Rock Art (Other Keyword)
26-50 (209 Records)
The prehistoric rock paintings in the Oxtotitlán site are thought to be among the earliest of Mexico and represent the beginning of the highly influential Mexican muralism tradition. The proposed antiquity of the murals is based primarily on stylistic interpretation of the motifs represented in the paintings. Our objective was to use radiocarbon analyses of organic matter in the paint and biofilms covering paint layers to provide more direct evidence as to the ages of the artifacts. Small paint...
The Clash of Stories at Sacred Sites: Reframing the Task of Protecting Indigenous Sites (2015)
Efforts to recover and protect indigenous sacred sites in the United States by framing conflicts over them in adversarial terms that employ the vocabulary of conventional legal doctrine on religious liberty and property rights have failed to succeed despite the creative efforts of many advocates. One cannot understand these failed efforts and move toward the development of a more hopeful approach to these conflicts without taking seriously the contrast between Indigenous views of the land and...
Comparative Analysis of Petroglyphs at the Crack-in-Rock Community (2017)
Recent archaeological research in Wupatki National Monument has led to a complete baseline documentation of a suite of petroglyph assemblages located at the Crack-in-Rock community in Northern Arizona. Through collaborative efforts between the Museum of Northern Arizona, the National Park Service, and Northern Arizona University, this paper details a comparative analysis approach to understanding the use and placement of rock art within the region. The Crack-in-Rock community boasts numerous...
A Comparison of "Scenes" in Parietal and Non-Parietal Upper Paleolithic Imagery: Formal Differences and Ontological Implications (2017)
Upper Paleolithic cave art is well-known for its skilled execution, specifically the use of shading, relief, and perspective to render life-like depictions of Pleistocene fauna. Cave art is equally well-known for a near absence of flora, humans, and scenes. In this regard, parietal imagery is distinct from "art mobilier," where these are more common. However, defining "scenes" as a graphic phenomenon can be problematic, and identifying them among superimposed and fragmented images more so....
Composite Bone Black Kunwarddebim at Madjedbebe, the Alligator Rivers Regions, Northern Australia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Unusually saturated black pigment in the Kunwarddebim (rock art) at the north-eastern end of the Madjedbebe rockshelter prompted an in situ analytic program of Raman and portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Here described results suggest a complex paint recipe for this black paint: a mix of bone black, magnetite rich minerals, and some organic...
Conceptual and Technical Connectivity in Indigenous South American Rock Art Traditions (2017)
Archaeologists have long sought to explain the distribution of rock art traditions across Amazonia and circum-Amazonia with reference to stylistic variability in the iconography, often as a proxy for exploring shared concepts of symbolic representation, mediated through local cultural norms. Where it has been possible, cross-referencing this kind of data with the ethnographic and archaeological records has engendered valuable new interpretations of indigenous symbolic repertoires in a variety of...
Conservation and Preservation Issues Post Fire (2017)
Wild fire damage to rock art can have long term effects. Panels may continue to spall over time from the fire damage or from the effects of soluble salts that were activated and spread during the fire. Rock outcrops and slopes may become destabilized after fire denudes vegetation. Panels can be buried or have ashy sediments washed down from the cliff tops above. What happens over time after wild fire kills lichen growing on rock art? Observations and studies following two large wild fires that...
Contested Images: Rock Art Heritage on and off the Rocks (2016)
In many countries, cultural and socio-political identity is still shaped, manipulated, and presented through rock art. Both on and off the rocks, pictographs and petroglyphs are powerful tools. In this poster, I present results from ten years of fieldwork in southern Africa, northern Australia, and west Texas. I focus on re-contextualised rock art images, in commercial settings, in academic publications, and as integral components of national symbols. I also consider innovative new visitor...
Converting Monumental Landscapes to Human Dimensions: Ancient Community-Building Processes in Southern Honduras (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Problem of the Monument: Widening Perspectives on Monumentality in the Archaeology of the Isthmo-Colombian Area" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A couple of years ago some good meaning citizens offered to donate complete ceramic pieces along with other objects they had “collected” from their properties to the regional campus of my university in southern Honduras. These same local citizens declared themselves a...
Cosmology in the New World
This project consists of articles written by members of Santa Fe Institute’s cosmology research group. Overall, the goal of this group is to understand the larger relationships between cosmology and society through a theoretically open-ended, comparative examination of the ancient American Southwest, Southeast, and Mesoamerica.
Cultural Resources Survey for Ordnance Clearance at Former Camp Elliot, Mission Trails Regional Park, San Diego, California (1991)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
Cup and Channel Petroglyphs and Ancestral Puebloan Migration (2018)
The age, origin, and function of the enigmatic cup and channel petroglyphs of the Arizona Strip have fascinated archaeologists for decades. The petroglyphs size, up to 2 m long, as well as, placement on horizontal surfaces at prominent locations, contributes to the intrigue of the glyphs. Previous hypotheses for the age and function of the petroglyphs include prehistoric navigational markers to water sources, solstice markers, historic tar burners, and ceremonial water channels. Hundreds of cup...
Dating the Murujuga Cultural Landscape (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Painting the Past: Interpretive Approaches in Global Rock Art Research" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Dampier Archipelago (including Burrup Peninsula) is one of Australia’s most significant rock art provinces. Recently nominated to the World Heritage List as the Murujuga Cultural Landscape, this talk describes efforts which are being made to directly-date this deep time rock art sequence, by innovative direct...
Defining sacredness of rock art sites in the Sonoran Desert (2016)
Based on landscape archaeology, achaeoastronomy, the analysis of rock art iconography, ethnohistoric and ethnographic documents, this paper proposes to define the factors that determine the sacredness of rock art sites in the Sonoran Desert. Well characterized common patterns can be found in most of the rock art sites that will be described, facts that confirm with certainty we can speak of shared cultural traits within the region.
Department of Defense-Wide Inventory of Rock Art Sites and Assessment of Management Practices (Legacy 11-480)
This project offers guidance for regulatory compliance related to rock art sites, which are different from "dirt" sites, through among other items, an overview of site documentation and treatment approaches; discussion of eligibility determinations; historical context for rock art sites in all 50 states; and the current status of Department of Defense rock art site management.
Digging deeper: The use of rock art in archaeological contexts to understand past lifeways on Murujuga, Northwest Australia. (2015)
Murujuga comprises one of the most complex rock art provinces in the world.The iron red boulders of this ancient landscape host petroglyphs which communicate a myriad of sociocultural dynamics of groups utilizing changing landscapes over millennia.These petroglyphs are situated within a landscape marked by complex and diverse archaeological signatures including stone arrangements,lithic scatters,quarries,middens and hut structures.Currently our archaeological understanding of the prehistoric...
Digital Data Collection, D-Stretch And Databases: New Approaches To Recording Rock Art In Lincoln County (2015)
A BLM-funded rock art recordation project recently undertaken in Lincoln County, Southern Nevada has focused on three Areas of Environmental Concern: Mount Irish, Shooting Gallery and Pahroc. The overall Project was designed to be a comprehensive heritage inventory of all archaeological evidence in these Areas, and based on a systematic sample there are close to 700 recorded sites in these areas of which around 200 contain rock art. Building on earlier work by the Nevada Rock Art Foundation and...
Digital Imaging and Rock Art (Relational) Biographies: Reassessing Iberian Late Bronze Age "Warrior" Stelae (2018)
Formal approaches to rock art traditionally focused on meaning and representation. Rock art images and panels were treated as static representations of symbolic frameworks while their materiality and active role in cultural production were overlooked. Rock art is the product of the dynamic interplay between people, tools and the rock surface. The properties of the rock panel have the capacity to shape rock art production as much as the skill and knowledge held by the engraver/painter and the...
Discovering Hidden Layers with X-Ray Vision: New Applications of pXRF to Rock Art Studies (2015)
Exploring new applications of portable X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to the study of rock art, we report the determination of paint layer stratigraphy based upon measured elemental levels. In Lower Pecos rock art, we were able to discern when red and yellow paints superimpose black paints based on elevated levels of manganese. This ability to see underneath paint layers with "X-ray vision" shows great promise in answering stratigraphic ambiguities, complimenting Dino-Lite digital microscopy....
Documentation of Rock Art Complexes in the Mongolian Altai (from the unknown to World Heritage Status) (2015)
This paper describes the complex process of documenting two huge rock art complexes and a third very old complex, in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia. Previous to our work in this region at the Mongolian border with Russia and China, all three complexes were virtually unknown except to local herding populations. Our project began with a survey of a broad region in Bayan Ölgiy aimag and the identification of the complexes on which we wished to concentrate our efforts. This initial phase was...
Draft Plan and Environmental Assessment for Thing Mountain Cooperative Vegetation Management Project (1981)
This resource is a citation record only, the Center for Digital Antiquity does not have a copy of this document. The information in this record has been migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. Most NADB-R records consist of a document citation and other metadata but do not have the documents themselves uploaded. If you have a digital copy of the document and would like to have it curated in tDAR, please contact us at comments@tdar.org.
The Dragonfly Petroglyph Site: A teaching place for us all (2016)
The dragonfly is a subject of intrigue around the world and many different cultures have ascribed unique meanings to its behaviors. The Dragonfly petroglyph site located on the Gila National Forest represents an interesting teaching place for cultural preservation and traditional values and beliefs. It also demonstrates the collaborative opportunities for the interpretation of this special place. Collaborative efforts between the Gila National Forest, Aldo Leopold High School, New Mexico...
El Arte Rupestre en el Paisaje de la Tierra Caliente Michoacana (2018)
La llamada Tierra Caliente, se ubica al sur del estado de Michoacán y abarca un extensa región que estuvo continuamente habitada desde hace miles de años. A pesar de las condiciones climáticas donde llegan a registrarse algunas de las temperaturas más altas del país, es una tierra llena de recursos naturales y fértiles tierras dentro de un paisaje de valles y sierras que han sido aprovechadas por los grupos humanos. Las fuertes condiciones y contrastes de la Tierra Caliente han llevado a...
"EL VIEJO" DEL CAÑÓN DEL AZUFRE: UN POSIBLE CASO DE PAREIDOLIA E HIEROFANÍA EN EL SISTEMA VOLCÁNICO TRES VÍRGENES, B.C.S, MÉXICO. (2015)
En Baja California central (México), se eleva el sistema volcánico Tres Vírgenes, el rasgo geográfico más conspicuo de la región. En sus dominios han sido encontrados yacimientos de pigmentos minerales, material esencial para la elaboración de la pintura con la que los indígenas que habitaron las montañas aledañas, decoraron sus cuerpos y pintaron sus moradas y recintos sagrados. Uno de los lugares que muestra evidencia arqueológica de extracción de óxidos de hierro y yeso es el Cañón del...
Embodied rock art motifs in far west Texas and northern South Africa (2017)
In this paper, I consider embodied rock art motifs in two rock art regions: far west Texas and northern South Africa. By employing the tools of embodiment theory, certain motifs in both regions can usefully be seen as expressions of how indigenous ontologies were perceived, how things were, and how identities were tied to physical beings and manifestations of physical beings. As with research on ritualistic ontologies and the process of making rock art, embodiment theory can help us overcome the...