Inarchaeology,rock art refers to human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosedrock shelters; this type also may be calledcave art orparietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are:
The oldest known rock art dates from theUpper Palaeolithic period, having been found in Europe, Australia, Asia, and Africa. Anthropologists studying these artworks believe that they likely hadmagico-religious significance.
The archaeological sub-discipline of rock art studies first developed in the late-19th century among Francophone scholars studying the rockart of the Upper Palaeolithic found in the cave systems of parts of Western Europe. Rock art continues to be of importance toindigenous peoples in various parts of the world, who view them as bothsacred items and significant components of their cultural heritage.[1] Such archaeological sites may become significant sources ofcultural tourism and have been used in popular culture for their aesthetic qualities.[2]
The termrock art appears in the published literature as early as the 1940s.[3][4] It has also been described as "rock carvings",[5] "rock drawings",[6] "rock engravings",[7] "rock inscriptions",[8] "rock paintings",[9] "rock pictures",[10] "rock records",[11] and "rock sculptures".[12][13]
Parietal art is a term for art incaves; this definition usually extended to art inrock shelters under cliff overhangs. Popularly, it is called "cave art", and is a subset of the wider term, rock art. It is mostly on rock walls, but may be on ceilings and floors. A wide variety of techniques have been used in its creation. The term usually is applied only toprehistoric art, but it may be used for art of any date.[14] Sheltered parietal art has had a far better chance of surviving for very long periods, and what now survives may represent only a very small proportion of what was created.[15]
Both parietal and cave art refer tocave paintings, drawings, etchings, carvings, and pecked artwork on the interior of caves and rock shelters. Generally, these either are engraved (essentially meaning scratched) or painted, or, they are created using a combination of the two techniques.[16] Parietal art is found very widely throughout the world, and in many places new examples are being discovered.
The defining characteristic of rock art is that it is placed on natural rock surfaces; in this way, it is distinct from artworks placed on constructed walls or free-standing sculpture.[17] As such, rock art is a form of landscape art, and includes designs that have been placed on boulder and cliff faces, cave walls, and ceilings, and on the ground surface.[17] Rock art is a global phenomenon, being found in many different regions of the world.[1] There are various forms of rock art. Some archaeologists also consider pits and grooves in the rock known ascupules, orcups orrings, as a form of rock art.[17]
Although there are exceptions, the majority of rock art whose creation was recorded byethnographers had been produced during rituals.[17] As such, the study of rock art is a component of the archaeology of religion.[18]
Rock art serves multiple purposes in the contemporary world. In several regions, it remains spiritually important toindigenous peoples, who view it as a significant component of their cultural heritage.[1] It also serves as an important source of cultural tourism, and hence as economic revenue in certain parts of the world. As such, images taken from cave art have appeared on memorabilia and other artifacts sold as a part of the tourist industry.[2]
In most climates, only paintings in sheltered sites, in particular caves, have survived for any length of time. Therefore, these are usually called "cave paintings", although many do survive in "rock-shelters" or cliff-faces under an overhang. In prehistoric times, these were often popular places for various human purposes, providing some shelter from the weather, as well as light. There may have been many more paintings in more exposed sites, that are now lost. Pictographs are paintings or drawings that have been placed onto the rock face. Such artworks have typically been made with mineral earths and other natural compounds found across much of the world. The predominantly used colours are red, black and white. Red paint is usually attained through the use of groundochre, while black paint is typically composed ofcharcoal, or sometimes from minerals such asmanganese. White paint is usually created from natural chalk, kaolinite clay or diatomaceous earth.[19] Once the pigments had been obtained, they would be ground and mixed with a liquid, such as water, blood, urine, or egg yolk, and then applied to the stone as paint using a brush, fingers, or a stamp. Alternately, the pigment could have been applied on dry, such as with a stick of charcoal.[20] In some societies, the paint itself has symbolic and religious meaning; for instance, among hunter-gatherer groups in California, paint was only allowed to be traded by the group shamans, while in other parts of North America, the word for "paint" was the same as the word for "supernatural spirit".[21]
One common form of pictograph, found in many, although not all rock-art producing cultures, is the hand print. There are three forms of this; the first involves covering the hand in wet paint and then applying it to the rock. The second involves a design being painted onto the hand, which is then in turn added to the surface. The third involves the hand first being placed against the panel, with dry paint then being blown onto it through a tube, in a process that is akin to air-brush or spray-painting. The resulting image is a negative print of the hand, and is sometimes described as a "stencil" in Australian archaeology.[22] Miniature stencilled art has been found attwo locations in Australia and one in Indonesia.
Petroglyphs areengravings or carvings into rock which is leftin situ. They can be created with a range of scratching, engraving or carving techniques, often with the use of a hardhammerstone, which is battered against the stone surface. In certain societies, the choice of hammerstone itself has religious significance.[23] In other instances, the rock art is pecked out through indirect percussion, as a second rock is used like achisel between the hammerstone and the panel.[23] A third, rarer form of engraving rock art was through incision, or scratching, into the surface of the stone with alithic flake or metal blade. The motifs produced using this technique are fine-lined and often difficult to see.[24]
Normally found in literate cultures, a rock relief or rock-cut relief is arelief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, and sometimes found in conjunction withrock-cut architecture.[25] However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, which concentrate on engravings and paintings by prehistoric peoples. A few such works exploit the natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures, and were especially important in the art of theAncient Near East.[26] Rock reliefs are generally fairly large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air. Most have figures that are over life-size, and in many the figures are multiples of life-size.
Stylistically they normally relate to other types of sculpture from the culture and period concerned, and except for Hittite and Persian examples they are generally discussed as part of that wider subject.[27] The vertical relief is most common, but reliefs on essentially horizontal surfaces are also found. The term typically excludes relief carvings insidecaves, whether natural or themselves man-made, which are especially found in India. Natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in the round, most famously at theGreat Sphinx of Giza, are also usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their natural location, like the Hittiteİmamkullu relief, are likely to be included, but smaller boulders may be calledstelae or carvedorthostats.
Earth figures are large designs and motifs that are created on the stone ground surface. They can be classified through their method of manufacture.[28]Intaglios are created by scraping away the desert pavements (pebbles covering the ground) to reveal a negative image on the bedrock below. The best known example of such intaglio rock art is theNazca Lines ofPeru.[28] In contrast,geoglyphs are positive images, which are created by piling up rocks on the ground surface to resulting in a visible motif or design.[28]
Traditionally, individual markings are calledmotifs and groups of motifs are known aspanels. Sequences of panels are treated asarchaeological sites. This method of classifying rock art however has become less popular as the structure imposed is unlikely to have had any relevance to the art's creators. Even the word 'art' carries with it many modern prejudices about the purpose of the features.[citation needed]
Rock art can be found across a wide geographical and temporal spread ofcultures perhaps to mark territory, to record historical events or stories or to help enactrituals. Some art seems to depict real events whilst many other examples are apparently entirely abstract.[citation needed]
Prehistoric rock depictions were not purely descriptive. Each motif and design had a "deep significance" that is not always understandable to modern scholars.[29]
Balma dei Cervi post-palaeolithic rock paintings (Italian western Alps): anthropomorphic figures and dottings (DStretch enhanced)
The late prehistoric rock art of Europe has been divided into three regions by archaeologists. InAtlantic Europe, the coastal seaboard on the west of the continent, which stretches from Iberia up through France and encompasses the British Isles, a variety of different rock arts were produced from theNeolithic through to theLate Bronze Age. A second area of the continent to contain a significant rock art tradition was that ofAlpine Europe, with the majority of artworks being clustered in the southern slopes of the mountainous region, in what is now south-eastern France and northern Italy.
Cave of Swimmers is a cave in southwestEgypt, near the border with Libya, along the western edge of theGilf Kebir plateau in the centralLibyan Desert (Eastern Sahara). It was discovered in October 1933 by the Hungarian explorerLászló Almásy. The site contains rock paintings of human figures who appear to be swimming, which have been estimated to have been created at least 6,000 to 7000 years ago. TheCave of Beasts 10 km westwards was discovered in 2002.
Jebel Uweinat, a large granite and sandstone mountain, as well as the adjacent smaller massifs ofJebel Arkenu andJebel Kissu at the converging triple borders ofLibya,Egypt andSudan, harbors one of the richest concentrations of prehistoric rock art in the entire Sahara. The rock art here mainly consists of the Neolithic cattle pastoralist cultures, but also a number of older paintings from hunter-gatherer societies.
Qohaito inEritrea – 7,000 years old rock art near the ancient city Qohaito.
Dorra andBalho inDjibouti – Rock art sites with figures of what appear to be antelopes and a giraffe.
Kundudo inEthiopia – Flat top mountain complex with rock art in a cave.
Laas Geel inSomalia – A number of cave paintings and petroglyphs can be found at various sites across the country. Among the most prominent examples of this is the rock art in Laas Geel,Dhambalin,Gaanlibah andKarinhegane.
Swaga Swaga Game Reserve inTanzania – Archaeologists announced the discovery of ancient rock art with anthropomorphic figures in a good condition at the Amak’hee 4 rockshelter site. Paintings made with a reddish dye also contained buffalo heads, giraffe's head and neck, domesticated cattle dated back to about several hundred years ago.[34][35]
Cave paintings are found in most parts of Southern Africa that have rock overhangs with smooth surfaces. Among these sites are the cave sandstone of Natal, Orange Free State and North-Eastern Cape, the granite and Waterberg sandstone of the Northern Transvaal, and the Table Mountain sandstone of the Southern and Western Cape.[36]
UKhahlamba Drakensberg Park inSouth Africa – The site has paintings dated to around 3,000 years old and which are thought to have been drawn by theSan people andKhoisan people, who settled in the area some 8,000 years ago. The rock art depicts animals and humans and is thought to represent religious beliefs.
Brandberg Mountain (Daureb) inNamibia – It is one of the most important rock art localities on the African continent. Most visitors only see "The White Lady" shelter (which is neither white, nor a lady, the famous scene probably depicts a young boy in an initiation ceremony), however the upper reaches of the mountain is full of sites with prehistoric paintings, some of which rank among the finest artistic achievements of prehistory.
Bambata Cave, Zimbabwe- Animal paintings and human drawings are supposed to be age from 2.000 to 20.000 years old[37][38][39]
The oldest reliably dated rock art in the Americas is known as the "Horny Little Man". It ispetroglyph depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus and carved inLapa do Santo, a cave in central-eastern Brazil.[40] The most important site isSerra da Capivara National Park atPiauí state. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with the largest collection in the American continent and one of the most studied.
A site including eight miles of paintings or pictographs that is under study inColombia, South America atSerranía de la Lindosa was revealed in November 2020.[41] Their age is suggested as being 12,500 years old (c. 10,480 B.C.) by the anthropologists working on the site because of extinct fauna depicted.
Rock paintings or pictographs are located in many areas across Canada. There are over 400 sites attributed to theOjibway from northernSaskatchewan to theOttawa River.[42]
Hulkhuku, California, United States - The site of Hulkhuku is located in the San Emigdio Hills in South Central California. Archaeologists found that the rock art at the site was meant to be viewed by the general public and was not reserved for the elites of the society or for private rituals. This is based on evidence that the rock art is located in areas that were used by the public for everyday activities.[43]
Little Lake, Rose Valley, California, United States[45]
However, cave art is not the only type of rock art. While cave art provides the two-dimensional view on a rocky surface, figurines made of a rock material can provide a three-dimensional view that gives insight on indigenous views towards their visual arts. Many sites along and off the California coastline, such as theChannel Islands andMalibu, have both realistic and abstract styles of zoomorphic effigy figurines.[46] From archaeological studies at these sites, archaeologists and other researchers discovered many figurines and performed a composition analysis, finding most were made ofsteatite, though other materials were also used.[47][48]
These figurines provided context about spheres of interaction between tribal groups, demonstrate economic significance, and may have held a ritual function.[46][47][48] Archaeologists Richard T Fitzgerald and Christopher Corey dated the oldest figurines to the Middle Holocene, suggesting two socioeconomic interactive spheres (one in the northern and one in the southern Channel Islands) and linguistic similarities between Takic-speaking Gabrileno and Chumash neighbors.[47] These figurines share similar styles, suggesting a history of intertribal contact.
Little Lake is a complex of rock art located in Rose Valley, Inyo County. Rose Valley is located in the boundaries of the culturalGreat Basin and the territory of theTimbisha Shoshone. This site is important to understanding the symbolism and value of North American rock art because it is one of the largest collections of rock art unrelated to theCoso (an indigenous tribe/people of theMojave Desert). Its importance to territorial and anthropological studies helps many understand the in-depth descriptions and stylistic analyses of large rock art concentrations, which are valued by archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers, and even art enthusiasts. Referring back to these sites help social scientists understand and record the values that were important to the creators; it shows economic values or settlement patterns that were once a daily part of life. As a result, it is crucial to focus on the variable resources to understand how cultures were abiding with their environment. However, rock art sites at Little Rock cannot be accurately dated.[45]
Bhimbetka rock painting of India, World Heritage Site.'Great King' neolithic paintings aboveMalipo inWenshan Prefecture,Yunnan Province, China. Thought to be over 4000 years old.Petroglyphs in Gobustan,Azerbaijan, dating back to 10,000 BC.Rock art in Balichakra near Yadgir town in Karnataka, India
Above 4000 meters above sea level highTibetan plateau: possibly the oldest rock art, likely dating back to~169–226,000 years ago, much older than what was previously thought to be the earliest known drawing, made ~73,000[50] years ago. According to the study, children likely intentionally placed a series of hands and feet in mud. The findings could also be the earliest evidence ofHominins on the high Tibetan plateau.[51][52][53]
Iranian rock art sites are mostly found in theZagros Mountain range. But there are many other sites inCentral Iran,Sistan andBaluchistan, andAzarbaijan. Most of these rock arts date back to the late prehistory and historic period. Among which the well-known sites of Houmian at Kuhdasht,[61] Khomein, and Teimareh[62] in Central Iran are outstanding.
Large carvings ofcamels that were discovered in 2018 inSaudi Arabia are estimated to be 7,000 to 8,000 years old.[63] ThisNeolithic dating would make the carvings significantly older than Stonehenge (5,000 years old) and the Egyptian pyramids atGiza (4,500 years old).
Australian Indigenous art represents the oldest unbroken tradition of art in the world. There are more than 100,000 recorded rock art sites inAustralia.[64]
The oldest firmly dated rock art painting in Australia is a charcoal drawing on a rock fragment found during the excavation of theNawarla Gabarnmang rock shelter in southwesternArnhem Land in theNorthern Territory. Dated at 28,000BP, it is one of the oldest known pieces of rock art on Earth with a confirmed date. Nawarla Gabarnmang has one of the most extensive collections of rock art in the world and predates bothLascaux andChauvet cave art - the earliest known art in Europe - by at least 10,000 years.[65][66]
In 2008 rock art depicting what is thought to be aThylacoleo was discovered[by whom?] on the north-western coast of theKimberley.[67] As the Thylacoleo is believed to have become extinct 45000–46000 years ago (Roberts et al. 2001) (Gillespie 2004). This suggests a similar age for the associatedGwion Gwion rock paintings. Archaeologist Kim Akerman however believes that themegafauna may have persisted later inrefugia (wetter areas of the continent) as suggested by Wells (1985: 228). Akerman has posited that the paintings are in fact much younger.[67] Pigments from the Gwion Gwion of the Kimberley are so old they have become part of the rock itself, making carbon dating impossible. Some experts suggest that these paintings are in the vicinity of 50,000 years old and may even pre-dateAboriginal settlement.[68][69]
Miniature rock art of thestencilled variety at a rock shelter known as Yilbilinji, in theLimmen National Park in theNorthern Territory, is one of only three known examples of such art. Usually stencilled art is life-size, using body parts as the stencil, but the 17 images of designs of human figures,boomerangs, animals such ascrabs andlong-necked turtles, wavy lines and geometric shapes are very rare. Found in 2017 byarchaeologists, the only other recorded examples are at Nielson's Creek inNew South Wales and atKisar Island in Indonesia. It is thought that the designs may have been created by stencils fashioned out ofbeeswax.[70][71][72]
Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory has a large collection ofochre paintings. Ochre is a not anorganic material, socarbon dating of these pictures is impossible. Sometimes the approximate date, or at least anepoch, can be guessed from the content.
The Murujuga (Burrup Peninsula) area ofWestern Australia nearKarratha is estimated[by whom?] to be home to between 500,000 and 1 million individual engravings.
Kimberley region of Western Australia. Amateur archaeologist Grahame Walsh, who researchedGwion Gwion rock paintings in the region from 1977 until his death in 2007, produced a photographic database of 1.5 million Gwion Gwion rock paintings.[73] Many of the Gwion rock paintings maintain vivid colours because they have been colonised by bacteria and fungi, such as the black fungus,Chaetothyriales. The pigments originally applied may have initiated an ongoing,symbiotic relationship between black fungi and red bacteria.[74]
TheGrampians-Gariwerd region isVictoria is one of the richest Aboriginal rock art sites in south-eastern Australia.[75] Some of the more well-known and easily accessible sites are the Ngamadjidj Shelter (Cave of Ghosts), Gulgurn Manja (Flat Rock), Billimina (Glenisla Shelter) and Manja (Cave of Hands);[76] one of the most significant sites in south-eastern Australia isBunjil's Shelter, nearStawell,[77] which is the only known rock art depiction ofBunjil, thecreator-being inAboriginal Australian mythology.[78]
TheMaliwawa Figures in Arnhem Land, a series of 571 paintings and a drawing, created between 6,000 and 9,400 years ago, show a style nor recognised by researchers in the field before new research was done in 2016–2018 and published in September 2020 byPaul Taçon and his team.[79][80]
TheTurramurra site in western Queensland is opening in 2020. Cliffs on the property, for some time known as Grace Vale Station, are covered with ancient rock art, including paintings and etchings ofmegafauna,emu symbols and the traditionalsongline of theSeven Sisters. Planning for an educational centre created from local rock is under way.[81]
William Westall (1803)Chasm Island, native cave painting, 1803, watercolour
The first European discovery of aboriginal rock paintings took place on 14 January 1803.[82] While on a surveying expedition along the shores and islands of theGulf of Carpentaria, British navigator and explorerMatthew Flinders made landfall on ruggedChasm Island offGroote Eylandt.
Within the island's rock shelters, Flinders discovered an array of painted and stenciled patterns. To record these images, he enlisted the ship's artist,William Westall.[83] Westall's twowatercolour sketches are the earliest known documentation of Australian rock art. In his journal, Flinders not only detailed the location and the artworks but also authored the inaugural site report:
In the deep sides of the chasms were deep holes or caverns undermining the cliffs; upon the walls of which I found rude drawings, made with charcoal and something like red paint upon the white ground of the rock. These drawings represented porpoises, turtle, kanguroos [sic], and a human hand; and Mr. Westall, who went afterwards to see them, found the representation of a kanguroo [sic], with a file of thirty-two persons following after it. The third person of the band was twice the height of the others, and held in his hand something resembling the whaddie, or wooden sword of the natives ofPort Jackson; and was probably intended to represent a chief. They could not, as with us, indicate superiority by clothing or ornament, since they wore none of any kind; and therefore, with the addition of a weapon, similar to the ancients, they seem to have made superiority of person the principal emblem of superior power, of which, indeed, power is usually a consequence in the very early stages of society.[48]
The archaeological sub-discipline devoted to the investigation of rock art is known as "rock art studies". Rock art specialist David S. Whitley noted that research in this area required an "integrated effort" that brings togetherarchaeological theory, method, fieldwork, analytical techniques and interpretation.[87]
Although French archaeologists had undertaken much research into rock art, Anglophone archaeology had largely neglected the subject for decades.[88]
The discipline of rock art studies witnessed what Whitley called a "revolution" during the 1980s and 1990s, as increasing numbers of archaeologists in the Anglophone world and Latin America turned their attention to the subject.[89] In doing so, they recognised that rock art could be used to understand symbolic and religious systems, gender relations, cultural boundaries, cultural change and the origins of art and belief.[1] One of the most significant figures in this movement was the South African archaeologistDavid Lewis-Williams, who published his studies of San rock art from southern Africa, in which he combined ethnographic data to reveal the original purpose of the artworks. Lewis-Williams would come to be praised for elevating rock art studies to a "theoretically sophisticated research domain" by Whitley.[90] However, the study of rock art worldwide is marked by considerable differences of opinion with respect to the appropriateness of various methods and the most relevant and defensible theoretical framework.
The UNESCO World Rock Art Archive Working Group met in 2011 to discuss the base model for a World Rock Art Archive.[91] While no official output has been generated to date, various projects around the world — such as The Global Rock Art Database — are looking at making rock art heritage information more accessible and more visible to assist with rock art awareness, conservation and preservation issues.[92][93]
^E. Goodall,Proceedings and Transactions of the Rhodesian Scientific Association 41:57-62, 1946: "Domestic Animals in rock art"
^E. Goodall,Proceedings and Transactions of the Rhodesian Scientific Association 42:69-74, 1949: "Notes on certain human representations in Rhodesian rock art"
^H. M. Chadwick,Origin Eng. Nation xii. 306, 1907: "The rock-carvings at Tegneby"
^H. A. Winkler,Rock-Drawings of Southern Upper Egypt I. 26, 1938: "The discovery of rock-drawings showing boats of a type foreign to Egypt."
^H. G. Wells,Outl. Hist. I. xvii. 126/1, 1920: From rock engravings we may deduce the theory that the desert was crossed from oasis to oasis.
^Deutsch,Rem. 177, 1874: "The long rock-inscription of Hamamât."
^Encycl. Relig. & Ethics I. 822/2, 1908: "The rock-paintings are either stenciled or painted in outline."
^Man No. 119. 178/2, 1939: "On one of the stalactite pillars was found a big round stone with traces of red paint on its surface, as used in the rock-pictures"
^G. Moore,The Lost Tribes and the Saxons of the East, 1861, Title page: "with translations of Rock-Records in India."
^Tylor,Early Hist. Man. v. 88, 1865, "and bush art or bushmen art."
^Trust For African Rock Art, East Africa, common terminology, "Rock-sculptures may often be symbolic boundary marks."
^Grace Rajnovich. (1994) Reading rock art: interpreting the Indian rock paintings of the Canadian Shield. Toronto:Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc.
^Bewley, R. H. (1984). "The Cambridge University Archaeological Expedition To Iran 1969. Excavations in Zagros Mountains : Homian, Mir Malas, Barde Spid".Iran.22: 1.doi:10.2307/4299734.JSTOR4299734.
^Farhadi, M (1999).Museums in wind. Tehran: Allameh Tabataba’i University Press.
^Taçon, Paul S. C.; May, Sally K.; et al. (30 September 2020). "Maliwawa figures—a previously undescribed Arnhem L and rock art style".Australian Archaeology.86 (3). Informa UK Limited:208–225.doi:10.1080/03122417.2020.1818361.hdl:10072/398249.ISSN0312-2417.S2CID224849841 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
^McCarthy, Frederick D.; Australian Museum (1960).The cave paintings of Groote, Eylandt and Chasm Island. Sydney, N.S.W.: Australian Museum.OCLC271765347.
^Barrow, Terence (1978).Maori art of New Zealand (reprint ed.). Unesco Press. p. 70.ISBN9789231013195. Retrieved2018-03-06.The North Otago and South Canterbury districts of the South Island present a rich range of rock art in red and black pigments. The motifs used are mainly humans, monsters, birds, and fish, and are styles which pre-date Classic Maori traditional art.
^Haubt, R.A.; Tacon, P.S.C. (October 22, 2016). "A collaborative, ontological and information visualization model approach in a centralized rock art heritage platform".Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.10:837–846.Bibcode:2016JArSR..10..837H.doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.10.013.
Arca, Andrea (2004). "The topographical engravings of Alpine rock-art: fields, settlements and agricultural landscapes".The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art. Cambridge University Press. pp. 318–349.
Bahn, Paul (ed),The Cambridge Illustrated History of Prehistoric Art, 1998, Cambridge University Press,ISBN0521454735, 9780521454735,google books
Harmanşah, Ömür (ed) (2014),Of Rocks and Water: An Archaeology of Place, 2014, Oxbow Books,ISBN1782976744, 9781782976745
Haubt, R.A.; Tacon, P.S.C. (October 22, 2016). "A collaborative, ontological and information visualization model approach in a centralized rock art heritage platform".Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.10:837–846.Bibcode:2016JArSR..10..837H.doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.10.013.
Schaafsma, Polly, 1980,Indian Rock Art of the Southwest, School of American Research, Santa Fe, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque NM,ISBN0-8263-0913-5. Scholarly text with 349 references, 32 color plates, 283 black and white "figures", 11 maps, and 2 tables.
Sickman, Laurence, in: Sickman L., & Soper A.,The Art and Architecture of China, Pelican History of Art, 3rd ed 1971, Penguin (now Yale History of Art), LOC 70-125675
Malotki, Ekkehart and Weaver, Donald E. Jr., 2002,Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush: Colorado Plateau Rock Art, Kiva Publishing Inc., Walnut, California,ISBN1-885772-27-0 (cloth). For the "general public"; this book has well over 200 color prints with commentary on each site where the photos were taken; the organization begins with the earliest art and goes to modern times.
Rohn, Arthur H. and Ferguson, William M, 2006,Puebloan Ruins of the Southwest, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque NM,ISBN0-8263-3970-0 (pbk, : alk. paper). Adjunct to the primary discussion of the ruins, contains color prints of rock art at the sites, plus interpretations.
Zboray, András, 2005,Rock Art of the Libyan Desert, Fliegel Jezerniczky, Newbury, United Kingdom (1st Edition 2005, 2nd expanded edition 2009). An illustrated catalogue and bibliography of all known prehistoric rock art sites in the central Libyan Desert (Arkenu, Uweinat and the Gilf Kebir plateau). The second edition contains more than 20000 photographs documenting the sites. Published on DVD-ROM.
The Rock Art Foundation – Native American Rock Art in the Lower Pecos region of Southwest Texas
Beckensall Archive Rock carvings made by Neolithic and Early Bronze Age people in Northumberland in the north east of England, between 6000 and 3500 years ago.
British Rock Art Collection Over 16.000 photos of more than 1200 rock art sites in the UK with relevant information and links.
