Rock Art of South Oran (Algeria) - Other Views

Other Views

For F. Cominardi, analysing most recently the superimposition of engravings at "Koudiat Abd el Hak", it seems accepted that the naturalistic large-scale stage and the naturalistic small-scale stage (the most ancient level being constituted of very tiny engravings, the most recent by works of slightly superior execution) were contemporary, at least within a single epoch, "the first not being extinguished before the second began." The author leans, "on account of the arguments of the more evolved schematic style, towards placing the naturalistic large-scale stage in the first place, and to making the naturalistic small-scale stage begin before the disappearance of the former."

According to F. Cominardi, "It would be during the lapse of time while they coexisted, that the engravings of the plaque of Koudiat were made. Were these two so differentiated artistic worlds brought into being by different peoples? It is possible. It could be explained that they dwelt rarely together on the same rocks, and that the school of Tazina should be so individualized geographically." "If the small-scale naturalistic stage is, by comparison with the older stage, if not contemporary, at least starting to unfold during that time, one could, provisionally, place it between the 6th and the 4th millennium."