Rock Art Style Research Articles

Archaic Hunting Practices Depicted In A Northwestern Plains Rock Art Style

A collection of about 75 panels ofpecked rock art from the southern Black Hills, South Dakota and Wyoming, includes detailed depictions of Archaic period communal game hunts. The rock art illustrates use of artificial enclosures, atlatls, and other hunting paraphernalia. Humans in costumes or disguises are also included in the scenes. The communal hunting techniques detailed in the rock art imply a so cial organization capable of maintaining a high degree of cooperation and careful indoctrination in hunt ing skills. Both the quality and the content of the rock art suggest the prehistoric presence of part-time artistic and ritual specialists. The overwhelming preponderance of deer (ca. 64 percent of fauna depicted) is inconsistent with current views on Northwestern Plains Archaic subsistence that assume a bison-based economy.

Katsina Iconography in Homol'ovi Rock Art

Structurally consistent representations of katsina masks and masked katsinas are identifiable as katsina iconography of the Hopi and Zuni and provide comparative examples for the identification of katsina iconography at the Homol'ovi site group. An inventory of Homol'ovi rock art produced 72 examples of comparable mask and katsina representations in the vicinities of Homol'ovi II and Homol'ovi IV. Similar masks and katsinas are represented on ceramics and other material culture and are included in regional and broadly defined rock art styles. The evidence suggests that the katsina cult with public symbolism was present at the Homol'ovi sites and is associated with occupations dated between approximately A.D. 1250 and A.D. 1400.

Hunters and the Hunted: The Prehistoric Art of Tom Ketchum Cave

ABSTRACTThis article describes a distinctive rock-art site in the Pedregosa Mountains of southeast Arizona. The more than 200 black representational elements do not conform to any of the various rock-art styles that have been described for the Southwest. Description of the design motifs, environmental setting, and artifacts provides information for tentative interpretations regarding cultural affiliation, function, and age of the pictographs.

Pictographs At The Desrosier Rockshel Ter

The DesRosier rockshelter is located in the Smith River drainage in central Montana, just east of the Continental Divide. Although the deep, stratified, culture-bearing deposit in the shelter has been test excavated and the recovered artifacts described, pictographs in the shelter and in an associated rock structure have never been discussed. My analysis of these pictographs demonstrates that they are representative of the Columbia Plateau rock art style, and in conjunction with the rock structure, were used as part of a vision quest ceremony.

Audrey’s Overhang: A Pictographic Maze in Central Montana

Audrey’s Overhang, a small pictograph site in Montana’s Smith River Drainage, is part of a highly abstract rock art style localized in the Rocky Mountain foothills of central Montana. An abstract a...