Book review: Making Scenes: Global Perspectives on Scenes in Rock Art

Making Scenes: Global Perspectives on Scenes in Rock Art is a large volume edited by Iain Davidson and April Nowell which brings together twenty chapters from scholars around the world who describe and analyse the various manifestations of the rock art ‘scene’ from their part of the globe. The volume also includes research on cognitive development and work by semiotics experts in order to better define what constitutes a scene in a rock art context. In an insightful preface Margaret Conkey tells us that one critical takeaway from this volume is that: ‘the archaeology of ‘art’ and image-making can never be finalised or fully realised, especially in terms of western epistemologies and ontologies’ (p.xvii). It is therefore not surprising to find the most resonant chapters in this volume echoing this realisation.