Discovering North American Rock Art

Discovering North American Rock Art PDF Author: Lawrence L. Loendorf
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816534101
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
From the high plains of Canada to caves in the southeastern United States, images etched into and painted on stone by ancient Native Americans have aroused in observers the desire to understand their origins and meanings. Rock paintings and engravings can be found in nearly every state and province, and each region has its own distinctive story of discovery and evolving investigation of the rock art record. Rock art in the twenty-first century enjoys a large and growing popularity fueled by scholarly research and public interest alike. This book explores the history of rock art research in North America and is the only volume in the past twenty-five years to provide coverage of the subject on a continental scale. Written by contributors active in rock art research, it examines sites that provide a cross-section of regions and topics and complements existing books on rock art by offering new information, insights, and approaches to research. The first part of the volume explores different regional approaches to the study of rock art, including a set of varied responses to a single site as well as an overview of broader regional research investigations. It tells how Writing-on-Stone in southern Alberta, Canada, reflects changing thought about rock art from the 1870s to today; it describes the role of avocational archaeologists in the Mississippi Valley, where rock art styles differ on each side of the river; it explores discoveries in southwestern mountains and southeastern caves; and it integrates the investigation of cupules along Georgia’s Yellow River into a full study of a site and its context. The book also compares the differences between rock art research in the United States and France: from the outset, rock art was of only marginal interest to most U.S. archaeologists, while French prehistorians considered cave art an integral part of archaeological research. The book’s second part is concerned with working with the images today and includes coverage of gender interests, government sponsorship, the role of amateurs in research, and chronometric studies. Much has changed in our understanding of rock art since Cotton Mather first wrote in 1714 of a strange inscription on a Massachusetts boulder, and the cutting-edge contributions in this volume tell us much about both the ancient place of these enduring images and their modern meanings. Discovering North American Rock Art distills today’s most authoritative knowledge of the field and is an essential volume for both specialists and hobbyists.

Discovering North American Rock Art

Discovering North American Rock Art PDF Author: Lawrence L. Loendorf
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816534101
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book Here

Book Description
From the high plains of Canada to caves in the southeastern United States, images etched into and painted on stone by ancient Native Americans have aroused in observers the desire to understand their origins and meanings. Rock paintings and engravings can be found in nearly every state and province, and each region has its own distinctive story of discovery and evolving investigation of the rock art record. Rock art in the twenty-first century enjoys a large and growing popularity fueled by scholarly research and public interest alike. This book explores the history of rock art research in North America and is the only volume in the past twenty-five years to provide coverage of the subject on a continental scale. Written by contributors active in rock art research, it examines sites that provide a cross-section of regions and topics and complements existing books on rock art by offering new information, insights, and approaches to research. The first part of the volume explores different regional approaches to the study of rock art, including a set of varied responses to a single site as well as an overview of broader regional research investigations. It tells how Writing-on-Stone in southern Alberta, Canada, reflects changing thought about rock art from the 1870s to today; it describes the role of avocational archaeologists in the Mississippi Valley, where rock art styles differ on each side of the river; it explores discoveries in southwestern mountains and southeastern caves; and it integrates the investigation of cupules along Georgia’s Yellow River into a full study of a site and its context. The book also compares the differences between rock art research in the United States and France: from the outset, rock art was of only marginal interest to most U.S. archaeologists, while French prehistorians considered cave art an integral part of archaeological research. The book’s second part is concerned with working with the images today and includes coverage of gender interests, government sponsorship, the role of amateurs in research, and chronometric studies. Much has changed in our understanding of rock art since Cotton Mather first wrote in 1714 of a strange inscription on a Massachusetts boulder, and the cutting-edge contributions in this volume tell us much about both the ancient place of these enduring images and their modern meanings. Discovering North American Rock Art distills today’s most authoritative knowledge of the field and is an essential volume for both specialists and hobbyists.

Discovering South Carolina's Rock Art

Discovering South Carolina's Rock Art PDF Author: Tommy Charles
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
ISBN: 1611172128
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description
An adventure tale of archaeological research, discovery, and preservation in the South Carolina upcountry. For years Tommy Charles searched South Carolina's upcountry for examples of ancient rock art carvings and paintings, efforts conducted on behalf of the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology (SCIAA). As SCIAA's collections coordinator, Charles amassed considerable field experience in both prehistoric and historic archaeology and had firsthand involvement in cataloging sixty-four sites of South Carolina rock art. Charles chronicles his adventures in exploration and preservation in Discovering South Carolina's Rock Art. Although Native American rock art is common in the western United States and even at many sites east of the Mississippi, it was believed to be almost nonexistent in South Carolina until the 1980s, when several randomly discovered petroglyphs were reported in the upstate. These discoveries set in motion the first organized endeavor to identify and document these ancient examples of human expression in South Carolina. Over the ensuing years, and assisted by a host of volunteers and avocational collectors, Charles scoured the Piedmont and mountains of South Carolina in search of additional rock art. Frustrated by the inability to find these elusive artifacts, many of which are eroded almost beyond visibility, Charles began employing methods still considered unorthodox by current scientific standards for archaeological research to assist with his search and documentation. Survey efforts led to the discovery of rock art created by Native Americans and Europeans. Of particular interest are the many circle-and-line petroglyphs the survey found in South Carolina. Seeking a reason for this repetitive symbol, Charles's investigation into these finds led to the discovery that similar motifs had been identified along the Appalachian Mountains from Alabama to New York, as well as in the American Southwest and Western Europe. This engrossing account of the search for South Carolina's rock art brings awareness to the precarious state of these artifacts, threatened not only by natural attrition but also by human activities. Charles argues that, if left unprotected, rock art is ultimately doomed to exist only in our historical records.

Body and Image

Body and Image PDF Author: Christopher Tilley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315432838
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
The understanding and interpretation of ancient architecture, landscapes, and art has always been viewed through an iconographic lens—a cognitive process based on traditional practices in art history. But ancient people did not ascribe their visions on canvas, rather on hills, stones, and fields. Thus, Chris Tilley argues, the iconographic approach falls short of understanding how ancient people interacted with their imagery. A kinaesthetic approach, one that uses the full body and all the senses, can better approximate the meaning that these artifacts had for their makers and today’s viewers. The body intersects the landscape in a myriad of ways—through the effort to reach the image, the angles that one can use to view, the multiple senses required for interaction. Tilley outlines the choreographic basis of understanding ancient landscapes and art phenomenologically, and demonstrates the power of his thesis through examples of rock art and megalithic architecture in Norway, Ireland, and Sweden. This is a powerful new model from one of the leading contemporary theorists in archaeology.

A Companion to Rock Art

A Companion to Rock Art PDF Author: Jo McDonald
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118253922
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 692

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Book Description
This unique guide provides an artistic and archaeological journey deep into human history, exploring the petroglyphic and pictographic forms of rock art produced by the earliest humans to contemporary peoples around the world. Summarizes the diversity of views on ancient rock art from leading international scholars Includes new discoveries and research, illustrated with over 160 images (including 30 color plates) from major rock art sites around the world Examines key work of noted authorities (e.g. Lewis-Williams, Conkey, Whitley and Clottes), and outlines new directions for rock art research Is broadly international in scope, identifying rock art from North and South America, Australia, the Pacific, Africa, India, Siberia and Europe Represents new approaches in the archaeological study of rock art, exploring issues that include gender, shamanism, landscape, identity, indigeneity, heritage and tourism, as well as technological and methodological advances in rock art analyses

Handbook of Rock Art Research

Handbook of Rock Art Research PDF Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742502567
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 876

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Book Description
While there has always been a large public interest in ancient pictures painted or carved on stone, the archaeological study of rock art is in its infancy. But intensive amounts of research has revolutionized this field in the past decade. New methods of dating and analysis help to pinpoint the makers of these beautiful images, new interpretive models help us understand this art in relation to culture. Identification, conservation and management of rock art sites have become major issues in historical preservation worldwide. And the number of archaeologically attested sites has mushroomed. In this handbook, the leading researchers in the rock art area provide cogent, state-of-the-art summaries of the technical, interpretive, and regional advances in rock art research. The book offers a comprehensive, basic reference of current information on key topics over six continents for archaeologists, anthropologists, art historians, and rock art enthusiasts.

Painted Dreams

Painted Dreams PDF Author: Thor Conway
Publisher: NorthWord Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9781559712132
Category : Indians of North America
Languages : en
Pages : 157

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Book Description
A guide to the deeper meanings of rock art. The author spent more than 20ears travelling to rock art sites across the United States and Canada,arning the trust of native elders and preserving their insights.

Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings

Anthropomorphic Images in Rock Art Paintings and Rock Carvings PDF Author: Terence Meaden
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789693586
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335

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Book Description
In rock art, humanlike images appear widely throughout the ages. The artworks discussed in this book range from paintings, engravings or scratchings on cave walls and rock shelters, images pecked into rocky surfaces or upon standing stones, and major sacred sites, in which exists the possibility of recovering the meanings intended by the artists.

Rock Art Of Kentucky

Rock Art Of Kentucky PDF Author: Fred E. CoyJr.
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813158389
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Rock Art of Kentucky is the first comprehensive documentation of the fragile remnants of Kentucky's prehistoric Native American rock art sites. Found in twenty-two of Kentucky's counties, these sites pan a period of more than three thousand years. The most frequent design elements in Kentucky rock art are engravings of the footprints of birds, quadrupeds, and humans. Other design elements include anthropomorphs, mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and abstract and geometric figures. Included in the book are stunning illustrations of the sixty confirmed sites and ten destroyed or questionable sites. In the thirty some years during which this information was collected, there has been an alarming deterioration of many of the sites. Ancient carvings have been destroyed by graffiti or have lost extensive detail because of climatic or environmental conditions, such as acid rain. Although all the Kentucky sites are officially listed on the National register of Historic Places, several no long exist or are at present inaccessible. In addition to making data available for the first time to the national and international archaeological community for further comparative and interpretive studies, Rock Art of Kentucky is also for nonspecialists interested in prehistoric Kentucky and Native American studies.

Introduction to Rock Art Research

Introduction to Rock Art Research PDF Author: David Whitley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315425998
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
First published in 2005, this brief introduction to methods of studying rock art has become the standard text for courses on this topic. It was also selected as a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book in 2005. Internationally-known rock art researcher David Whitley takes the reader through the various processes needed to document, interpret, and preserve this fragile category of artifact. Using examples from around the globe, he offers a comprehensive guide to rock art studies of value to archaeologists and art historians, their students, and rock art aficionados. The second edition of this classic work has additional material on mapping sites, ethnographic analogy, neuropsychological models, and Native American consultation.

Rock Art of the Lower Pecos

Rock Art of the Lower Pecos PDF Author: Carolyn E. Boyd
Publisher: Texas A&M University Press
ISBN: 9781585442591
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Boyd seed a way that hunter-gatherer artists expressed their belief systems; provided a mechanism for social and environmental adaptation; and acted as agents in the social, economic, and ideological affairs of the community. She offers detailed information gleaned from the art regarding the nature of the Lower Pecos cosmos, ritual practices involving the use of sacramental and medicinal plants, and hunter-gatherer lifeways.