Setting and Function of the Pahranagat Valley, NV, Petroglyphs: Archaeological and Ethnographic Perspectives

Summary

Rock art is landscape art, but what may be inferred from its setting and associations? It is commonly believed that function directly follows from setting and locational association, but the assumptions underlying this inference are not examined. The Lincoln County Class III rock art inventory is partly directed at the landscape implications of the Pahranagat Valley, NV, petroglyphs, providing an opportunity to consider this question. Associational inference, appropriately applied, combined with ethnographic accounts of the location, nature and use of Great Basin rock art demonstrates that many simplistic interpretations are unsupportable, with a more nuanced understanding required.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• New Research and Emerging Scholars Working on Public Lands Administered by the Bureau of Land Management

Keywords

Spatial Coverage