Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology, and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation.

Contributors to this global viewdetail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplaysof religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock artengages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions, and reflects religiousorganization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems."

Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation. Contributors to this global view detail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplays of religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock art engages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions and reflects religious organization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems.

Proceedings of the XV UISPP World Congress (Lisbon, 4-9 September 2006), Vol. 35. Contents: Introduction (Marc Groenen & Didier Martens); 1) Application de la methodologie de lHistoire de lart a letude de lart paleolithique: lattribution des oeuvres anonymes a ses auteurs (Juan-Maria Apellaniz); 2) Les peintures de la grotte de la Pasiega A (Puente Viesgo, Cantabrie) a lepreuve de la methode de lattribution (Marc Groenen, Didier Martens); 3) The recognition of diversity through style in the Saharan rock-art research: an historiographic approach from the Western Sahara (Joaquim Soler Subils); 4) The rock art of South-Morocco revisited: On surprising stylistic and thematic characteristics of the so-called Pseudo-Bovidien and Tazinien rock art from the mid valley of Wadi Draa (Renate Heckendorf); 5) Spirals in Humahuaca and in the NW of Argentina (South America) Alicia Ana (Fernandez Distel, Jose Luis Mamani); 6) Spirals at Sturts Meadows (John Clegg); 7) Circular elements in the rock art of the State of Bahia, Brazil (Guilherme Albagli de Almeida); 8) Spirals of the prehistoric Open Rock painting from Kosova (Edi Shukriu); 9) To be or not to be Palaeolithic, that is the question (Robert G. Bednarik); 10) The Margot Cave (Mayenne): a new palaeolithic sanctuary in West France (Romain Pigeaud et al.) 11) Fluted Animals in the Zone of Crevices, Gargas Cave, France (Kevin Sharpe, Leslie Van Gelder); 12) Schematic panel with paleolithic punctuation and other questions of Paleoastronomy and Philosophy of Antiquity (Jose Fernandez Quintano); 13) Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic Burials from 12.000 to 7.000 BP in Llevantin Territory Art Rock (Carme Olaria, Francesc Gusi, Jose Luis Lopez); 14) Gravuras serpentiformes na regiao de Tras-os-Montes (Maria Fernanda Ferrato Melo de Carvalho); 15) The Camera Obscura and the Origin of Art: The Case for Image Projection in the Paleolithic (Matt Gatton, Leah Carreon, Madison Cawein, Walter Brock, and Valerie Scott); 16) Etude et presentation de lart rupestre en Iran (exemple detude dans les regions du province central et Kerman dIran) (Elyas Saffaran; 17) Archeological Use of Caves on the Northwestern Plains, USA (John Greer and Mavis Greer); 18) Mogollon rock art and the status of the flute player (Maarten van Hoek); 19) The findings of the presence of the sabre toothed tiger (Beltrao, M. C. M. C. and Locks, M.).