The archaeological record undergoes a dramatic shift in appearance whenever indigenous peoples encounter incoming populations—whether in the form of economy, politics, or identity. Rock art in southern Africa testifies to successive interactions among hunter-gatherers, incoming African herders, African farmers, and, later, European settlers. New subject matter, however, is not simply incorporated into the preexisting tradition. Without exception, the many rock arts that depict novel motifs are made differently from the “traditional corpus,” usually rougher in appearance (in both paintings and engravings), more dynamic, or made with vivid and chalky paints. The drop in pigment quality is likely owing to the disruption and ultimate decimation of indigenous groups and the subsequent breakdown in trade and social communications—the Disconnect. The shifts in manners of depiction and the ways in which motifs are treated owe more, it seems, to the increasingly heterogeneous and creolizing membership of the art-producing people and the mixing of their cosmologies, albeit with specific cultural survivals. Precolonial contact images speak to a multitude of interactions and entanglements in ways that can inform the archaeological record, and colonial-era rock art constitutes a major component of the historical archive, an emic, agentive artifact that offers a reverse gaze from an indigenous perspective.

中文翻译：

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接触和殖民对土著世界观、岩石艺术和南部非洲历史的影响

每当土著人民遇到传入的人口时，考古记录的外观就会发生巨大变化——无论是以经济、政治或身份的形式。南部非洲的岩石艺术证明了狩猎采集者、传入的非洲牧民、非洲农民以及后来的欧洲定居者之间的连续互动。然而，新的主题并不是简单地融入到先前存在的传统中。无一例外，许多描绘新奇主题的岩石艺术与“传统语料库”的制作方式不同，通常外观更粗糙（在绘画和雕刻中），更有活力，或者用生动和白垩的颜料制成。颜料质量的下降可能是由于土着群体的破坏和最终灭绝以及随后的贸易和社会交流中断 - 断开连接。描绘方式的转变和处理主题的方式似乎更多地归因于艺术创作者的日益多样化和克里奥尔化的成员身份以及他们的宇宙观的混合，尽管有特定的文化残余。前殖民时期的接触图像以可以为考古记录提供信息的方式讲述了大量的相互作用和纠葛，而殖民时代的岩石艺术构成了历史档案的主要组成部分，这是一种从土著角度提供反向凝视的主宰、能动的人工制品。