The result of twenty years of searching out and recording ancient designs on rocks in Oregon and Washington, Pictographs and Petroglyphs of the Oregon Country is now in a convenient, one-volume edition. The authors, Malcolm and Louise Loring, began their monumental task in the early 1960s as members of the Oregon Archaeological Society committee dedicated to surveying and recording rock art. Soon finding themselves a committee of two, they soldiered on with the monumental task of cataloging and illustrating rock art of the region. After Malcolm retired from the US Forest Service in 1963, he and Louise began a full-time effort to record the sites. For many of these sites, this volume is the only record. Part I describes sites in Washington along the Columbia River and sites in northern and central Oregon. Part II contains sites in southern Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada.

Rock art is one of humankind’s most ancient forms of artistic expression, and one of its most enigmatic. For centuries, scholars and other observers have struggled to interpret the meaning of the mysterious figures incised or painted on natural rocks and to understand their role in the lives of their long-vanished creators. The Great Basin of the American West is especially rich in rock art, but until recently North American archaeologists have largely ignored these most visible monuments left by early Native Americans and have given little attention to the terrain surrounding them. In Great Basin Rock Art, twelve respected rock art researchers examine a number of significant sites from the dual perspectives of settlement archaeology and contemporary Native American interpretations of the role of rock art in their cultural past. The authors demonstrate how modern archaeological methodology and interpretations are providing a rich physical and cultural context for these ancient and hitherto puzzling artifacts. They offer exciting new insights into the lives of North America’s first inhabitants. This is essential reading for anyone interested in the petroglyphs of the American West and in the history of the Great Basin and its original peoples.