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34 pages, 43550 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ancestral Pueblo and Historic Ute Rock Art, and Euro-American Inscriptions in the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Colorado, USA

by Radoslaw Palonka, Polly Schaafsma and Katarzyna M. Ciomek

Arts 2025, 14(3), 60; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030060 - 26 May 2025

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Abstract

In the central Mesa Verde region, rock art occurs on canyon walls and on boulders that are frequently associated with other archaeological remains. Moreover, rock art, together with architecture and pottery, is actually a primary source of archaeological information about the presence of [...] Read more.

In the central Mesa Verde region, rock art occurs on canyon walls and on boulders that are frequently associated with other archaeological remains. Moreover, rock art, together with architecture and pottery, is actually a primary source of archaeological information about the presence of various cultures in the area. It includes paintings and petroglyphs of ancestral Pueblo farming communities, images and inscriptions made by post-contact Ute and possibly Diné (Navajo) people as well as historical inscriptions of the early Euro-Americans in this area. This paper presents the results of archaeological investigations at four large rock art sites from Sandstone Canyon, southwestern Colorado, within the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument (CANM). Methods of rock art recording included advanced digital photography, photogrammetry, terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), hand tracing, and consultations with members of indigenous societies and rock art scholars. Geophysics and sondage excavations were conducted at one site revealed important information about archaeology, environment, and geology of the area. Analysis of rock art and other material evidence aims to help reconstruct and understand the mechanisms and nature of cultural changes, migrations, and human–environmental interactions and later cross-cultural contacts between indigenous peoples and Anglo-American ranchers and settlers in pre-contact southwestern Colorado and the US southwest. Full article

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20 pages, 21160 KiB

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Shamans, Portals, and Water Babies: Southern Paiute Mirrored Landscapes in Southern Nevada

by Kathleen Van Vlack, Richard Arnold and Alannah Bell

Arts 2025, 14(3), 56; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030056 - 22 May 2025

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Abstract

Delamar Valley is a unique landscape located in southern Nevada that contains places associated with ceremony and Southern Paiute Creation. This ceremonial landscape is composed of volcanic places, a large Pleistocene Lake, and an underground hydrological system that allows for the movement of [...] Read more.

Delamar Valley is a unique landscape located in southern Nevada that contains places associated with ceremony and Southern Paiute Creation. This ceremonial landscape is composed of volcanic places, a large Pleistocene Lake, and an underground hydrological system that allows for the movement of spiritual beings known as water babies between Delamar Valley and neighboring Pahranagat Valley. Paiute shamans traveled to Delamar Valley to interact with the portals along a volcanic ridge that allowed them to travel to a mirrored ceremonial landscape in another dimension of the universe. While in this mirrored landscape, shamans engaged with elements of Creation. This essay examines the ways in which Paiute shamans interacted with various components of the physical and spiritual landscapes. Full article

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67 pages, 33228 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Hybrid Forms, Composite Creatures, and the Transit Between Worlds in Ancestral Puebloan Imagery

by Matthew F. Schmader

Arts 2025, 14(3), 54; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030054 - 20 May 2025

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Abstract

Rock imagery in the Puebloan region of the American Southwest often combines elements from different animal, human, plant, and natural sources. Blended elements may depict or refer to other-wordly states of existence or to creation narratives. Beings with combined elements can shift from [...] Read more.

Rock imagery in the Puebloan region of the American Southwest often combines elements from different animal, human, plant, and natural sources. Blended elements may depict or refer to other-wordly states of existence or to creation narratives. Beings with combined elements can shift from shapes familiar in the present world and transport the viewer’s frame of reference to the spirit world. Puebloan belief in layering worlds below and above the present world is an important underlying social construct. Other worlds, especially those below, refer to past mythical times when animals and humans existed in primordial forms or were not fully formed, or may refer to the land of the dead or the underworld. Certain animal forms may have been selected because they are spirit guides, have specific powers, or were guardian-gods of cardinal directions. Some animals, such as birds, were chosen as messengers of prayers or offerings, while others (such as bears) had healing powers. The placement of images on the landscape or in relation to natural features imparts added power to the imagery. Ambiguity and multiple meanings also enhance these powers and incorporate concepts of emergence and transformation. Some images refer to the transformation that occurs when dancers wear kachina masks and then assume the attributes of those kachinas. Examples will be presented from images dating to the pre-European contact period (1300 to 1540 AD) found at Petroglyph National Monument, in the central Rio Grande valley of New Mexico. Comparisons to painted wall murals in kivas (ceremonial rooms) made during the same time period are presented. Full article

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29 pages, 32864 KiB

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Indigenous Archaeology, Collaborative Practice, and Rock Imagery: An Example from the North American Southwest

by Aaron M. Wright

Arts 2025, 14(3), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030053 - 18 May 2025

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Abstract

While ethnography has held an essential place in the study of Indigenous rock imagery (i.e., petroglyphs and pictographs) in the United States for the past century and a half, rarely are Tribes and other descendant communities involved throughout the entire research program—from conception [...] Read more.

While ethnography has held an essential place in the study of Indigenous rock imagery (i.e., petroglyphs and pictographs) in the United States for the past century and a half, rarely are Tribes and other descendant communities involved throughout the entire research program—from conception to publication. This contrasts with recent developments within more traditional “dirt” archaeology, where over the past 30 years, Tribes have assumed greater roles in decision-making, fieldwork, artifact curation, data management, interpretation of results, and repatriation of ancestral belongings. In concert with these changes, Indigenous archaeology has emerged as a domain of theory and practice wherein archaeological research and cultural heritage management center the voices and interests of Indigenous communities. Collaboration among researchers and Indigenous communities has proven to be an effective means of practicing Indigenous archaeology and advancing its goals, but research into rock imagery all too often still limits Indigenous engagement and knowledge to the interpretation of the imagery. This article highlights a case study in Tribal collaboration from the North American Southwest in the interest of advancing an Indigenous archaeology of rock imagery. Full article

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35 pages, 12755 KiB

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Predation, Propitiation and Performance: Ethnographic Analogy in the Study of Rock Paintings from the Lower Parguaza River Basin, Bolivar State, Venezuela

by Kay Tarble de Scaramelli and Franz Scaramelli

Arts 2025, 14(3), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14030051 - 5 May 2025

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Abstract

Rock art sites located in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples offer extraordinary opportunities for interpretation using ethnographic analogy. Nonetheless, we must examine the pertinence of a direct historical approach when dealing with sequences of rock art that may extend back several millennia. Recent [...] Read more.

Rock art sites located in areas inhabited by indigenous peoples offer extraordinary opportunities for interpretation using ethnographic analogy. Nonetheless, we must examine the pertinence of a direct historical approach when dealing with sequences of rock art that may extend back several millennia. Recent decades have witnessed increasingly sophisticated ethnographic analyses that reveal the intimate relations between human and non-human entities and the generative role of myth, music, dance, artifacts, and physical settings in the enactment of creative contexts of lowland South America. This literature has led to a reassessment of the meaning of rock art images, the significance of context, and the place of sites in the landscape. In the pictographs found in several rock shelters on the lower Parguaza River of Venezuela, depictions of a wide variety of human and non-human figures offer insight into the relations between predation, propitiation, food, illness, and the different paths to spiritual knowledge that prevail in the myths and practices of local indigenous populations to this day. In this contribution we explore the promise and limits of ethnographic analogy in the study of sites from this area and offer an analysis of the development of the sites through time, with an eye on both disruption and continuity. Full article

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31 pages, 20729 KiB

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A Performance-Theory Revisit of the Conflict Scene at the Ventershoek (2927CA1) Rock Art Site

by David M. Witelson

Arts 2025, 14(2), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14020044 - 20 Apr 2025

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Abstract

Late contact-era depictions of inter-group conflict in southern African rock art include references to the image-makers and their opponents, who must also have been able to view the images. Performance theory allows researchers to go beyond the conventional question about who made the [...] Read more.

Late contact-era depictions of inter-group conflict in southern African rock art include references to the image-makers and their opponents, who must also have been able to view the images. Performance theory allows researchers to go beyond the conventional question about who made the images by also addressing for whom the images were made. This case study uses performance theory to explore several details of the well-known conflict scene at Ventershoek (Jammerberg, Free State Province, South Africa). In it, ‘San hunter-gatherers’ appear to contest the possession of cattle, traditionally the property of ‘Bantu agro-pastoralists’. It is argued that, in addition to depicting conflict, the image-makers painted allusions to their ritualised, spirit-world mediation of conflict, their opponent’s use of protective war medicine and, potentially, lateralised symbols of cattle ownership that would have been comprehensible to audiences on both sides. It is argued further, from performance theory and the painted details, that the Ventershoek conflict scene contributed to the image-makers’ social construction of reality concerning their relationships with other groups. Full article

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26 pages, 20392 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rock Art and Social Memory in the Deseado Massif: An Approach from the Study of Superimpositions in Cueva 2, Los Toldos, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina

by Natalia Carden and Laura Miotti

Arts 2025, 14(2), 42; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14020042 - 16 Apr 2025

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Abstract

In this work, we explore the way in which rock art mediates social memory. Our study case is based on the rock art sequence established for Los Toldos archaeological locality, Argentina, which begins in the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and extends to the Late Holocene. [...] Read more.

In this work, we explore the way in which rock art mediates social memory. Our study case is based on the rock art sequence established for Los Toldos archaeological locality, Argentina, which begins in the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and extends to the Late Holocene. The analysis focuses on superimpositions, with an emphasis on the human attitudes towards previous images. Despite changes detected along the sequence, Los Toldos manifests a strong emphasis on recalling the past, which is evidenced by the superimposition, replication, maintenance and recycling of motifs. These behaviors show a multi-generational dialogue that kept an ancestral memory alive but also recreated it through grouping images from different times for telling stories. This study places an emphasis on the users/consumers of rock art rather than on its makers. This focus narrows the gap between the archaeological record and the ethnographic sources by claiming that the Tehuelche people were engaged with rock art even though they did not make it. Full article

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22 pages, 44936 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Green Images in Indian Rock Art

by Meenakshi Dubey Pathak

Arts 2025, 14(2), 36; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14020036 - 26 Mar 2025

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Abstract

In India, particularly in central India, a large number of early images were created using green pigments. Within the green images or images in the earliest style, one can see that some extremely naturalistic animal figures were made with green and dark red, [...] Read more.

In India, particularly in central India, a large number of early images were created using green pigments. Within the green images or images in the earliest style, one can see that some extremely naturalistic animal figures were made with green and dark red, and rarely in a polychrome (green, red and yellow) style. Only a few images have survived. The human figures, represented in a typical S shape in a smaller size or with an S-twist body in single outline, are highly artistic and very dynamic figures. The figures are mostly represented as dancers. Wakankar found green pigment in the Upper Paleolithic levels in Bhimbetka, and hence these images were put in the Upper Paleolithic period. These green images mainly exist in rock art sites in the surroundings of Bhimbetka in the Raisen, Sehore and Vidisha districts. Full article

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27 pages, 9690 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Child in Time: Children as Liminal Agents in Upper Paleolithic Decorated Caves

by Ella Assaf, Yafit Kedar and Ran Barkai

Arts 2025, 14(2), 27; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14020027 - 4 Mar 2025

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Abstract

Among the multiple zoomorphic and geometric images that dominate Upper Paleolithic decorated cave walls in Europe, some intriguing human hand stencils and finger flutings stand out. Dozens of these marks are attributed to toddlers and children aged 2–12. Accompanied by older group members, [...] Read more.

Among the multiple zoomorphic and geometric images that dominate Upper Paleolithic decorated cave walls in Europe, some intriguing human hand stencils and finger flutings stand out. Dozens of these marks are attributed to toddlers and children aged 2–12. Accompanied by older group members, they entered these deep, oxygen-depleted and sensory-deprived spaces, climbing and crawling in dark, wet, difficult-to-navigate environments where one might easily get lost or separated from the group. So, why would anyone bring young children into such dangerous locations? Relevant archaeological and anthropological studies form the basis of our hypothesis that the journeys of Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers to the depths of deep caves along with their young children should be seen in the framework of active connection with the cosmos as practiced by many indigenous societies worldwide. Indigenous societies often view children as liminal agents with unique physical, cognitive, and mental qualities that allow them to return to the supernatural realm more easily than adults. This makes them especially adept mediators between the world of the living and that of the spirits. In this paper, we examine children’s contribution to the creation of Paleolithic cave art as active agents. Their presence in caves (liminal spaces in themselves) and their participation in the creation of rock art might thus reflect their unique role in early human cosmology and ontology. Full article

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37 pages, 45201 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Celestial Light Marker: An Engineered Calendar in a Topographically Spectacular Geoscape

by Richard Stoffle, Kathleen Van Vlack and Heather Lim

Arts 2025, 14(2), 25; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14020025 - 3 Mar 2025

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Abstract

Humans have been monitoring light from the solar system to tell the time and plan activities since Time Immemorial. This is an analysis regarding why Native Americans living in the upper Colorado River Basin chose to monitor light from the western sky using [...] Read more.

Humans have been monitoring light from the solar system to tell the time and plan activities since Time Immemorial. This is an analysis regarding why Native Americans living in the upper Colorado River Basin chose to monitor light from the western sky using a light marker that is approximately 4.02 miles long and 2.07 miles wide, or approximately 12.7 square miles. The light catching is accomplished in a massive geoscape by carefully calibrated and engineered stone markers. The scale of this light marker and its functional topographic components makes it one of the biggest and most elaborate in North America. As such, it is a World-Balancing geosite. This analysis is based on 522 ethnographic interviews, with 316 that were conducted during the Canyonlands National Park (Canyonlands NP) ethnographic study and 206 that were conducted during two BLM ethnographic studies. The findings are situated among tribally approved ethnographic findings from more than a dozen other studies conducted by the authors. Full article

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34 pages, 37538 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Beyond Correlation to Causation in Hunter–Gatherer Ritual Landscapes: Testing an Ontological Model of Site Locations in the Mojave Desert, California

by David S. Whitley, JD Lancaster and Andrea Catacora

Arts 2025, 14(1), 20; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14010020 - 18 Feb 2025

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Abstract

Why are rock art sites found in certain places and not others? Can locational or environmental variables inform an understanding of the function and meaning of the art? How can we move beyond observed patterning in spatial associations to a credible explanation of [...] Read more.

Why are rock art sites found in certain places and not others? Can locational or environmental variables inform an understanding of the function and meaning of the art? How can we move beyond observed patterning in spatial associations to a credible explanation of such meanings and ensure that we are not confusing correlation with causation? And what variables were most relevant in influencing site locational choices? These and related problems, whether recognized or not, are the subtext of the last three decades of rock art site distributional and landscape studies. They are now especially important to resolve given the need for accurate predictive modeling due to the rapid transformation of certain regions from undeveloped rural areas into rural industrial landscapes. Partly with this problem in mind, Whitley developed a descriptive model that provides an explanation for the location of Native Californian rock art in the Mojave Desert. It identifies the variables most relevant to site locations based on ethnographic Indigenous ontological beliefs about the landscape. These concern the geographical distribution of supernatural power and its association with certain landforms, natural phenomena and cultural features. His analysis further demonstrated that this model can account for two unusually large concentrations of sites and motifs: the Coso Range petroglyphs and the Carrizo Plain pictographs. But unanswered was the question of whether the model is applicable more widely, especially to smaller sites and localities made by different cultural groups. We documented and analyzed three petroglyph localities with seven small petroglyph sites in the southern Mojave Desert, California, to test this model. These sites are attributed to the Takic-speaking Cahuilla and Serrano tribes. Our study revealed a good fit between the expected natural and cultural variables associated with rock art site locations, with the number of such variables present at any given locale potentially correlated with the size of the individual sites. In addition to the research value of these results, this suggests that the model may be useful in the predictive modeling of rock art site locations for heritage management purposes. Full article

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18 pages, 4851 KiB

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The Implications of Fremont Pottery in Montana

by Lawrence Loendorf and Kathleen Rodrigues

Arts 2025, 14(1), 17; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14010017 - 12 Feb 2025

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Abstract

Fremont pottery was recovered at the Valley of the Shields rock art site in Montana and dated by luminescence at circa A.D. 1500. The Fremont archaeological culture of northern Colorado and Utah is thought to have dispersed circa A.D. 1350, meaning that Montana [...] Read more.

Fremont pottery was recovered at the Valley of the Shields rock art site in Montana and dated by luminescence at circa A.D. 1500. The Fremont archaeological culture of northern Colorado and Utah is thought to have dispersed circa A.D. 1350, meaning that Montana Fremont pottery appeared late in time. Recent research suggests that the Fremont spoke a Tanoan language, and when they disbanded, major groups moved east to join the Rio Grande Pueblos, while another group, the Kiowa, who spoke a Tanoan language are believed to have moved north to the region around Yellowstone National Park. Importantly, artifacts found with Montana Fremont pottery are made of the same material type that was found in an excavation beneath a panel of Castle Gardens-style rock art figures at Valley of the Shields. These combined discoveries suggest that Montana Fremont pottery is the product of the proto-Kiowa, and they are the most likely group to have made Castle Gardens-style rock art shields. Full article

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39 pages, 14057 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Rock Art and Hunter–Gatherer Landscapes: Iconography, Cosmology and Topography in Southern Africa

by Geoffrey Blundell and Ghilraen Laue

Arts 2025, 14(1), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14010015 - 8 Feb 2025

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Abstract

Landscape studies of hunter–gatherer rock art often suffer from logical flaws. Some of these failings stem from the founding question that researchers ask: “Why do some places have images while others do not?” This question is misleading and not particularly helpful in some—but [...] Read more.

Landscape studies of hunter–gatherer rock art often suffer from logical flaws. Some of these failings stem from the founding question that researchers ask: “Why do some places have images while others do not?” This question is misleading and not particularly helpful in some—but not all—contexts where there is no direct ethnographic evidence to provide an answer. Instead, we suggest that a better question from which to begin is: “How are rock art images related to landscape?”. To answer this question, we examine the relationship between iconography, cosmology and topography in two areas of southern African San rock painting. We argue that cosmology guided iconography and that the imagery, in turn, manipulated topography into landscape for the San. In this view, we do not need to rely on cognitive templates that invest topography a priori with significance that then determines the choice of locale for art. Instead, landscape for the San was socially and symbolically constructed through the placement of imagery. Full article

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41 pages, 40274 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Storied Rocks: Portals to Other Dimensions

by Richard Stoffle, Kathleen Van Vlack, Alannah Bell and Bianca Eguino Uribe

Arts 2024, 13(6), 168; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13060168 - 7 Nov 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1651

Abstract

Storied Rocks (Tumpituxwinap) is a term of reference used by the Numic speaking tribal elders whom we have worked with for over 60 years on an estimated 200 ethnographic studies. Key to this analysis are the protocols for approaching, interacting, and using [...] Read more.

Storied Rocks (Tumpituxwinap) is a term of reference used by the Numic speaking tribal elders whom we have worked with for over 60 years on an estimated 200 ethnographic studies. Key to this analysis are the protocols for approaching, interacting, and using the places where Storied Rocks have been located. Concomitant with these traditional protocols are ones established to resolve the curiosity of non-Natives about why they are in a particular place and what they mean. This analysis shares the cultural understandings of tribal representatives who participate in these ethnographic studies. Studies used in the analysis were funded by U.S. federal agencies, supported by federally recognized Native American tribal governments, and composed with the cultural understandings shared and made public by tribally appointed elders to clarify the conundrums that are Storied Rocks. Full article

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26 pages, 11291 KiB

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‘A World of Knowledge’: Rock Art, Ritual, and Indigenous Belief at Serranía De La Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon

by Jamie Hampson, José Iriarte and Francisco Javier Aceituno

Arts 2024, 13(4), 135; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts13040135 - 19 Aug 2024

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 7572

Abstract

There are tens of thousands of painted rock art motifs in the Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon, including humans, animals, therianthropes, geometrics, and flora. For most of the last 100 years, inaccessibility and political unrest has limited research activities in [...] Read more.

There are tens of thousands of painted rock art motifs in the Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon, including humans, animals, therianthropes, geometrics, and flora. For most of the last 100 years, inaccessibility and political unrest has limited research activities in the region. In this paper, we discuss findings from six years of field research and consider the role of rock art as a manifestation of Indigenous ontologies. By employing intertwining strands of evidence—a range of ethnographic sources, local Indigenous testimonies from 2021–2023, and the motifs themselves—we argue that the rock art here is connected to ritual specialists negotiating spiritual realms, somatic transformation, and the interdigitation of human and non-human worlds. Full article

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