Trends in North American Rock Art Research: A Quantitative Evaluation of the Literature

Abstract

The literature to 1979 on North American Indian rock art has been analyzed. It was found to be characterized by a high degree of dispersion, an erratic growth pattern before 1950 followed by an exponential mode of growth thereafter, and a low proportion of multiple-author works. The growth in literary output over the years was largely attributable to an increase in the number of authors, whereas the article/author ratio changed only slightly with time. The proportion of works dealing with general topics rose from 16.4% before 1970 to 41.6% thereafter while the proportion of site reports decreased accordingly. Although all rock art regions participated in the numerical growth of the literature over the decades, their relative proportions varied with time. The Southwest, the Great Plains, and the Eastern Woodland had the greatest number of works with regional emphasis; these three regions accounted for more than 50% of the total literary output. As an instrument of scientific information exchange, the rock art literature in North America appears to be in a comparatively early stage of development and maturation, a feature it shares with the communication system in the social sciences in general.