Recontexting, Decontexting, and Un-Contexting the Great Gallery: "Alternative" Iconography and Romantic Exploitations of the Archaic Barrier Canyon Style

Summary

The Barrier Canyon Style (aka. Barrier Canyon Anthropomorphic Style) is widely regarded as one of the more prominent and significant pictographic rock art styles in North America, and the Great Gallery from Horseshoe Canyon in Utah has long been recognized as both the type-site and arguably most prominent and complex of all Barrier Canyon Style sites. It is also the most overly exploited and often visually abused site in popular visual culture. Beyond scholarly reproduction, images of the Great Gallery are routinely co-opted through modern cinema, major museum exhibitions, and commercial branding. Such borrowings and exploitations typically show little concern for stylistic or archaeological accuracy, and in fact often intentionally distort or invent alternative histories to perpetuate agenda driven interpretations of the ancient style. This presentation considers the impact such "recontextualizations" have on both popular and scholarly perceptions of the specific style, rock art in general as an ancient form of human expression, and the role of factually accurate translation of documentary evidence into the popular realm.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20770