The Application of the Lichenometry Method to Estimate Petroglyph Ages in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan

A Companion to Rock Art Edited by Jo McDonald and Peter Veth Wiley Blackwell, 2012 ISBN 978-1-4443-3424-1. Pp. xxxiv+680. 133.30 [pounds sterling]. This international volume on rock art provides a complete, comprehensive and up-to-date overview of most of the main research theories and methods used, and the research questions addressed, in current archaeological debates on rock art, be they global or regional. It was conceived by the editors as a tool teaching the next generation of rock art researchers in a 13-week semester cycle. But this volume is more than a collection of educational materials. It gathers research papers addressing some key topics in rock-art studies, and thus becomes essential reading for anyone interested and/or conducting rock-art research today. The 37 contributions by 57 international scholars from five continents are structured into 11 meaningful sections, with two to four papers per section. While the chapters in each section are intended to address a specific issue, well defined by the section headings (I. Explanatory frameworks; II. Inscribed landscapes; III. Rock art at the regional level; IV. Engendered approaches; V. Form, style and aesthetics; VI. Contextual rock art; VII. The mediating role of rock art; VIII. Rock art, identity and indigeneity; IX. Rock art management and interpretation, X. Dating rock art, XI. Rock art in the digital age), some key questions are explored recursively across the volume. This shows their significance for achieving a more complete understanding of rock art, as a tool for exploring past and present human behaviour and cultural practices. Questions of time (relative or chronometric), place, past and present as well as individual and group identities, function and/or meaning are explored through the systematic deconstruction and analysis of the motifs, themes and panels, their patterns of variation, the context and/or the landscapes, from a variety of international perspectives and backgrounds. Case studies from Australia and the Pacific, Northern and Southern America, Siberia, Europe, Africa and India, and a wide range of periods, from the European Upper Palaeolithic to current Australian rock art, fully illustrate these questions. All these studies remind us once more that rock art is not only about the decoration of passive surfaces with beautiful images, as emphasised by Blinkhorn et al. in chapter 11. Rock art is an alternative source of information about human behaviour and practices, and can be used to explore continuities and discontinuities, human interaction, past territoriality, group mobility, symbolic behaviour and so forth. The large number of chapters prevents us from briefly summarising each of them, but some key issues for current debates are worth mentioning. Of special interest for interpretative approaches is Lewis-Williams' reflective contribution (chapter 2) on the misinterpretation and misuse of his concept of to universally interpret rock art. As he states, shamanism is only one of the many potential interpretations of rock art, and thus it cannot be systematically used to interpret past arts. While past interpretative trends used to emphasise a unique function for Pleistocene art (for a brief summary of past interpretative schools, see Moro and Gonzalez, chapter 15), current studies recognise the multiple functions of past and present imagery and the variety of social contexts (religious, social and political) in which art operates. Take as an example the multiple functions of Western Desert People's rock art, summarised by McDonald and Veth (chapter 6: 96), which includes marking place and individual's affiliation, storytelling or instructive purposes, initiation ceremonies, visual representation of an ancestral being or event, and so forth. It is fully accepted throughout the volume that only through a thoughtful analysis and understanding of the context of rock art (the walls, the surrounding archaeological site, the geographical context, the acoustic or other sensorial properties, etc. …

Rock paintings are an artistic creation and an important source of knowledge for human civilization. The rock drawings are alsoa record and illustrated archive of all areas of ancient human life. From these rock drawings, we can identify the artistic level thatthe ancient artist reached and how he used his aesthetic and artistic methods. The research aims to study "methods and techniquesof technology" (methods of implementing rock drawings) of a group of newly discovered rock drawings by the researcher foundin the "Alia Najd" region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which aims to preserve the heritage by taking care of thosearchaeological sites using the means of modern technologies. The study included An interpretation and analysis of those rockdrawings. In addition, a review of all technical methods in implementing the group of discovered rock drawings, and themultiplicity of their patterns and implementation from one site to another. The ancient artist used several technical methods inimplementing his drawings, including the technique of engraving, clicking, carving, and the technique of drawing in colour, inaddition to dealing with the various artistic methods in the implementation of shapes. In the scenes of rock drawings, which are:“the schematic style, the framing style, the recursive style, and the semi-realistic style”, those styles that indicate the plurality oftastes and artistic skills among the artists of antiquity, especially in the “Alia Najd” region located in the middle ofthe “Kingdomof Saudi Arabia”.

6 - Form, Content, and Function: Theory and Method in North American Rock Art Studies

The archeological studies and findings in Azerbaijan in Iran especially in the valleys and mountains located in in the basins of the Qarasu (Karasu) River in Meshgin¬shahr in northwest Iran show that this ancient region, like many of the other regions in Iran, has numerous valuable petroglyphs. In this paper, the ShikhMedi newly-found petroglyphs in Meshginshahr located in northwest Iran in Ardebil province will be introduced. In this region, 78 petroglyphs on 15 rocks are found. The petroglyphs are carved and beat. The petroglyphs comprise of human, animal, plant and symbolic motifs. The results of the study reveal that in this region, like the other regions in Iran, the goat petroglyphs are the most common. It is worth mentioning that due to the lack of laboratory facilities, the dating of the petroglyphs is not possible and only the relative chronology can be used.

Handbook of Rock Art Research. DAVID S. WHITLEY (ed.). AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA, 2001. 863 pp., 250 figures, tables, biblio., index, glossary. $99.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-7425-0256-2. This remarkable book represents the first comprehensive overview of world rock art ever published. It is ambitious in its goals, encyclopedic in its coverage (more than 800 pages long), and mostly successful in presenting what we know right now about how to study prehistoric rock art, how to give it meaning in both specific and general contexts, and how it looks to us in its varied forms around the world. There is very little in this book about southeastern North America (and what there is isn't very good), but that should not detract from its value as a resource to the readers of this journal. Handbook of Rock Art Research will be rewarding to specialists in rock art study, resource managers, and who are interested in the theories and methods at large in the discipline today. For those not current with the topic, rock art studies today are a microcosm of archaeology as a whole, and this book provides a fine, detailed overview of the field. David Whitley opens the volume with a long introduction that ranges widely over the history of rock art studies in North America, its place in the modern world of American archaeology, and current issues and problems in the study of rock art sites. I found his presentation insightful for the most part, illuminating central problems with chronology, constituency, and interpretation, though it was obviously written by an American from an American point of view and doesn't reflect much of an international perspective. 1 don't ' agree with Whitley's presumption, running through much of his discussion, that there continues to be an opposition between scientific archaeologists and some other, presumably nonscientific, at the root of modern intellectual debate; this is a straw man that obscures, in my view, fundamental issues in basic rock art archaeology. In the end, though, I agree that rock art research cannot be divorced from archaeology more generally in theoretical or methodological realms. I have long held rock art to be an archaeological problem first and foremost, to be addressed with proper archaeological methods and techniques. After the introduction, the Handbook is divided into three coherent sections. The first, perhaps the most useful to a general audience, deals with Analytic and Management Methods. Larry Loendorf offers a cookbook on recording and documentation techniques that both encompasses the meager available literature on rock art recordation and provides useful insights from Loendorf's own considerable experience in the field. Johannes Loubser gives his view of management and conservation. James Keyser considers relative dating techniques, including the stylistic and stratigraphie methods that have always been the core of rock art chronology; like Loendorf's paper, this is a fine reference for general techniques employed by rock art students. The next two chapters deal with absolute dating of rock art. Marvin Rowe gives a complete and authoritative overview of direct ^sup 14^C age determination of organics in pigments by AMS, a discussion that will be of use to all concerned with understanding the requirements, strengths, and weaknesses of the method, not just rock art scholars. Ronald Dorn presents an honest appraisal of the various techniques heretofore proposed to provide absolute ages for engraved petroglyphs. As Dorn, who developed some of the methods, freely admits, most of these techniques are problematic at best; he concludes his review with pessimism for the current state of the art and optimism for the potential of future technologies. Marvin Rowe returns with another encyclopedic chapter, this time to review physical and chemical techniques for analyzing production and taphonomic histories of rock art. …

In the central Mesa Verde region, rock art occurs on canyon walls and on boulders that are frequently associated with other archaeological remains. Moreover, rock art, together with architecture and pottery, is actually a primary source of archaeological information about the presence of various cultures in the area. It includes paintings and petroglyphs of ancestral Pueblo farming communities, images and inscriptions made by post-contact Ute and possibly Diné (Navajo) people as well as historical inscriptions of the early Euro-Americans in this area. This paper presents the results of archaeological investigations at four large rock art sites from Sandstone Canyon, southwestern Colorado, within the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument (CANM). Methods of rock art recording included advanced digital photography, photogrammetry, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), hand tracing, and consultations with members of indigenous societies and rock art scholars. Geophysics and sondage excavations were conducted at one site revealed important information about archaeology, environment, and geology of the area. Analysis of rock art and other material evidence aims to help reconstruct and understand the mechanisms and nature of cultural changes, migrations, and human–environmental interactions and later cross-cultural contacts between indigenous peoples and Anglo-American ranchers and settlers in pre-contact southwestern Colorado and the US southwest.

This volume presents a new systematic approach to the archaeological recording and documentation of rock art developed to analyse the spatial and temporal structure of complex rock art panels. Focusing on the ceiling art at Nawarla Gabarnmang, one of the richest rock art sites in Arnhem Land the approach utilised DStretch-enhanced photographs to record 1391 motifs from 42 separate art panels across the ceiling. Harris Matrices were then built to show the sequence of superimpositions for each art panel. Using common attributes, including features identified by Morellian Method (a Fine Art method not previously employed in archaeological rock art studies), contemporaneous motifs within panels were then aggregated into individual layers. The art layers of the various panels were then inter-related using the relative and absolute chronological evidence to produce a full relative sequence for the site as a whole. This provided a story of the art that began some 13,000 years ago and concluded around 60 years ago, with a major change identified in the art some 450 years ago. The method was shown to be invaluable to the resolution of many difficult issues associated with the identification of motifs, their superimpositions and the development of art sequences.

Ethno archaeological evidences and studies very often facilitate the interpretation of significance of rock art. But sometimes there are problems in explaining the things if there is discrepancy between local ethnic activities and the rock art of by-gone days which may be due to either a remarkable shift in social behaviors during long period span or to the relative seclusion of the developing society from art traditions manifested in local rock art. The present paper is based on the ethno rock art investigation made in the Kaimur region of Bihar. In this paper the author has attempted to link between ancient rock art living pattern and the art and culture of modern local group especially the tribe and semi tribes residing in the hill, foot hill and the plain.

Most researchers today focus on rock art in a small section of a single country and usually on hunter-gatherer, pastoralist, or agriculturist rock art. This tightening of focus reflects more than research practicalities, underlying it are fundamental paradigm shifts in the ways in which people work with rock art. In the late 1960s, rock art research lay at the periphery of African archaeology. The last fifty years has seen a transformation in the application of both method and theory in rock art studies and this has allowed for reintegration within mainstream archaeology. Problems of dating rock art remain, but this has not stopped the development of historically particular and regionally specific contextual understandings of the role and symbolism of rock art in many parts of Africa. Rock art studies now have a central place in the study of cognition, hermeneutics, and identity formation throughout Africa.

Ethno archaeological evidences and studies very often facilitate the interpretation of significance of rock art. But sometimes there are problems in explaining the things if there is incoherence between local ethnic activities and the rock art of by-gone days which may be due either to a remarkable shift in social behaviors during the long period span or to the relative seclusion of the developing society from the inspirational art traditions manifested in local rock art. The present paper is based on the ethno rock art investigation made in the Kaimur region of Bihar. Because of new evidences in present tradition and also game method author have come to resume whether any link can be made between ancient rock art living pattern and modern local groups art and culture, those are residing in the hill, foot hill (the tribes, semi-tribe) and on the plain.

Dating Iberian prehistoric rock art: Methods, sampling, data, limits and interpretations

This paper addresses the different methods of recording prehistoric rock art, with specific focus on the northern Italian area (Valle Camonica, UNESCO Site n. 94), and presents a new integrated way of recording and tracing engravings. This method combines different sources of data, both traditional, as an ‘enhanced’ way of rubbing, and technological. The active use of Structure from Motion photogrammetry and the subsequent mesh manipulation, as well as the implementation of digital macrophotography with artificial oblique lighting, are among the methods used for the recognition of the correct features of the carvings, while the tracing of the engraved figures, executed in vector graphics, is structured on layers. Combining the benefits of the digitally enhanced visibility of the figures with the precision and versatility of digital vector drawing, this method produces state of the art tracings of rock art, for a better comprehension of the symbols carved on the stone. All steps of this method are demonstratedusing, as a selected case study, the unpublished monolith n. 23 from the Copper Age Sanctuary of Ossimo, Pat (BS) in Valle Camonica, Northern Italy.

The Ancient Pueblo (aka, “Anasazi”) tradition ranged between c. 500 bce and 1600 ce in the American Southwest. Although the tradition is identified primarily through archaeological research, it is widely seen as the primary ancestral tradition to the historic and modern Puebloan communities in New Mexico, Arizona, and the surrounding region. Indeed, a significant degree of direct cultural continuity has been established between the late prehistoric phases, commencing after c. 1300 ce, and historic Pueblo communities along the northern Rio Grande area and the Hopi mesas of northeastern Arizona. The demarcation between ancient and historic contexts is determined by the effects of the earliest Spanish colonization in the early 1600s in northern New Mexico. The Ancient Puebloan culture is considered the largest and longest-lived of several ancient cultures that coexisted in the Greater Southwest prior to 1600. Archaeologically, Ancient Pueblo culture traditionally is divided into an early “Basketmaker” period (c. 500 bce–500 ce) and a later Pueblo period (c. 500 ce–16 ce). Art historical scholarship on Ancient Puebloan art and architecture is relatively young and is dominated by anthropological and archaeological methods and theory (see the Oxford Bibliographies article “Native North American Art, Pre-Contact”). The earliest publications date to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Though primarily archaeological in nature, many of these early reports are still valuable to art historians for establishing context and providing original descriptions and early photographs and illustrations. Not until the 1970s did distinct bodies of scholarship on Ancient Puebloan art begin to emerge from a generation of academic art historians, such as J. J. Brody of the University of New Mexico, including scholarship dedicated to related Mimbres pottery. Theoretical approaches to Ancient Pueblo art and architecture by archaeologists and art historians have varied considerably over the past 150 years. Until the mid-twentieth century, Ancient Pueblo art works were typically treated as archaeological artifacts often stored in ethnological collections; rock art was commonly dismissed as art altogether, primarily because of difficulty in dating and assigning cultural affinity. Not until the 1940s did the truly artistic merits of Native American art begin to be acknowledged, despite the fact that architecture and pottery composed the primary lines of evidence for Alfred Kidder’s groundbreaking An Introduction to the Study of Southwestern Archaeology (Kidder 1962, cited under Archaeological Studies). Stephen Plog’s Ancient Peoples of the American Southwest (Plog 2008, cited under Archaeological Studies), and Stephen H. Lekson’s A History of the Ancient Southwest (Lekson 2009, cited under Anthropological Overviews) provide overviews of the evolution of archaeological theory in their relative introductions. J. J. Brody’s Anasazi and Pueblo Painting (Brody 1991, cited under Media Studies: Painting) provides an extended discussion of the history of Puebloan art historical theory and scholarship as well the relationship of art history to archaeology in the introduction. Polly Schaafsma’s article “Form, Content, and Function: Theory and Method in North American Rock Studies (Schaafsma 1985, cited under Rock Art: Thematic Studies) provides a review and critical discussion on theories and methods specific to rock art studies. A note on terminology: the term “Anasazi” (literally, “ancient enemy”) comes from the Navajo language, of a completely different culture from that of the Pueblos, and has rather derogatory, racially offensive connotations. Since the 1990s, many Puebloan communities have pushed to replace its usage officially with the more politically acceptable term “Ancient Pueblo” (or “Puebloan”). In this article, the term “Ancient Puebloan” is used as frequently as possible. However, because the term “Anasazi” remains so widespread in the relevant scholarship, its usage is retained herein if the original source uses that term.

Scandinavian rock art has been of major interest for archaeological studies of a phenomenological character. By reflecting on the experience of rock art it has been argued that images choreograph movement and that this embodied interaction reflects both social order and world views. This perspective has been applied in studies of both open-air rock art and images in the confined spaces of caves. When critically evaluating these efforts, it seems clear that these phenomenological studies reduce rock art to a mere representation of the experience of place. Phenomenology also fails to challenge the assumption that the meaning of images is created primarily by the intentions of its creator. It is therefore suggested that, in order to discuss the experience of images as meaningful, we need to develop the phenomenological theory of embodiment into a material phenomenology. This material turn enables us to problematize the relationship between intentionality and the meaning of images, which could lead to a perspective where rock art affects both the experience of place and of landscape and the creation of new images. Consequently, an archaeology of images should treat rock art as an expression which creates and maintains practices and relations with places and landscapes.

Rock art is ubiquitous in southern Africa. It can be assumed that playing musical bows was a similarly widespread cultural tradition in prehistoric southern Africa. But discerning musical performances from other uses of the bow in the rock art is not trivial. Qualified arguments for musical performances therefore rest on the ethnographic record. Depictions of musical bows have been identified only in two rock art collections from South Africa and Namibia. In South Africa musical bows are known from the Maloti Drakensberg mountains in the KwaZulu-Natal Province, and Maclear District in the Eastern Cape Province. In Namibia, the musical bows have been identified mainly in the mountainous massif called Dâureb (its local Damara name) or Brandberg (its foreign Afrikaans name) and the surrounding region in northwestern central Namibia. The occurrence of musical bows in the rock art sheds light on some of the musical instruments that were used in the past and their playing techniques. This is important in music archeological studies, which involve the analysis of music-related artifacts or sound-producing artifacts and their cultural background from the archeological record, or the investigation of the effects of sound in past societies. Rock art is an important source that can be used in music archeological studies. Ethnographic information also gives another depth in describing musical bows and allows one to differentiate contemporary music cultures from the past. There are some notable similarities and differences between the musical bows from South Africa and Namibia. These similarities and differences come in the form of the technical aspects of how sound is produced (organology) by the musical bows and playing techniques, exhibiting distinct music cultures. What stands out is that in most cases the string is turned away from the player, which is different when a bow is used for shooting, as well as the use of a tapping stick to play the bow. The musical bow depictions in Namibia do not have resonators, whereas most of those depicted in South Africa do. However, the musical bows in Namibia are braced or have a string that divides the bow string into two sections (tuning noose), whereas none have been recorded in South Africa.