PEOPLE IN ROCK ART - SOUTH AFRICA
BENJAMIM W. SMITH
Benjamin Smith is the Professor of World Rock Art and the Associate Dean (Research) of the Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Education at the University of Western Australia. From 2000 to 2012 he was director of the Rock Art Research Institute in South Africa. He grew the Institute, from a local research hub into the world’s leading institution for training, publication and public outreach in the field of rock art studies. He has supervised more than 30 postgraduate students and many have gone on to take up leading jobs in the field and to become prolific publishers. He was the draftsperson of the South African Transformation Charter for Archaeology in 2008 and the South African National Policy on Archaeology and Palaeontology in 2011. He has published extensively on rock art from across Africa, with a strong emphasis on contextual interpretation as well as on the arts of African herders and farmers. He edited the South African Archaeological Bulletin from 2005 until 2013.