Central Saharan rock art, intangible archives, and “decolonized narratives”

The study of central Saharan rock art has suffered the consequences of colonialism, which, albeit in different forms, continue unabatedly to this day in a more or less conscious fashion and risk obfuscating genuine progress toward decolonization. This chapter outlines the principal stages of the historical and cultural processes that led to the fabrication and maintenance of strong colonialist narratives for Saharan rock art, focusing specifically on the Algerian and Libyan deserts and the ongoing decolonization of archaeological practices in the field of rock art. This synthesis provides the theoretical and methodological framework for the Tadrart Acacus Atlas and the entire ASArt-DATA project and proposes viable alternative narratives for Saharan rock art.