The archaeology of rock-art

About this book

"Pictures, painted and carved in caves and on open rock surfaces, are amongst our loveliest relics from prehistory. This pioneering set of essays goes beyond guesses as to what the pictures mean, instead exploring how we can reliably learn from rock-art as a material record of distant times: in short, rock-art as archaeology." "Sometimes contact-period records offer some direct insight about indigenous meaning, so we can learn in that informed way. More often, we have no direct record, and instead have to use formal methods to learn from the evidence of the pictures themselves." "The book's nineteen chapters range wide in space and time, from the Palaeolithic of Europe to nineteenth-century Australia."--Jacket.