A Tripartite Approach for Determining Tribal Affiliation for Petroglyphs and Rock-borne Imagery

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Value of Rock Art: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Current Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis, Part I" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Global interest in petroglyphs and rock-borne imagery is arguably at an all-time high as evidenced by scholarly publications, online interest groups, and conferences dedicated to the topic. Methodological approaches to the preservation, conservation, interpretation and dating of petroglyphs are often the primary foci of such efforts. However, in the United States, with NAGPRA legislation and the mandated regulations for the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives and voices on the preservation, monitoring and interpretation of petroglyph sites, there is a critical need for defining the Native tribes with likely affiliation to particular petroglyph sites and developing paths to consultation and collaboration. This task is often complicated by a colonial legacy resulting in ruptured connections with Native groups and silences in the historical record. This paper will share a tripartite approach for defining the tribal affiliation for petroglyphs on a complex landscape in the eastern United States.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Value of Rock Art: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Current Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis, Part I

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52022