Issue No 3: Spring 2010

Issue No. 3: Spring 2010

Rock Articles
Dear All,
Spring has sprung, and the daffodils are ‘fluttering and dancing’, but I wonder whether William Wordsworth was aware of the
cup-marked outcrop so close to his home at Rydal Mount, in Cumbria (see New British Discoveries)? This new panel adds to a
growing number in the central Lake District that are all in similar, low-lying locations, and could help to reveal more about the
regional variations in the way that rock art was deployed. Elsewhere, recording work continued in Scotland despite the winter
weather, and we have a first hand report on the volunteer experience in Ross-shire (Rock Art around Britain). Finally, don’t
forget to book your places for the two major rock art conferences in Britain this year in Bristol and Cambridge (Dates for your
Diary), or perhaps you fancy a trip further afield to France for the IFRAO conference, or even to the Western Sahara (Get
Involved)!
Kate
March 2010
kesharpe@live.co.uk
Contents:
• New British Discoveries: selected finds from around Britain ...................................................................... 1
• World Rock Art on the Web: international news and links ......................................................................... 2
• News in Brief: quick updates on rock arty stuff........................................................................................... 3
• Rock Art around Britain: a fieldwork report from Ross-shire...................................................................... 4
• Get Involved: rock art opportunities in the Western Sahara......................................................................... 5
• Featured Panels: the petroglyphs of Carschenna, Switzerland..................................................................... 6
• Dates for your Diary: forthcoming conferences, day schools, and other events ........................................... 7
• Rock Art Reads: new and forthcoming publications .................................................................................... 9

NEW BRITISH DISCOVERIES

A small selection of the many new discoveries made recently around Britain.

Buck Wood, Thackley, Bradford.

In 2006 ‘Friends of Buck Wood’ received HLF funding to investigate an area of
Bradford woodland south of the River Aire. An initial survey and subsequent
investigations identified the remains of multi-period human activity from flints, a large
possible Iron Age enclosure and around ten previously unrecorded carved rocks.
Although the carvings are fairly simple in design consisting of just cups and grooves,
these finds extend the area of known rock art a little further south.
Read more at: http://www.lhi.org.uk/projects_directory/projects_by_region/
yorkshire_the_humber/bradford/ a_breath_of_fresh_aire/index.html

Rydal, Cumbria.
Not content with finding the new cup-marked outcrop in Borrowdale featured in Rock
Articles 2, Pete Style has now identified another four sites! Just like the Borrowdale
panel, and all the other cup-marked outcrops in the Lake District, the new examples
are low-lying, close to the valley bottom, and near to flowing water and to lakes. All
are marked with pecked cups, but no other motifs. The panel shown is near to the
village of Rydal, close to Rydal Water and Rydal Beck, and consists of a cluster of cups
with a few outliers, pecked onto the smooth upper surface of a large outcrop.

Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross.

George Currie continues to uncover Scottish rock art. This cup-marked outcrop at
Benachally, Blairgowrie, Perth and Kinross, was discovered in February 2010.
For more info and images see http://rockartuk.fotopic.net/c1813989html

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

WORLD ROCK ART on the Web

Outrage at tourist treatment of Maori rock art

A German tourist has broken into a steel cage protecting ancient Maori rock wall paintings
and then boasted about it online, reported the Timaru Herald recently. Pictures posted
online show the woman breaking into the Maerewhenua Maori rock art site near
Duntroon. She is shown climbing past the protective netting around the rock drawings
and then inside the site. Ngai Tahu Maori Rock Art Trust curator Amanda Symon was
outraged: "The rocks are caged for a reason…She is brushing past a rock drawing so
there is huge potential to do damage...I am outraged and disgusted, it is incredibly
stupid."
Ms Symon said the rock art was already being damaged by the elements. Everything
possible was being done to protect the drawings, which can be viewed for free. The
painted rock art in the lower Maerewhenua area depicts a variety of subjects ranging
from birds and reptilian forms to drawings of European sailing ships and copperplate
script. More at: http://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/3396945/Tourists-endanger-rock-art

Restricted rock art: Area R-505

Restricted Area R-505 of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake is the US Navy’s
premier weapons testing range. The property comprises 1.1 million acres of Mojave
Desert north of Los Angeles and west of Death Valley, including the Coso Mountain
range. It is also home to a complex of remote canyons holding the greatest
concentration of ancient rock art in the Western Hemisphere, known as the Coso
Petroglyphs. It is estimated that there may be as many as 100,000 images carved
into the dark volcanic canyons above the China Lake Basin, some as old as 12,000 to
16,000 years. To learn more about the carvings and hear about David Whitely’s
views see David Pages’ article in the New York Times at:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/travel/escapes/18petroglyph.html

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

NEWS in BRIEF

ROCK ART RAMPS UP at NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY

A new rock art project which began in March aims to use the latest digital technology to make visiting rock art a really
interactive experience. Rock art researchers Dr Aron Mazel and Dr Kate Sharpe have teamed up with digital media expert Dr
Areti Galani at the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS) at Newcastle University to make information
about rock art downloadable to your mobile phone at selected panels in the North East. The Rock Art Mobile Project
(RAMP), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will run for 12 months, and will build on the Beckensall Archive
Project and the Northumberland and Durham Rock Art Project. The ERA database (http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era/), which
combines data from both projects, is not currently accessible in areas without good mobile coverage but with Bluetooth access
points placed close to rock art sites, visitors could download maps, information, images, and other media directly to their
phones. They could also access tools for collecting visual information (via camera-phone), written notes (via keyboard), or
sound recordings of their impressions (via microphone). These could later be uploaded to the internet, providing an opportunity
to share experiences via a range of social networks, link with the full rock art database, or use self-publishing options such as
postcards (e.g. Moo) and newspapers (e.g. Newspaperclub) to create unique, personalised guides to share with friends and
family.
The team at Newcastle University will work closely with local heritage agencies to identify appropriate locations for the RAMP
technology, and the overall design process and media content will be developed through workshops involving potential user
groups. This will ensure that this cutting-edge approach to enhancing visitor experiences is exploited to best effect, and will
provide new insight into ways to make heritage resources more accessible to the general public in rural landscapes.
Rock Articles will keep you posted on developments.

BEASTLY ROCK ART in DERBYSHIRE

Rock art with a difference was reported recently in the International News Letter on Rock Art (INORA). Barry Lewis, a Project
Officer with Trent and Peak Archaeology describes how natural rock formations with added ‘features’ have been identified on
Stanton Moor in the Peak District. These enigmatic ‘sculptures’ appear to have physical attributes that resemble mythical
creatures. One example, the so called ‘beast head’ is an earth-fast boulder of millstone grit measuring 2.35m by 1.7m which,
viewed from the west or south-west, has the appearance of a ‘serpent or dragon head’. A long (natural) fissure forms a mouth-
like line, and above this a small indentation (or cup mark?) forms a nostril. A solution hollow appears to have been modified to
create the eye. All the features appear to have been worked (enhanced). Lewis suggests they were abraded using a stone, and
augmented using metal tools.
Read more in: Lewis, B. 2009. The Beast of Stanton Moor in the Peak District, Derbyshire, Engand. INORA 55: 1-6.

ENGLAND’S ROCK ART: Website and database improvements

(http://archaeologydataservice.co.uk/era)
The Archaeology Data Service have recently begun the task of updating the ERA website to include
improved mapping features, management data, and to provide an online form to enable users to
submit records of new rock art panels. We hope you like the changes!

ORKNEY ROCK ART: Contrasting styles (www.orkneyjar.com)

No less than 80 individual rock art panels have now been
recorded from the Ness of Brodgar excavations on
Orkney, reports Nick Card of the Orkney Research Centre
in Current Archaeology 241 (April 2010). These include
cup, and cup-and-ring marked stones associated with
Structure 10, a monumental building, as well as many
examples of finely incised ‘display’ art found on standing
walls and fragments of fallen masonry. Other finds have
included Grooved Ware pottery with an unusually wide
range of designs, polished stone axes and maceheads,
flints, and Arran pitchstone.

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

ROCK ART AROUND BRITAIN: Reports from last autumn/winter fieldwork

A few projects braved the winter weather to forge ahead with recording. Rose-Mary Cussen, a Durham postgrad who has
researched Irish rock art, joined the Ross-shire Rock Art Project (see Issue 2). She reports here on her experiences and makes
some observations about the similarities (and differences) between the carvings of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands.

Ross-shire Rock Art Project, Nov - Dec 2009

Rose-Mary Cussen
During November and early December 2009 I participated as a volunteer in the first stage of the Ross-Shire Rock Art Project
(RRAP). My Masters Degree from Durham University complete, I was quite excited at the prospect of getting some practical
experience 'out in the field', and particularly so given that the RRAP was being heralded as the first project of its kind in the
Northwestern Scottish Highlands. With several other types of project already successfully under its belt, the North of Scotland
Archaeological Society (NOSAS) is in charge of the running of the RRAP and despite being a voluntary society completely reliant
upon grant funding, it has a very active and dynamic local membership. John Wombell is the enthusiastic project co-ordinator
who possesses a keen sense of the local landscape and can spot a cup-mark at twenty paces!
Up to the present time cup-and-ring rock-art in Britain had been
described officially as extending from West Yorkshire, England to the
Caledonian Canal, which is located between the towns of Fort
Augustus and Fort William in Scotland (see Northumberland and
Durham Rock Art Project, 2008). It is highly likely that the majority of
the Scottish Highlands cup-and-ring rock-art has been discovered and
re-discovered time and again by local landowners, hillwalkers,
foresters and so on, as much of it lies in farmland, upon gentle
slopes, within tree clearings and in gardens. However, the enormous
task of formally recording, managing, conserving and interpreting this
archaeological entity in Ross-Shire has not been previously
undertaken, apart from the sporadic, basic rock-art recording which
was entered into the antiquarian record in the nineteenth century,
and also in the 1970s by the Ordnance Survey Commission. The
Historic Environment Record of Scotland currently contains only these
above-mentioned entries for rock-art.

In Stage 1 of the RRAP we started revisiting this above-mentioned baseline data:

updating and modifying the written record to reflect the current status of these
carved rocks. During my time living in the village of North Kessock, just north of
Inverness, we managed to locate several rock-carvings within an area of
approximately 30km2 within the Easter Ross region. Many of these sites overlook
the landscape surrounding Moray Firth, Cromarty Firth and Dornock Firth and
have truly spectacular panoramas.

Immediately I noticed some similarities between the landscape of the Highlands

of Scotland and some landscapes of northwestern/ western / southwestern
Ireland: stark mountains, wide glens, brimming lochs and burns. There is,
however, something wilder and more 'rolling' about the undulating highlands
topography; the horizon appears to extend endlessly and the sky always seems
enormous! Of course, the geology used for rock-carving is different in both
countries: glacial erratics are mainly composed of sandstone in Ireland, as against
moine schist in this particular region of the Highlands. Notwithstanding these
intrinsic geological differences, the character of the open-air rock-art of the
Ireland and this region of Scotland represents a shared tradition in terms of style,
setting and possibly even function.

Generally, thus far in Ross-Shire, we noticed that simple cup-marks were confined
to earthfast boulders, while the more complex range and variation of rock-art was
reserved for low-to-the-ground rectilinear slabs. Additionally, as is the case with
all cup-and-ring rock-art the rock's elevation, prominence, slope and aspect is
crucial in terms of its setting. During our re-location of in situ rock-art sites we
often noticed that there were the remains of hut-circles, chambered burial cairns and prehistoric trackways, in the immediate
vicinity. All in all, if the archive of images accumulated thus far in the Easter Ross region is representational of the entire
Highlands region, then there must have been ample contact between it and Ireland during the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze
Age, due to their similarities with Irish rock-art imagery.

Whilst working on the Project, I got the opportunity to visit some beautifully remote and peaceful locations, miles away from the
traditional tourist trails. We met some really co-operative landowners and farmers, all of whom had an interest in and a
knowledge of the archaeology on their land. I was very happy to have had the opportunity of assisting in the location of some of
the HER entries, and I would like to thank John and Trina Wombell once again for all their help and hospitality during my stay in
North Kessock, Ross-Shire.
For information about further volunteering opportunities with RRAP, please contact
John Wombell on 01997 423273 or email john.wombell@btinternet.com

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

GET INVOLVED: New opportunities

Western Sahara Project (University of East Anglia): Call for volunteers

Volunteers are needed for the next season of fieldwork in Western Sahara. Anyone can volunteer to take part; no experience of
archaeology or scientific fieldwork is required.

The Western Sahara Project is an interdisciplinary research project that aims to improve our understanding of past
environmental, social and cultural change in northwest Africa. The main focus of the research is on human-environment
interaction over the past 10,000 years (the Holocene period), with an emphasis on the transition from humid to arid conditions
in the Middle to Late Holocene.The Project is led by the University of East Anglia, and involves specialists in a wide range of
subjects from a number of institutions.

The Sahara is remarkably rich in archaeology, representing the palaeolithic to the historical periods. Areas that are now hyper-
arid are often littered with prehistoric artefacts, from hand axes dating back hundreds of thousands of years to arrow heads,
grinding stones, pottery and other artefacts dating from the past few millennia. These remains and abundant rock art illustrate
that the Sahara was not always the arid desert it is today, but was once much wetter.

Fieldwork is conducted in the eastern and southern areas of the disputed, non self-governing territory of Western Sahara
(formerly Spanish Sahara). These areas are under the control of the Polisario independence movement, the remainder of the
territory being occupied by Morocco.

A 3-week season of reconnaissance survey work from around 5-27 November 2010. A season of excavations may also run from
approximately 1 October - 13 November 2010, subject to the availability of external funding. Volunteers are needed for both of
these components. If the excavations go ahead two sets of volunteers for required this element, to participate in two
consecutive 3-week excavation modules.

More information is available on the recently updated

volunteers page of the project website at:
http://www.nickbrooks.org/WS/WSahara-volunteers.htm.

You can now also follow the project on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/WSaharaProject or read about it at
Past Horizons:
http://en.calameo.com/read/0000627296b9a5eb2153b or (more
academic) in
Antiquity: http://antiquity.ac.uk/ant/083/ant0830918.htm

Alternatively, you can contact:

Dr Nick Brooks
Co-Director
Western Sahara Project
School of World Art & Museology Studies
University of East Anglia
Norwich NR4 7TJ
Tel: +44 7919 402 918
Email: nick.brooks@uea.ac.uk
Website: http://www.nickbrooks.org/

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

FEATURED PANELS
The petroglyphs of Carschenna, Switzerland
The carved geometric motifs found about 400m above the
Domlesch valley in the Swiss Alps could easily be
mistaken for the cup and ring marks found in Northern
Britain and Ireland. Twelve decorated rocks have been
recorded. All are glacially polished local schist which is not
very stable. The most common motif is the cup-mark
(n=300), often combined with (2-9) concentric circles.
Spirals occur on 2 panels, but unlike in British and Irish
rock art, there are also 25 zoomorphic and five
anthropomorphic images. The carvings have inspired a
number of researchers to suggest astronomical
interpretations. In the 1970s a geologist, Liniger, looked
for alignments of motifs with the horizon, linking to solar
or lunar events. On Rock 2, he interpreted three groups of
cupules as a ‘lunar dot count’ depicting two lunar weeks
with nine days, and a third week with twelve days. He
believed this represented a calendar system showing two
cycles of four solar years, and he dated the composition
to 700 BC. Nearby is a composition of nine rings, divided
into four quarters. A figure below this is interpreted as a
‘deer’ with a ‘rider’. Liniger interpreted the combination of
these two motifs to mean a solar year.

Rock 2: Horse with rider below cup with nine rings interpreted as
a ‘solar year’.

Rock 2: Detail of 9 –ringed motif

Rock 2: detail of horse and rider

Rock 2: Part of a composition interpreted as representing four solar years.

Read more about the Carschenna petroglyphs and their interpretation in:
Diethelm, I., and H. Deithelm. 2009. The Petroglyphs of Carschenna, Switzerland. Rock Art Research, Vol. 26, Number 1: 95-98.
and at: http://www.rupestre.net/alps/carsch.html

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

DATES for your DIARY: Forthcoming Conferences and Events

If you have an event you would like to publicise here please send me the details.

24th April
5th Biennial Rock Art Symposium: “Underlying Mechanisms”, University of Bristol and Time and Mind
Tickets: £20. For further details contact Dr George Nash at George.Nash@bristol.ac.uk

Program
10.15-10.45 Jitka Soukopova: Round Heads: Complex reality of the earliest Saharan paintings
10.45-11.15 Jamie Hampson: Approaching rock art in under-studied regions: case studies from Mpumalanga (South Africa) and
Texas (USA)
Coffee/Tea break
11.30-12.00. Frederick Baker, Christopher Well & Christopher Chippindale/Music, archaeo-acoustics and rock-art location in the
Copper Age of Valcamonica (BS), Italy
12.00-12.30. Paul Devereux: Acoustic and other sensory mechanisms associated with rock-art locations
12.30-1.00. Aron Mazel: Time, Colour and Sound: exploring the rock of Didima Gorge, South Africa
LUNCH
2.00-2.30. Tertia BarnettPredicting pastoral movement in south west Libya
2.30-3.00. Kate Sharpe: Rock art, Rough-outs and Routeways: New discoveries in the English Lake District
3.00-3.30. Barry Lewis: Sydney and Blue Mountains region rock art and the rock art of initiation
Coffee/Tea Break
3.45-4.15. Anne Eastham: Pathways and properties a case study on the uses of prehistoric standing stones in Pembrokeshire,
South Wales
4.15-4.45. Michael Eastham: Preconceived notions blind down a cave more than the dark
4.45-5.15. George Nash (optional depending time): Rock-art as a mnemonic device: Establishing memory through early
medieval monumental sculptures in north-west England
FINISH

8th May
British Rock Art Group 2010
BRAG 2010 will be held on Saturday 8th May in the McDonald Institute Seminar Room, Department of Archaeology, Downing
Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ.
Program
9.30–10.00 Registration and coffee
10.00–10.20 Aron Mazel: Revisiting Didima: a special rock art valley in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg, South Africa.
10.20–10.40 Jitka Soukopova: Saharan rock art: how can we interpret it?
10.40–11.00 Jamie Hampson: Approaching rock art in under-studied regions: case studies from South Africa and Texas.
11.00–11.20 Dave Robinson, Fraser Sturt, Julienne Bernard & Gregory Tucker: Other than sacred? Rock-art and watery places
in indigenous south-central California.
Coffee break
11.40–12.00 Daniel Arsenault: Reading rock-art as spiritual text and sacred context: an informed approach to the tangible and
intangible dimensions of rock-art sites in the Canadian Shield.
12.00–12.20 Ludwig Jaffe: Captabases without captabases for rock imagery.
12.20–12.40 Mila Abreu & Cris Buco: Yes there are also engravings! Discoveries in the rock-art of Piaui, Brazil.
12.40–1.00 Michael Rainsbury: Kimberley rock art.
LUNCH
2.00–2.20 Robert Wallis: Animism, ancestors and adjusted styles of communication: hidden art in Irish passage tombs.
2.20–2.40 Lila Janik: Design and display: seeing and experiencing the visual narrative.
2.40–3.00 Mark Sapwell: Transforming shamanism in southern Sweden: altered states of consciousness or altered states of
body?
3.00–3.20 John Wombell: Ross-shire rock art project: Phase 1 survey completion.
Coffee break
3.40–4.00 George Nash: Using the topography of the rock-art panel to say interesting things: a case for rock-art of the
Valcamonica, Lombardy, northern Italy.
4.00–4.20 Margarita Díaz-Andreu: Looking at the rock face: the study of the rock art site of Los Cuchillos (Murcia, SE Spain).
4.20–4.40 Sara Garces & Mila Abreu: Dear deer: cervid figures in Portuguese rock imagery.
4.40–5.00 John Sastre: Research on schematic rock art in the Esla River valley (Zamora, Spain).
Break
5.10–5.30 Discussion led by Chris Chippindale
FINISH

For further information please contact Jamie Hampson at jamiehampson@yahoo.com

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

23rd May (provisional date)

Rock Art Meeting 2010

RAM 2010 will be hosted by Gavin Parry & Greame Chappell,

and will be centred on Fylingdales Moor in North Yorkshire.
For details see: http://tinyurl.com/ram-2010

20th-24th May (provisional dates)

The Welsh Rock Art Organisation field tour.
A WRAO field trip is planned to Kilmartin via Cumbria. For further details please check the WRAO Facebook page.

6th-11th Sept
IFRAO CONGRESS: PLEISTOCENE ART OF THE WORLD (Ariège-Pyrénées, France)

Research in recent decades has suggested that most Pleistocene palaeoart of the world may
not be figurative, and that some is even much older than the art encountered in Europe. This
differs so significantly from the popular model of Pleistocene art that an IFRAO Congress has
been organised, dedicated to this subject, addressing questions of dating, of the definitions of
palaeoart and its taphonomy, and of regional distribution of evidence in each continent, re-
evaluating the topic of the global phenomenon of Pleistocene palaeoart traditions.

The congress will take place at the Prehistoric Park (near Tarascon-sur-Ariège): Congrès Art
Pléistocène dans le Monde, Parc de la Préhistoire, 09400 Tarascon-sur-Ariège (France). Email:
ifrao.ariege.2010@sesta.fr Phone +33 561 055 040.
Visit to the caves (Niaux, Bédeilhac, Le Mas d’Azil, Gargas) and Palaeolithic art museums (Le
Mas d’Azil, Musée Bégouën) will be organised both during (on 8 September) and at the end of
the Congress (on 11 September). Congress official languages will be English, French, Spanish.
Registration Fee: 100 euros for participants; 60 € for accompanying persons and for students.
Inscription will depend on the actual payment of the fee. Deadline: 30 June 2010. If, however,
the number of participants duly inscribed before the deadline reaches the maximum number of
persons we can accept, inscription will be immediately stopped and notice will be given on the
web site at http://ifrao.sesta.fr/
For further information contact Jean Clottes, 11 rue du Fourcat 09000 Foix, France. Email:
j.clottes@wanadoo.fr

Current contributions:
Pleistocene art in Africa (Peter Beaumont Dirk Huyge)
Pleistocene art in the Americas (Alice TratebasAndré Prous and María Mercedes Podestá)
Pleistocene art in Asia (Giriraj Kumar and Majeed Khan)
Pleistocene art in Australia (Robert Bednarik and John Campbell)
Pleistocene art in Europe (Jean Clottes and Manuel González Morales)
Signs, symbols, myth, ideology in Pleistocene art : the archaelogical material and its anthropological meanings (Dario Seglie,
Mike Singleton, and Marcel Otte,; co-assisted by Enrico Comba and Luiz Oosterbeek)
Dating and taphonomy of Pleistocene palaeoart (Jean Clottes and Robert Bednarik)
Application of forensic techniques to Pleistocene palaeoart investigations (Yann-Pierre Montelle and Robert Bednarik,)
Pleistocene portable art (Aline Averbough and Valérie Feruglio)

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 Issue No 3: Spring 2010

ROCK ART READS: New and Forthcoming Publications

World Rock Art: The Primordial Language. Third Revised and updated edition by Emmanuel
Anati, Archaeopress.
From the Archaeopress website: This volume is a basic introduction to rock art studies. It marks the
starting point of the new methodology for rock art analysis, based on typology and style, first
developed by the author at the Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici. This book demonstrates the
beginnings of a new discipline, the systematic study of world rock art. This edition is a revised and
updated version of Anarti’s classic text, first published in English in 1993. Additions have been made
and a major new category of rock art has been included.
ISBN 9781905739318. vi+180p; illustrated throughout with drawings and photographs in colour and
black and white.
Price GB £19.95.

Australian Rock Art. A New Synthesis by Robert Layton, Cambridge University Press.
From the Cambridge University Press website: The origins of rock art in Australia are probably as old
as that of the hunter-gatherers of Western Europe, well-known for the prehistoric caves of Altamira
and Lascaux. That the practice of painting and engraving on rocks continues in parts of northern and
central Australia emphasises the importance of this art as a source of visual information for Australia's
indigenous communities, Rock art can be 'read' to determine cultural processes and provides a
durable record of thousands of years of cultural change. This book is an extensive survey of Australian
rock art, presenting detailed case studies revealing the significance of both recent and ancient art for
Australia's living indigenous communities. Archaeological data provides evidence of the ways in which
rock art traditions have changed over 15,000 or more years in response to changes in the
environment, the development of new forms of social organisation and the impact of European
colonial settlement.
ISBN-10: 0521125782; ISBN-13: 978-0521125789. Paperback: 304p
Price: GB £21.99
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521125789

Prehistoric Rock Art by Paul G. Bahn, Cambridge University Press.

From the Cambridge University Press website: Paul G. Bahn provides a richly illustrated overview of
prehistoric rock art and cave art from around the world. Summarizing the recent advances in our
understanding of this extraordinary visual record, he discusses new discoveries, new approaches to
recording and interpretation, and current problems in conservation. Bahn focuses in particular on
current issues in the interpretation of rock art, notably the ‘shamanic’ interpretation that has been
influential in recent years and that he refutes. This book is based on the Rhind Lectures that the
author delivered for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2006.
• Richly illustrated, showing much beautiful art that is little-known from around the world • Focuses on
new discoveries, interpretations and approaches • Demolishes the ‘shamanic’ interpretation of rock art
which was a popular fad in recent years
ISBN-13: 9780521140874. Paperback: 238p 90 b/w illus.
Not yet published - available from July 2010
http://www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=978052114087

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