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North American Rock Art

David S. Whitley

ASM Affiliates, Inc., Tehachapi, CA, USA

Introduction and Definition

Rock art is a landscape art: images created on

natural rock surfaces, such as cave walls and

ceilings, cliff and boulder faces, and the natural

ground surface. North America, especially west-

ern North America, has a very rich record of rock

art. This includes rock paintings and drawings

(pictographs; Fig. 1); peckings, incisings, and

scratchings (engravings or petroglyphs; Fig. 2);

and intaglios and rock alignments (earth figures

or geoglyphs; Fig. 3). Although contemporary

and historical Euro-Americans have sometimes

created graffiti of various kinds on the landscape,

rock art in this discussion is limited to imagery

created by Native Americans.

Description

The earliest North America immigrants are

assumed to have brought rock art production

with them from Siberia. Though the age of this

initial colonization is still uncertain, it is thought

to have occurred c. 15,000 Years Before Present

(YBP) or earlier, with the ultimate antiquity of

North American art as yet unknown. Despite this

difficulty, growing evidence suggests that rock

art was not simply present prior to 10,000 YBP,

during the Paleo-Indian period, but that regional

traditions had already been established by that

time. In the Great Basin and the greater South-

west, a Great Basin Petroglyph Tradition was

established by at least 12,000 YBP (Whitley &

Dorn 2012; Fig. 4). This is characterized by

a wide variety of geometric motifs and figurative

images of simple stick-figure humans and big-

horn sheep (Ovis canadensis). In the northern

Plains, Early Hunting Tradition petroglyphs

have similar antiquity. They include quadrupeds

of various kinds, typically with exaggerated

“ball feet,” simple humans, nets, and atlatls

North American Rock Art 5415 N

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(spear-throwers; Tratebas 2012). On the southern

Plains, the Old Incised Tradition consists of fine-

lined incised geometric designs (Loendorf 2012).

Created as both rock and mobile art, this also may

be 12,000 or more years in age. It is likely that

other early regional traditions existed but have

not yet been identified, including early painted art

(as has been found in South America).

Subsequent rock art illustrates two widespread

(but not universal) temporal trends: increasing

regionalization and/or greater artistic elaboration

and augmentation over time. By roughly 7,000

YBP (the Middle Archaic), regional patterns that

existed during the historical period began to

develop. These approximately follow ethno-

graphic “culture areas” (Fig. 5), as described by

anthropologists, signaling the fact that the histor-

ical cultural distributions themselves have

relatively great time depth.

The Great Basin Petroglyph Tradition, wide-

spread across the west during the early Holocene,

retracted over time, ultimately being primarily

restricted in a core area consisting of the Great

Basin physiographic region. Although the

tradition thus has great time depth, change is

visible in increasing artistic elaboration (e.g.,

complex “patterned body” anthropomorphs in

addition to stick figures) over time, as well as by

the development of localized variants with their

North American Rock Art, Fig. 1 Pictographs or rock

paintings are common in many regions in North America.

Although red, made from ocher, is the most common color

employed, this is an example of a black andwhite bichrome

painting from the southern Sierra Nevada, California

North American RockArt, Fig. 2 Petroglyphs or

rock engravings are found

throughout North America

but are especially common

in the desert regions where

dark rock varnish coatings

provide a distinct contrast

with the lighter, underlying

heart rock. These examples

are from the Coso Range,

California

N 5416 North American Rock Art

own specific stylistic and motif emphases

(Whitley et al. 1999). An increase in rock art

production also appears to have occurred during

the last few thousand years, with the tradition

continuing into the historical period.

A distinct California Tradition developed in

southwestern California by or shortly after the

Middle to Late Archaic (by 3,000–4,000 YBP)

and continued into the historical period

(post-230 YBP; Whitley 2000). This primarily

consists of pictographs, the majority of which

are simple monochrome geometrics and

stick-figure humans, lizards, snakes, and other

animals. In certain regions, particularly in the

Chumash area around Santa Barbara and in

the southern Sierra Nevada, bichrome and

North American RockArt, Fig. 3 Geoglyphs or

earth figures include rock

alignments and intaglios

(which are scraped into

a desert pavement). This

example of an alignment is

from the Slate Range in

eastern California

North American RockArt, Fig. 4 Bighorn sheep

petroglyphs from the Coso

Range, California, have

been chronometrically

dated to as early as 11,200

YBP. These early motifs

are heavily revarnished, as

shown by these examples

from an early Coso site

North American Rock Art 5417 N

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North American Rock Art, Fig. 5 North American rock art is best discussed in terms of nine ethnographic culture

areas, as shown here

N 5418 North American Rock Art

polychrome paintings were created. Some of

this art is quite elaborate if not psychedelic in

appearance.

The Northwest Coast Petroglyph Tradition,

like the renowned wood carvings and sculptures

from this region, is highly conventionalized with

a strong iconographic coherence (Keyser &

Poetschat 2012). Sites are commonly located on

boulders on the coast, at or near the tide line, in

proximity to villages at the mouths of salmon-

spawning streams. Motifs emphasize schema-

tized human faces/masks, along with a variety

of geometric forms and zoomorphs, such as

bears, birds, fish, and sea mammals. The earliest

of these sites appear to date to approximately

4,000–2,000 YBP, with the motifs becoming

increasingly conventionalized after that date.

The tradition continued into the historical period.

Arctic rock art is rare, consisting of sporadic

pictograph and petroglyph sites (Stevens 1974).

Motifs are similar to those found in the Northwest

Coast Petroglyph Tradition, but lack the

conventionalization typical of that adjoining

region, and cannot be said to constitute either

a recognizable style or tradition. The petroglyphs

are believed to date from roughly 1,200 YBP but

may be earlier.

The Columbia Plateau Tradition includes

pictographs and petroglyphs sharing widespread

thematic consistency, despite a series of regional

stylistic variants (Keyser 1992). The tradition is

predominated by simple stick-figure humans,

block-bodied animals, rayed arcs, tally marks,

“sun” symbols, and other geometric motifs, but

the hallmark consists of one or (often) two stick-

figure humans standing under rayed arcs. The

discovery of both pictograph and petroglyphs

panels buried by datable volcanic ash indicates

that Plateau rock art began before 7,000 YBP,

possibly much earlier. More elaborate stylistic

variants of the tradition developed regionally

after about 1,500 YBP, and Plateau rock art

continued to be created in contemporary times.

Whereas the rock art traditions described

above were created by hunter-gatherers or

hunter-gatherer-fishers, the rock art of the

Southwest was partly produced by settled

farmers, following the development of

agriculture approximately 2,000 years ago

(Schaafsma 1980; Bostwick 2002). One result is

a complicated rock art record, reflecting the large

series of cultures in this large area. At least five

regional styles were present in the Southwest by

the Early to Middle Archaic (if not earlier),

including a southeastward extension of the

Great Basin Tradition, discussed previously.

This Archaic/hunter-gatherer substrate includes

both pictograph and petroglyphs. Although not

universally present, one characteristic of these

early traditions is large anthropomorphs

(Fig. 6), many of which are elaborately and/or

flamboyantly rendered.

A great proliferation of Southwestern styles

occurred after about 2,000 YBP, during the

Puebloan and Hohokam period, with the

development of local farming cultures and

North American Rock Art, Fig. 6 The Archaic hunter-

gatherer substrate of the American Southwest is notable

for large anthropomorphic pictographs found in Utah.

This example is from the Head of Sinbad site

North American Rock Art 5419 N

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probably reflecting the appearance of priestly

religions and cults (Fig. 7). Pictographs and pet-

roglyphs are again present, with the motifs typi-

cally (though not invariably) consisting of

relatively simple and regionally conventionalized

images. Certain of these styles retracted geo-

graphically or disappeared c. 700 YBP, following

the Puebloan collapse. The incursion of hunter-

gatherers and pastoralists after that event added

another layer of complexity to Southwestern rock

art, with the appearance of a series of new tribal

styles, sometimes with wide geographical extent.

Great Plains rock art, like that of the South-

west, is complex and diverse, again reflecting

a changing mix of hunter-gatherers, farmers,

and, historically, pastoralists – the famous Plains

“horse cultures” that developed following the

Spanish reintroduction of the equine into the

Americas (Keyser & Klassen 2001; Loendorf

2008). Petroglyphs tend to be most common

overall, though pictographs predominate in the

northwestern Plains, with designs ranging from

simple, crudely pecked geometrics to finely

rendered polychrome figurative images. Motifs

include geometrics, supernatural beings, war

exploits, and a wide range of animals, including

especially horse, deer, and elk (wapiti).

The Early Hunting Tradition, on the northern

Plains, and Old Incised Tradition, in the south,

demonstrate that Great Plains rock art was

created as early as 12,000 YBP. The Early

Hunting Tradition continued until approximately

2,500 YBP, after which a series of more localized

styles developed on the northern Plains. The Old

Incised Tradition, in contrast, was replaced by the

South Plains Archaic Tradition at c. 7,000 YBP.

The apparently “pan-tribal” Ceremonial Style

developed as an overlay across much of the Plains

after about 2,000 YBP. The Biographic Style

appeared c. 400 YBP and continued into the

historic period. Like the ceremonial art, it was

pan-tribal in distribution and is linked to the

historical horse cultures. Much of its art is related

to raiding and war (Fig. 8), which were endemic

in the region during this period.

Petroglyphs are more common than

pictographs in the Eastern Woodlands Tradition

which, in addition to these two common kinds of

rock art, also includes “mud glyphs”

(Diaz-Granados & Duncan 2004). These are

images that were scraped into the soft-sided

walls of dark-zone caves. Birds are the predomi-

nant motifs at Eastern Woodlands sites, with the

thunderbird serving as the hallmark of the region.

This was a large, supernatural being whose

flapping wings caused wind and thunder. Other

common motifs include anthropomorphs of

various types, including faces, geometrics,

North American RockArt, Fig. 7 The Puebloan

farmers of the American

Southwest created rock art

in a number of contexts,

including a ritual salt

pilgrimage, where they

engraved their clan

symbols at the sacred site of

Willow Springs. Shown

here are bear clan symbols

N 5420 North American Rock Art

animal tracks, various other animals, other super-

natural beings, and weaponry. Although some

images include significant detail, overall the art

is relatively simple and only minimally elabo-

rated. The currently earliest dated Eastern Wood-

lands art was created about 7,000 YBP, but the

tradition is likely more ancient in origin. Most of

the art appears to date to the last 2,000 years

however, with much of it reflecting the iconogra-

phy and beliefs of the widespread Southeastern

Ceremonial Complex associated with the Missis-

sippian culture.

The Northern Woodlands (or Canadian Shield)

Tradition primarily consists of monochrome pic-

tographs, though with a concentration of petro-

glyphs towards its southeastern extreme.

Common motifs include a variety of simple

humans, often with upraised arms and with vari-

able body shapes; birds; tracks; snakes, lizards,

turtles, and various quadrupeds; “mythological

beings”; drums and canoes; and geometrics

(Rajnovich 1995). The painted sites are commonly

located on vertical or near vertical cliff faces that

front lakes or rivers, whereas the incised (and

occasional pecked) petroglyphs occur on flat hor-

izontal outcrops. The Northern Woodlands Tradi-

tion dates as early as 2,000 years ago, with the

tradition continuing into historical times.

Historical Background

Euro-American intellectual interest in North

American rock art began with the writings of

the Puritan Cotton Mather, at the beginning

of the seventeenth century (Whitley 2001). This

sets the tone for the first two-and-a-half centuries

of occasional rock art study, which was philolog-

ically oriented, emphasizing the putative

significance of the art in terms of the origins of

writing. An ethnographic approach was intro-

duced in the mid-nineteenth century by Henry

T. Schoolcraft who, though still interested in

philology, recognized the religious origin of

much of the art. Garrick Mallery, at the end of

that century, provided the first continental

synthesis. Like Schoolcraft, Mallery cited

then-available ethnographic data and also

acknowledged the art’s religious significance.

The combination of the early philological

interests and the later ethnographic approaches

had an important implication for the history of

North American rock art research. The study of

much of global rock art can be understood histor-

ically as an outgrowth of the discovery and

acceptance of the antiquity of western European

Upper Paleolithic art. One result was the strong

influence that European interpretations had on

North American RockArt, Fig. 8 Commemora-

tive rock art, made to

memorialize war honors

and events, is common in

the Great Plains. This

example is from La Barge

Bluffs, Wyoming

North American Rock Art 5421 N

N

rock art studies in other regions, particularly

hunting magic. North American rock art, in con-

trast, had its own research tradition prior to the

systematic study of the European art. Ironically,

the influence of the European hunting magic

interpretation on North American rock art inter-

pretation only developed as this explanation was

losing favor in that region.

The first “modern” regional synthesis, in the

sense of including a systematic data analysis, was

provided in 1929 by Julian Steward, an anthro-

pologist who subsequently gained renown for his

theory of multilinear evolution and contributions

to cultural ecology. Perhaps surprisingly, given

his anthropological background, Steward effec-

tively denied any connection between historical

tribes and rock art – or maybe this is not surpris-

ing in light of his insistence (despite his own

evidence) that hunter-gatherer cultures were prin-

cipally “gastric” in nature. Steward’s attitude was

perpetuated by many subsequent archaeologists,

who accepted on faith the contention that most

regional rock art traditions were necessarily pre-

historic, not also potentially historical/ethno-

graphic, in age. Perhaps the most influential of

these archaeologists were Robert Heizer and

Martin Baumhoff (1962) who published

a widely read monograph on Great Basin rock

art. Among other matters, this introduced hunting

magic as the preferred interpretation of hunter-

gatherer rock art, at the same time that European

Upper Paleolithic archaeologists were rejecting

that theory.

Heizer and Baumhoff were, however, tradi-

tional cultural-historical archaeologists, and

their interest in rock art was not on the agenda

of then-developing processual archaeology.

A professional rock art research lacuna resulted,

with subsequent North American rock art studies,

with only occasional exception, the product of

amateurs. The most prominent of these was

Walt Disney cartoonist Campbell Grant, who

championed hunting magic in a prolific, and

again influential, series of popular books and

articles.

The common processual archaeological dis-

missal of rock art was ostensibly based on the

fact that, at that time, it could not be dated, but the

deeper issue was that symbolism and cognition

were considered epiphenomenal and, therefore,

of little importance in the cultural ecological and

materialist paradigm of that period. Significant

professional archaeological interest in rock art,

accordingly, did not reappear until the late 1970s,

promoted by a series of factors. One was then-

widespread cultural interests in shamanism and

archaeoastronomy and their apparent connec-

tions to some hunter-gatherer rock art. Another

was renewed attention to ethnographic research,

especially in the far west, and the “discovery” of

rock art ethnography. Initial attempts at chrono-

metric dating also started at this time. But perhaps

the most important variable, in the long-term

reemergence of North American rock art

research, was the development of heritage

management as the primary emphasis of archae-

ological work. This required the consideration of

all aspects of the archaeological record, not just

those pertaining to individual research designs,

and it involved the consideration of a wide range

of heritage values, including specifically art,

aesthetics, and, ultimately, Native American

religious concerns and issues.

North American rock art research, accord-

ingly, has flourished in the last three decades as

the archaeological profession has increasingly

reoriented itself towards heritage management.

Direct chronometric dating techniques, though

sometimes still experimental, have dispelled the

contention that the art is entirely undatable.

Post-processual archaeology, with its interest in

symbolism and interpretation, has provided

a theoretical justification for rock art studies.

Perhaps most importantly, however, legally

mandated Native American involvement with

heritage management has pushed sacred sites,

including rock art, to the forefront of concern.

Key Issues/Current Debates

As with many global regions, North American

archaeology originated when colonialist attitudes

about indigenous peoples were prevalent. North

American rock art research is no different and,

while many archaeologists have moved beyond

N 5422 North American Rock Art

the primitivist biases that colonialism engendered,

colonialist thought remains the subtext of the most

significant current debate in North American rock

art research (Whitley & Whitley 2012). This con-

cerns ethnography: whether there is directly rele-

vant rock art ethnography in certain regions; what

this ethnography implies about origins, functions,

and meanings of the art; and the potential rele-

vance of ethnographic accounts to truly prehistoric

rock art corpora. Although seemingly an empirical

controversy, the debate is founded on underlying

and opposing philosophical positions, with largely

unrecognized but significant social implications.

Although commitments on both sides of this

debate vary from extreme to moderate, the

colonialist position can be generally character-

ized as denying or downplaying any putative

ethnographic data in favor of interpretations

based on contemporary western archaeological

models and contexts. This partly reflects the

belief that a complete or near-complete cultural

disjunction exists between the pre- and post-

European contact periods. Where ethnographic

information is admitted to exist, the statements

are considered to be literal and factual comments

that can be fully understood in contemporary and

rationalist Euro-American intellectual terms.

Where such statements make no obvious ratio-

nalist sense, in western scientific terms, they are

dismissed as evidence of rock art ignorance by

indigenous informants, thereby supporting the

entirely prehistoric-age interpretation of the art.

The postcolonialist attitude, in contrast, starts

with the premise that rock art ethnography may

exist in many regions. If found to be present and

despite the fact that substantial disruption

occurred to indigenous cultures with European

contact, specific aspects of these cultures, such

as religious beliefs and practices, may not have

been entirely destroyed, and precontact indige-

nous knowledge may have been preserved.

Statements of religious belief, from this position,

are recognized as inherently counterfactual in

nature, with ethnographic data thereby frequently

requiring symbolic-metaphoric interpretations,

which must be contextualized in terms of relevant

indigenous thought systems. Continuity between

the ethnographic/historical and more truly

prehistoric periods, if any, must be empirically

demonstrated on a case-by-case basis, but the

passage of time alone is not considered an ade-

quate justification for denying this possibility.

(Change occurs over time, but time does not

cause change to occur.) Over a century of conti-

nuity in ethnographic comments about rock art, in

a series of North American regions, has been

cited in support of this position and contrasted

with the fact that prevailing and opposing, more

“purely archaeological” interpretations have

consistently changed, on average, every decade.

These two philosophical and methodological

positions underpin the current, most visible aspect

of North American debate, which concerns the

shamanistic interpretation of certain corpora of

this art. Some (but not all) North American

hunter-gatherer rock art has been interpreted as

shamanistic, based on ethnographic and other

lines of evidence (including, using independent

data and a separate approach to analysis, the neu-

ropsychological model for the forms of the mental

imagery of trance; see Lewis-Williams & Dowson

1988). These interpretations have been contested,

in some cases vigorously, primarily by simply

denying the relevance of the ethnographic data.

Alternative explanations have only occasionally

been offered in the shamanistic critiques. These

commonly emphasize hunting magic. Although

there is ethnographic evidence for shamanistic

hunting magic rock art in some but not most

regions (Keyser & Whitley 2006), the critiques

instead follow the colonialist archaeological

assumption that dietary concerns were the primary

basis for non-Western ritual and belief and that

western intellectual models best explain all types

of human behavior.

The social implications of these contrasting

positions are only occasionally recognized. The

colonialist stance reiterates the view that Native

Americans do not, and historically did not, have

any knowledge of rock art and that the art is

therefore necessarily prehistoric, not potentially

ethnographic/historical, in age. This effectively

separates Native Americans from any direct

connection with the archaeological record and

serves to strip them of their patrimony. This last

fact has particularly important consequences now

North American Rock Art 5423 N

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that Native American tribes have been awarded

legal rights to aspects of the archaeological record

and are actively attempting to reestablish their

claim to their patrimony and heritage. The

postcolonialist opinion holds that there is a direct

link between contemporary Native Americans and

at least the recent prehistoric past. Based on wide-

spread ethnographic evidence, it emphasizes the

sacred nature of rock art sites and acknowledges

their importance in terms of social memory, edu-

cation, and self-identity for tribal peoples.

Postcolonial rock art research has served as an

effective bridge between archaeologists and

Native Americans, whereas the colonialist agenda

perpetuates the divide and antagonism that has

traditionally existed in North America between

the two parties.

Other key current research topics include the

gender implications of rock art; the widespread,

unusual acoustical properties of many rock art

sites; the relationship of rock art sites to the

landscape, in both symbolic and adaptive terms;

chronometric dating, including the dating of the

earliest art; and site management and conserva-

tion techniques and approaches. Because of

Native American’s increasing participation in

heritage management, including the prioritiza-

tion of their heritage values during the planning

for site management, research on management

and conservation techniques is likely to increase

in the future.

International Perspectives

The divergent history of North American rock art

research, relative to the remainder of the western

(and especially Anglophone) world, initially sets

it apart from global research trends. This isolation

has continued, to a certain degree, with interna-

tional practices and interests having only limited

impact, although there are two important excep-

tions to this generalization. The first concerns

shamanistic interpretations of hunter-gatherer

rock art. Despite debate, ethnographically based

shamanistic interpretations of North American

rock art had been suggested at least since Mallery

in the nineteenth century, and they are currently

advocated for specific American regions and cor-

pora by a number of archaeologists. David

Lewis-Williams’ (e.g., 2012) shamanistic

research on South African San (Bushman) rock

art has, accordingly, resonated with North Amer-

ican researchers, with a significant methodologi-

cal and philosophical impact on them, especially

concerning the use of ethnographic data. His

parallel development of the neuropsychological

model for the mental imagery of trance has like-

wise been influential analytically, though in fact

it was inspired by slightly earlier work on

Chumash rock art in southern California by

Thomas Blackburn. Similarities in the kinds of

ethnographic and prehistoric cultures present,

and the types of data available for analysis,

helped create a natural research bridge between

these two geographically distant regions. Further-

more, the emphasis on the origin and meaning of

rock art in both of these regions sets them slightly

apart from hunter-gatherer rock art research in

some other parts of the world, notably Australia,

where the primary concern typically is the

implications of the art for social processes rather

than its symbolism and religious significance.

The second area of research in which North

Americanists have heavily participated is rock art

chronometrics. In this case, the specialized kinds

of expertise and equipment needed to conduct

these studies necessarily require international

collaboration, with Americanists participating

fully in this regard. Although much remains to

be done, the first steps towards a chronometric

understanding of worldwide rock art have

occurred, and North American researchers have

played a key role in this regard, both in terms of

establishing regional North American chronolo-

gies and in the development of the techniques to

date rock art globally.

More than research history serves to separate

North American rock art studies from interna-

tional ones, however, specifically with reference

to one of the most widely studied problems in

archaeology. This is the initial appearance of art

and its implications for the beginnings of

behavioral-cognitive modernity. There is

a consensus that art and modernity developed

long before the Americas were colonized, despite

N 5424 North American Rock Art

the fact that we are still not certain when that

event occurred. Regardless of specific date, it

seems unlikely that North American research

can directly contribute to this central archaeolog-

ical issue.

Future Directions

North American rock art, despite substantial

research and management advances in the last

few decades, confronts a series of daunting chal-

lenges. The amount of rock art, especially in the

west, is quite high: over 1,500 sites are known in

California alone, for example, with similar

numbers in surrounding states. But very few

sites have been fully documented or carefully

researched, let alone published. At the most

basic level, there is still a substantial amount of

foundational work that must be completed before

the full range and variability of the continental

record is known and before regional rock art

chronologies are adequately understood. Fewer

still of these sites have been subjected to proper

condition assessments; hence, the relative

preservational status of North American rock

art, including the potential for its long-term

sustainability, is all but unknown in any general

sense. These circumstances suggest an agenda for

future North American rock art research and

management. This would include, first,

a substantial program of systematic data collec-

tion. The recent proliferation of digital recording

equipment and techniques, which have increased

the accuracy of documentation, facilitated data

storage and manipulation, and dramatically

improved fieldwork efficiency, enhances but

does not guarantee the possibility of achieving

this goal.

Continued chronometric research is also

seriously needed, second, both in terms of

technique development and improvement, and

empirical applications. Although some locales

have at least preliminary chronometric

sequences, such as the Great Basin, Lower

Pecos, and northern Plains, almost no chronomet-

ric dating has occurred in others (e.g., the Colum-

bia Plateau). Yet this kind of information is

crucial not simply to understand the art but also

to better integrate it into regional cultural-

historical sequences.

Professional site management (including

conservation) approaches and applications need

to be applied, third, not simply on an ad hoc

site-by-site basis, as has occurred to this point,

but regionally and collectively. These include

professional site documentation, condition

assessments, and management plans. Absent

these kinds of programs and information, applied

on a regional scale, site management will consist

of little more than putting out forest fires, thereby

remaining cost ineffective and, potentially, futile

in terms of the larger resource base. Like the

other items on this list, this is a massive and

difficult goal to achieve. But the recent develop-

ment of rapid, quantitative approaches to site

condition assessment (Dorn et al. 2008) makes

this at least possible, though, again, far from

guaranteeing completion.

The future of North American rock art,

from this perspective, can be seen optimisti-

cally. We now have the tools and abilities to

obtain a better understanding of this art and

ensure its long-term preservation. But it will

be up to this and future generations of the

archaeological community to see that the

appropriate steps are implemented to fulfill

this agenda.

Cross-References

▶Hunter-Gatherers, Archaeology of

▶Lewis-Williams, James David

▶Rock Art, Forms of

▶ Sacred Traditions and “Art” in Hunter-

Gatherer Contexts

References

BOSTWICK, T.W. 2002. Landscape of the spirits: Hohokamrock art at South Mountain Park. Tucson: Universityof Arizona Press.

DIAZ-GRANADOS, C. & J. DUNCAN. (ed.) 2004. The rock-artof eastern North America: capturing images andinsight. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.

North American Rock Art 5425 N

N

DORN, R.I., D.S WHITLEY, N.V. CERVENY, S.J. GORDON, C.

D. ALLEN & E. GUTBROD. 2008. The rock art stability

index (RASI): improving the sustainability of rock art

sites. Heritage Management 1: 37-70.HEIZER, R.F. &M. BAUMHOFF. 1962. Prehistoric rock art of

Nevada and eastern California. Berkeley: Universityof California Press.

KEYSER, J.D. 1992. Indian rock art of the Columbia Pla-teau. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

KEYSER, J.D. & M. KLASSEN. 2001. Plains Indian rock art.Seattle: University of Washington Press.

KEYSER, J.D. & G. POETSCHAT. 2012. Clan crests andshamans’ masks: petroglyphs in southeast Alaska.Portland: Indigenous Cultures Preservation

Society.

KEYSER, J.D. &D.S.WHITLEY. 2006. Sympathetic magic in

western North American rock art. American Antiquity71: 3-26.

LEWIS-WILLIAMS. J.D. 2012. Rock art and shamanism, in J.

McDonald & P. Veth (ed.) A companion to rock art:17-33. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

LEWIS-WILLIAMS, J.D. & T.A. DOWSON. 1988. The signs of

all times: entoptic phenomena in upper Palaeolithic

art. Current Anthropology 29: 201-245.LOENDORF, L.L. 2008. Thunder and herds: the rock art of

the High Plains. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press.

- 2012. Old petroglyphs on the North American High

Plains, in J. Clottes (ed.) L’Art Pleistocene dans leMonde. Actes du Congres IFRAO 2010. Prehistoire,Art et Societies: Bulletin de la Societie PrehistoriqueAriege-Pyrenees LXV-LXVI: 112-113.

RAJNOVICH, G. 1995. Reading rock art: interpreting theIndian rock paintings of the Canadian shield. Toronto:Natural Heritage.

SCHAAFSMA, P. 1980. Indian rock art of the Southwest.Santa Fe and Albuquerque: School of American

Research and the University of New Mexico Press.

STEVENS, E.T. 1974. Alaskan petroglyphs and pictographs.

Unpublished MA dissertation, University of Alaska.

TRATEBAS, A. 2012. Late Pleistocene rock art traditions on

the North American Plains, in J. Clottes (ed.) L’ArtPleistocene dans le Monde. Actes du Congres IFRAO2010. Prehistoire, Art et Societies: Bulletin de laSocietie Prehistorique Ariege-Pyrenees LXV-LXVI:

108-109.

WHITLEY, D.S. 2000. The art of the shaman: rock art ofCalifornia. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

- 2001. Rock art and rock art research in worldwide

perspective: an introduction, in D.S. Whitley (ed.)

Handbook of rock art research: 7-54. Walnut Creek:

AltaMira Press.

WHITLEY, D.S. & R.I. DORN. 2012. The earliest rock art in

far western North America, in J. Clottes (ed.) L’ArtPleistocene dans le Monde. Actes du Congres IFRAO2010. Prehistoire, Art et Societies: Bulletin de laSocietie Prehistorique Ariege-Pyrenees, LXV-LXVI:106-107.

WHITLEY, D.S. & T.K. WHITLEY. 2012. A land of visions

and dreams, in T. Jones & J. Perry (ed.) Issues in

contemporary California archaeology: 255-314. Wal-

nut Creek: Left Coast Press.

WHITLEY, D.S., J.M. SIMON & R.I. DORN. 1999. The vision

quest in the Coso Range. American Indian Rock Art25: 1-32.

Further ReadingWELLMAN, K. 1979. A survey of North American Indian

rock art. Graz: Akademische Druck-und

Verlagsanstalt.

WHITLEY, D.S. (ed.) 2001. Handbook of rock art research.Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

- 2011. Introduction to rock art research, 2nd rev edn.

Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press, Inc.

North American TerminalPleistocene Extinctions: CurrentViews

J. Tyler Faith

School of Social Science, Archaeology Program,

University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD,

Australia

Introduction

The end of the Pleistocene in North America

witnessed the extinction of a remarkable array

of large mammals, encompassing at least

32 genera of megafauna (animals > 44 kg) and

another 4 genera of smaller mammals (Table 1).

The majority of extinct genera (n ¼ 30), includ-

ing mammoths and mastodons, saber-toothed

cats, and giant ground sloths, became globally

extinct at this time, whereas a handful (n ¼ 6)

disappeared from North America while continu-

ing to survive elsewhere. Altogether, more than

70 % of North America’s megafaunal genera

disappeared (Barnosky et al. 2004). In addition

to extinctions at the generic level, several mega-

faunal species with surviving North American

congeners also disappeared near the end of the

Pleistocene, including the dire wolf (Canisdirus), the American lion (Panthera atrox),

Harrington’s mountain goat (Oreamnos

harringtoni), and the beautiful armadillo

(Dasypus bellus).

N 5426 North American Terminal Pleistocene Extinctions: Current Views