LAUSR

This article explores how Howard Morphy and Alfred Gell’s descriptions of art as a form of action may offer new insights into the role of rock art palimpsests. The discussion first outlines both Gell’s and Morphy’s arguments, focusing on their mutually reconcilable theory that art is a form of action that involves the realisation of agency. It takes palimpsest art as a particular form of art as action; one that specifically involves the act of accumulation. Using contemporary examples, the article outlines two key accumulative practices that result in palimpsest art. The first is a practice where images are added to one place in order to support and continue a shared idea (the singular palimpsest). The second is a practice where images are added in more diverse ways, and choices are made over which images to add to over others (the multiple palimpsest). Using a formal methodology to differentiate the two types of palimpsest, the article examines the rock art palimpsest of Nämforsen and argues that Laxön, a major part of Nämforsen, was likely a multiple palimpsest, where ideas of community revolved around the making and clustering of the human and elk motifs. Through this example, the article demonstrates how Gell and Morphy’s theories greatly enrich the potential insights that a rock art palimpsest may offer to the archaeologist and how the rock art palimpsest can in turn demonstrate and develop arguments for how art can be seen as a form of action.