Based on the author's Masters thesis in anthropology at the University of California Santa Barbara, the book presents photographs of most of the known rock art sites in the Santa Ynez Mountains behind Santa Barbara, California. Most rock art books concentrate on spectacular sites and ignore the full range of art in a region, Hyder explores the range of Chumash rock paintings in his photographs primarily shot from 1979-1981. Originally published in 2002 as a hand made portfolio book limited to 13 copies.

"The subject matter of the San marcos Pass paintings is familiar. The simple geometrics--paralell lines, zigzaga, circles, dots, and grids--form the basis of art from the beginnings of human history. Some say these elements arise from experiences with altered states of consciousness. Deer, fish, birds, insects, amphibians, and humans appear in abstract and naturalistic forms. Others defy neat explanation." Description from the Introduction page 1.

A companion to The Archaeology of Rock-Art (Cambridge 1998), this new collection edited by Christopher Chippindale and George Nash addresses the most important component around the rock-art panel - its landscape. The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art draws together the work of many well-known scholars from key regions of the world for rock-art and for rock-art research. It provides a unique, broad and varied insight into the arrangement, location, and structure of rock-art and its place within the landscapes of ancient worlds as ancient people experienced them. Packed with illustrations, as befits a book about images, The Figured Landscapes of Rock-Art offers a visual as well as a literary key to the understanding of this most lovely and alluring of archaeological traces.