Petroglyphs, Pictographs, and Projections: Native American Rock Art in the Contemporary Cultural Landscape by Richard A. Rogers

Abstract

Reviewed by: Petroglyphs, Pictographs, and Projections: Native American Rock Art in the Contemporary Cultural Landscape by Richard A. Rogers Phil R. Geib Petroglyphs, Pictographs, and Projections: Native American Rock Art in the Contemporary Cultural Landscape. By Richard A. Rogers. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2018. xv + 398 pp. Figures, color plates, references cited, index. $34.95, paper. Richard Rogers's "rock art" book is unlike any other. This is largely because it is not really about ancient images on stone, the petroglyphs and pictographs of the book title, but is rather a critical commentary on how those images get appropriated, commodified, and interpreted by the dominant Euro-American culture. This distinctive aspect is either its chief attraction or detraction depending upon the reader's point of view. Native American images from the Southwest serve as the raw material for Rogers's critique, no doubt in part because his home institution of Northern Arizona University is centrally located in this mecca for rock art enthusiasts. The issues that he talks about, such as turning ancient rock art images into commodities for sale, are also on full display in the Southwest—who doesn't have some tourist trinket, cup, or piece of clothing with rock art images on it? The source of his arguments might be localized, but his line of critical reasoning can be extended to all regions of the world. As such, this is a book intended for wide readership. A comment by Kelley Hays-Gilpin [End Page 108] on the back cover importunes archaeologists, historic preservation specialists, rock art enthusiasts, park rangers, and others to read the book for its "unsettling messages and useful critical methods." For those who heed this advice, be prepared to be unsettled and challenged, but also at times to simply laugh and muse, "that argument is quite a stretch." Linking the interpretive shift for some Great Basin rock art from hunting magic to shamanism as resulting from a contemporary "crisis of masculinity" is just one example. Still, Rogers presents much to think about. Polly Schaafsma's book Images and Power: Rock Art and Ethics (Springer, 2013) covers somewhat similar ground, but it does so in a slim volume roughly one quarter the size of Rogers's tome. More is not necessarily better, since Rogers could have expressed his cultural criticisms more succinctly. Some of this occurs because four of his eight chapters are expanded revisions of previously published papers, with most of the other chapters used to place them in context by introducing his theoretical approach and then summing up the arguments. The result is considerable redundancy and repetition of his main points. Rogers is keenly aware that criticism is easy (318) and that a critic who watches the game from a lofty booth rather than being down on the hot, muddy field of play is in something of an enviable position. There is critique aplenty but few or no remedies or suggested solutions, even for issues that a communications professor might be readied to attempt fixing, such as finding a suitable replacement for the term rock art. Rogers introduces the debate about this term but leaves it unresolved and sticks with it as part of an "uneasy consensus" rather than putting forward "appealing alternatives" (43). One result of taking Rogers's critique to heart, at least in the extreme, would be to cease all engagement with rock art. I doubt that he would actually advocate for this, and his final chapter makes it clear that he will continue to "collect" rock art and to write about it, at least as concerns its role in contemporary culture, in order to advance his academic career. I can easily envision using this book as a text for a student seminar on rock art and also using chapter 7, "Overcoming the Preservation Paradigm," as a means to foment discussion in a class on heritage resource management. Phil R. Geib Department of Anthropology University of Nebraska–Lincoln Copyright © 2020 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska–Lincoln