with the two approaches, the spiritual and physical approach, discussed in the thesis, it is important that solutions are identified. I do not believe that one approach on its own will be good enough, for reasons discussed in the thesis. Instead, the two approaches should be implemented together to compliment each other by identifying common grounds. I provide strategies as to how I believe that such a common ground can be reached. In addition, I provide my own analytical thinking as to how these strategies can be achieved. There is no general consensus over which term is appropriate. Both terms are considered by some academics to be derogatory or pejorative (Chennels 2003). San means vagabond and was given to the Bushmen by Khoi-Khoi people, because they considered themselves of a better social class, as they had domesticated animals and were more sedentary than Bushmen. However, according to WIMSA (Thoma 2003) the word San is derived from the Hai||om language meaning “people who gather”. It is normally written Saan but it has been accepted to write San. In 1993 the San requested to be called San when referred to as an entire group. If one refers to individual people/groups they like to be called by their language and cultural name i.e. Khwe, !Kung, !Xun, Ju|’hoansi, ‡Khomani, N|u, |’Auni, Hai||om, etc In this thesis, Bushmen is a preferred term, because it is a better-known term among the people who are central to this study. It is used without any insulting connotations attached to the term.
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A conservation model for rock art in South Africa: a management perspectiveKatsetse, Elijah Dumisani 10 1900 (has links)
A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg, South Africa in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science. October 2015. / A call for a more systematic approach to site protection and management has long
been made for rock art conservation in South Africa. This study heeds the call as
it aims to develop a conservation model for rock art in South Africa from a
management perspective. Site protection and management principles that have
been successfully implemented in Australia and America have seldom been
implemented in South Africa. Conservation researchers argue that it is relatively
easy to identify theoretically the requirements of a management or conservation
policy; however, developing a conservation model and policy that will
successfully maximize the conservation opportunities is an abstract task. As such
building a conservation model founded on abstract concepts on conservation
would not lead to an improved conservation practice and would be unsuccessful.
In world heritage systems there are, however, essential agreed upon principles on
assessment, criteria, guidelines, standards, and implementation.
Such systems therefore, underscore that the problem is perhaps not with theory
but with conservation practice in South Africa. This study presents new and
original research on rock art conservation interventions assessment on rock art. As
a point of departure this study investigated the history of conservation practice in
South Africa using a conservation assessment model developed by Kathleen
Dardes (1998) for museums in America. The history on conservation practice has
identified inconsistencies in the management of conservation treatments and
approaches to interventions. Conservation interventions are still based on
inductive, emergency salvage approaches with no thorough understanding of
either site or environmental conditions in South Africa. There is little attention
paid to indigenous sensitivities with conservation practices and there are no
standard systems of monitoring and reporting. While far more data is required to
provide definitive conservation strategies, this study proposes a three step
conservation model for rock art in South Africa from a management perspective.
This model focuses on initiating, planning and controlling conservation projects.
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Historical amnesia: a study into the causes of the disconnection between communities and their rock art sites at Chongoni Rock Art World Heritage SiteChiumia, Chrissy Chimodzi 29 January 2013 (has links)
This study examines the history by which the local communities became separated from
their ancestral heritage at Chongoni World Heritage Site in Malawi and then uses this
knowledge to improve the management and conservation of rock art sites in the area. It
demonstrates how various forces of the distant and immediate past came into play and
systematically disconnected the Chewa communities around Chongoni area from their
ancestral rock shelters once used by scores of generations for many important functions
such as rock painting, rainmaking ceremonies and boys and girls initiation rituals. It
shows that the separation of these communities from their heritage happened gradually in
various episodes spread over the past 150 years. The key factors that directly or indirectly
led to the separation included the early conquest of the Chewa communities by the Ngoni
and other groups; conflicts with early Christian missionaries; heavy handed policies of
the British colonial government; social and political failures of the post-independent
state; the rise of multiparty politics, governance and human freedoms and others. Using
local evidence, I build a case for each of the mentioned factors and shows how this
community is still in danger of not only being completely separated from their ancestral
heritage but also losing the remaining strands of their unique traditions. The study
concludes by making recommendations for instituting participatory approaches in the
management and conservation of Chongoni World Heritage Site.
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A site-specific approach to interpreting rock art and interaction in the southern region of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa : the case of Xoro Gwai rock shelterPinto, Lourenco Casamiro 16 January 2012 (has links)
MSc., Faculty of Science, University of Witwatersrand, 2011 / Studies of San rock art in southern Africa have appealed to researchers for specificities of
individual rock art sites in order to counter the prevailing practice of conceptualising San
rock art as a homogenous entity. This research attempts to analyse social interaction through
looking at diverse ethnographies and how such ethnographies can reveal information
regarding one rock art site. Individual rock art sites like Xoro Gwai can start to unravel the
nuanced, diverse and complex nature of San religious beliefs and rites and how these beliefs
were affected or influenced by social contact with other social formations.
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Heritage management: comparing implementation between South Africa and MexicoRampete, Obakeng Veronica January 2015 (has links)
A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg, 2015. / Heritage management has been a growing phenomenon throughout the world.
This growth is due to the increasing necessity to protect the world’s cultural
heritage. Heritage management has been closely linked with community
participation as well as laws and policies that protect the heritage. Furthermore,
site use is also of importance to discover how the heritage is presented, protected
and managed. These are the three components that will be the focus of my
research.
The implementation of heritage management requires a management plan that
clearly stipulates and outlines specific procedures to be followed. An ideal
management plan includes the components mentioned above, in that it states the
stakeholders involved, how the heritage place will be preserved and how the
legislation will be used to ensure the protection of such places.
This research focuses on rock art sites as the cultural heritage places and the
importance of protecting them, with specific focus on rock art sites from South
Africa and Mexico. The objective of this study is to analyse the different
management plans from sites chosen from the two countries, compare the
management plans and recommend a best practice for management plans
constructed for rock art sites. The hope is that the recommendations will
contribute to managing rock art sites as well as to the International Collaboration
formed between South Africa and Mexico.
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Landscape and connections : petroglyphs of the Altai in the 2nd and 1st Millennium BCEO'Sullivan, Rebecca January 2017 (has links)
This thesis presents a holistic study of connections in the Altai Mountains of the eastern Eurasian Steppe, as shown by rock-art. Currently divided by four countries, pecked images (petroglyphs) and painted images from the 2<sup>nd</sup>-1<sup>st</sup> millennium BCE have been subjected to very separate research traditions, exacerbated by language barriers. This thesis focusses on the entire Altai Mountain range as a study area, integrating research published in Chinese and Russian, with supplementary literature in Kazakh and Mongolian consulted. To demonstrate the potential for connectivity and, consequently, movement, a map of accessibility was generated, showing that there are various optimal routes for movement throughout the Altai. The locations of rock-art sites relative to these routes indicate that movement was a key feature contributing to the creation of rock-art. Examining topographic features in the vicinity of rock-art sites of three regions (Mongolia, Russia, PRC) highlighted an association between watercourses and sites, whilst studying the micro-landscape within panels found that the creators of rock-art were not representing the tangible spatial relationship of figures to the landscape. More broadly, similarities between motifs at rock-art sites, as well as on portable art, demonstrate that the people making them, regardless of whether they were aware of it or not, were part of a wider understanding of how to depict subjects. Evidence of this understanding can be found even in regions with very different cultural backgrounds to the Steppe, such as the Chinese Central Plains, demonstrating that groups outside of the Steppe were aware of and using this way of representing. By combining analysis of motifs with that of the landscape, this thesis demonstrates that rock-art as a practice was inherently linked with to the landscape, whereas content and style are more indicative of a wide-ranging belief system amongst Steppe pastoralists, which was expressed aesthetically.
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