Social Symbolism in Ancient & Tribal Art

8. Vol. 2, Book 4 - Family Tree: Pebbles from North & South America

In Family Tree: Pebbles from North & South America, Carpenter looks more closely at the engraved pebbles and stele introduced earlier, closely analyzing the record of engraved stones across the Americas. Carl Schuster photographed incised stones on five continents, noting how body-designs, garment-designs & pebble-designs often employed the same tools & techniques. Carpenter argues that Schuster recognized in these examples representations of ancestral spirits and tribal lineage. As such, for Carpenter, art shares with language a capacity for cultural transmission, and is a storage system for the collective experience of the tribe.