Representational Patterns of Human Conflict Scenes in Prehistoric Rock Art of the Maros‑Pangkep Karst Area

Ferianto* and Erwin Mansyur Ugu Saraka

Rock art is an artistic expression created by prehistoric communities in the form of motifs, paintings, engravings or scratches on rock surfaces; beyond aesthetic production, these images convey concepts and messages intended for future viewers. While Indonesian rock‑art studies have often emphasised religious and symbolic meanings, this study adopts a different perspective by investigating indications of social conflict in the Maros‑Pangkep karst. Employing a scenographic framework at micro scale, the research combined field surveys, systematic documentation, and digital image enhancement (D‑Stretch) to increase motif visibility and detail. Analysis focused on attributes associated with conflict aggressive gestures, weapon depictions, headdresses, violent interactions and panel context, and applied contextual interpretation to image assemblages. The results indicate that conflict was a recurrent element within the social dynamics of the prehistoric Maros‑Pangkep community, visible in compositional choices, inter‑figure relationships and repeated motif conventions. These findings suggest that episodes of interpersonal or inter‑group violence were represented deliberately in rock panels and that such representations can inform reconstructions of social organisation, status markers and inter‑group relations in prehistoric Sulawesi.