Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jan Simek. Stephen Alvarez. Alan Cressler. Jordan Schafer.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The production of 3D models with photogrammetry has seen some recent application in rock art studies as a means of documenting sites and presenting them to the public. However, the use of photogrammetric models as data sources for discovery and analysis has received little attention. In this paper, we present work at 19th...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cameron S. Griffith.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cave archaeologists around the world are increasingly utilizing many new platforms and techniques to document subterranean artwork, including digital imaging and scanning technologies. In this presentation I "throw shade" at these high-tech approaches by revisiting and focusing upon the oldest of the old-school technologies...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sandra Olsen. Khan.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The ritualistic use of various detached human body parts is a circumglobal phenomenon that has been documented for cultures extending backward through time for millennia. Its symbolic purposes are diverse, but war trophies and ancestor worship are two of the most common. Artists’ depictions of displays of human body parts...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrzej Rozwadowski. Janusz Woloszyn.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Toro Muerto, situated in Arequipa Region in southern Peru, consists of over 2.5 thousand stone blocks covered with petroglyphs, which makes this site unique not only in Peru but also in South America. In this presentation we outline the current results of a new project which aims to document the whole site. This includes...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ramon Valcarce. Alia Vazquez-Martinez. Carlos Rodriguez-Rellan.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Research on the open-air rock art of Galicia has been going on for more than a century. During this time, one aspect that has experienced much change is the recording of the carved panels, starting with techniques that involved direct contact with the rock’s surface and resulted in a more or less adequate rendering of the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Alex Ruuska.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Polly and Curtis Schaafma have been instrumental in identifying primary archaeological tenets associated with the origin of the Pueblo Kachina Cult. In this paper I revisit key ethnohistorical and archaeological findings of the origins of the Pueblo Kachina Cult and "Snake Dance" (Tsu’tiki or Tsu’tiva). Utilizing a comparative...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anne Stoll. George Stoll.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The painted parietal art of prehistoric San Bushmen of southern Africa has been in the public eye since the 1920s. Iconographic and stylistic differences within the San artistic corpus have been attributed to distinctions of time and space within and among the many centers of image concentration. Rock art found in the ravines...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emily Van Alst.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Historically, researchers have interpreted rock art based on ethno-historical accounts of ceremonies as male-created and male-oriented experiences and spaces. This has led to researchers ignoring traditional women’s roles in the creation of rock art as well as women’s interaction with rock art spaces. I examine how Lakota women...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Johannes Loubser.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Long Ridge Road is the most complicated of 20 high elevation sites with similar-looking circular and meandering petroglyphs along the South Carolina/North Carolina state line. With the aid of drone photography a minimum number of 1,043 petroglyph motifs were recorded. Based on motif style and stratigraphy the site most likely...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eli Dollarhide.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Rock art is one of the most ubiquitous archaeological features in southeastern Arabia, yet it remains one of the most poorly understood aspects of the region’s prehistory. Re-occurring motifs of people, weapons, camels, horses, and other animal figures appear in similar forms across the UAE and Oman, and many were produced...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Liam Brady. John Bradley. Karen Steelman. Amanda Kearney.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The search for meaning in rock art has been the focus of scholarly attention and debate for decades. A common feature that unites many of these studies is what the enquiry produces – for example, what a motif represents. However, studies focussing on the processes by which meaning is generated are, comparatively speaking, fewer...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Suzanne Baker. Ruth Ann Armitage. Roger Arrazcaeta. Silvia Torres.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cuba has many karst caves with pictographs, but there has been uncertainty about who created the rock art. The prehistoric population, historic indigenous groups pushed to the margins by the Spanish, and maroons or escaped African slaves are all possibilities. Cuban archaeologists have debated for decades which groups were...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Thomas Huffman. Frank Lee Earley.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Abstract rock art formed part of a pilgrimage trail that led from the lower Apishapa Canyon to the Spanish Peaks near Trinidad, Colorado. Hunter/gatherer ethnography from the Great Basin makes sense of abstract engravings in the canyon at sites such as Cramer, Canterbury, and Snake Blakeslee. The Apishapa Canyon leads from...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Stagg. Jason Toohey.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Callacpuma is a multicomponent archaeological site in the Cajamarca Basin of the northern highlands of Peru with a long and complex history of human occupation spanning from at least 1000 BC to approximately AD 1500. An estimated 3,000-4,000 rock art panels dot the landscape of Callacpuma. Over the past three field seasons, 100...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Mark.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry models can be used to visualize petroglyphs that are otherwise difficult to see in photographs. Three techniques require a high-quality model that has captured the surface geometry in the point cloud and mesh. 1) Online and free software permit viewing a model surface with...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nancy Olsen. Ann Brierty. John Fryer.

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. SAA is comprised of many educators and a special interest group that conducts research on rock art. The emphasis now is to raise awareness regarding cultural sensitivity of rock art panels, including protection and preservation. That Pueblo people think of rock art panels as part of their cultural heritage, is not a new...