A significant number of Holocene societies throughout the world have resorted at one time or another to the making of paints or carvings on different places (tombs, rock-shelters or caves, openair outcrops). The aim of the session A11e. Public images, private readings: multi-perspective approaches to the post-Palaeolithic rock art, which was held within the XVII World UISPP Congress (Burgos, September 1-7 2014), was to put together the experiences of specialists from different areas of the Iberian Peninsula and the World. The approaches ranged from the archaeological definition of the artistic phenomena and their socioeconomic background to those concerning themselves with the symbolic and ritual nature of those practices, including the definition of the audience to which the graphic manifestations were addressed and the potential role of the latter in the making up of social identities and the enforcement of territorial claims. More empirical issues, such as new recording methodologies and data management or even dating were also considered during this session.

This volume presents the proceedings of Session XXVIII-4 of the XVIII UISPP World Congress (4-9 June 2018, Paris, France), Caracterisation, continuites et discontinuites des manifestations graphiques des societes prehistoriques. Papers address the question of exchange and mobility in prehistoric societies in relation to the evolution of their environments through the prism of their graphic productions, on objects or on walls. This volume offers the opportunity to question their symbolic behaviours within very diverse temporal, chrono-cultural or geographic contexts. It also provides the framework for a discussion on cultural identity and how this was asserted in the face of environmental or social changes or constraints.

Paul G. Bahn provides a richly illustrated overview of prehistoric rock art and cave art from around the world. Summarizing the recent advances in our understanding of this extraordinary visual record, he discusses new discoveries, new approaches to recording and interpretation, and current problems in conservation. Bahn focuses in particular on current issues in the interpretation of rock art, notably the 'shamanic' interpretation that has been influential in recent years and that he refutes. This book is based on the Rhind Lectures that the author delivered for the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2006.

A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge, 1998), this new collection addresses the most important component of the rock-art panel: its landscape. The book draws together the work of many well-known scholars from key regions of the world known for rock-art and rock-art research. It provides insight into the location and structure of rock-art and its role within the landscapes of ancient worlds.

L'arte rupestre nella penisola e nelle isole italiane presents the proceedings of IFRAO 2018 - Session 2H: Rock Art in the Italian Peninsula and Islands: Issues about the Relation between Engraved and Painted Rocks, Symbols, Mountain Areas and Paths. The various papers present a remarkable synthesis of current knowledge on inscriptions, engraved and painted, on the rock walls of the Italian peninsular. In recent years an increasing amount of data has been collected, characterized by a regional and peculiar iconography with some common elements: anthropomorphic figures, weapons, daggers, halberds and other several symbols, all stylised. A peculiarity of this research is the site's locations within small shelters, inappropriate for habitation or in places suitable for supervising mountain and territory roads; this research demonstrates similarities to that carried out in the Western Mediterranean Sea. A new subject of relates to the possible interpretations of some engravings as solar and stellar symbols related to the measuring of time and to economic, daily and seasonal factors.

In the Argentine Northwest, northeast of Catamarca, there are a set of shelters and caves located in the rainforest with rock art with virtually no background. Little is known about the occupants of these spaces and their past practices. In order to learn more about these, this book addresses the study and systematic analysis of the plastic-thematic-compositional repertoire of the rock art sites of 'Los Algarrobales' and their spatial and temporal distribution. In this way, it is possible to approach the understanding of the modalities of appropriation of the people of the inhabited area, the relationship that they would have maintained with the environment, as well as the distinction of various events and uses of different places and, in this way, contribute to the knowledge of the historical, social and cultural development of the area. Throughout the reading, we start to glimpse the archaeological landscapes related to rock art for this sector of the southern Andean area.

With the exception of the Grand Canyon itself, none of the great gorges of the American Southwest is more uniquely beautiful than Canyon de Chelly, with its sheer red cliffs and innumerable prehistoric Indian dwellings. Of all the important centers of prehistoric Anasazi culture, only this magnificent canyon shows an unbroken record of settlement for more than 1,000 years. In this liberally illustrated book, rock art authority Campbell Grant examines four aspects of the spectacular canyon: its physical characteristics, its history of human habitation, its explorers and archaeologists, and its countless rock paintings and petroglyphs. Grant surveys 96 sites in the two main canyons and offers an interpretation of the rock art found there.

This volume deals with knives and harvesting equipment in Central Europe from their first appearance until the first century of the Common Era. Knives have accompanied human beings since the Paleolithic and became useful tools, weapons, and status symbols over the course of the millennia. An epoch-transcending overview of all common types of knives is provided here for the first time.Harvesting equipment appeared with the new economy of the Neolithic period-first made of silex, then bronze, and finally sickles and scythes of iron. Cutting devices also include scissors, an innovative type of tool that revolutionized textile craft. Each type is described in detail, supplemented with information on dating and propagation as well as further literature.

The many hundreds of books and thousands of academic papers on the topic of Pleistocene (Ice Age) art are limited in their approach because they deal only with the early art of southwestern Europe. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive synthesis of the known Pleistocene palaeoart of six continents, a phenomenon that is in fact more numerous and older in other continents. It contemplates the origins of art in a balanced manner, based on reality rather than fantasies about cultural primacy. Its key findings challenge most previous perceptions in this field and literally re-write the discipline. Despite the eclectic format and its high academic standards, the book addresses the non-specialist as well as the specialist reader. It presents a panorama of the rich history of palaeoart, stretching back more than twenty times as long in time as the cave art of France and Spain. This abundance of evidence is harnessed in presenting a new hypothesis of how early humans began to form and express constructs of reality and thus created the ideational world in which they existed. It explains how art-producing behaviour began and the origins of how humans relate to the world consciously.