Proceedings of Symposia H and O of the first Australian Rock Art Research Association (AURA) Congress, with contributions by 21 authors, 10 of them dealing with Aboriginal art in Australia and others covering Japanese, Indian and East African rock art. Number 5 in the TOccasional Aura Paper' series.

Using the pioneering research of David Lewis-Williams as a foundation, contributors from around the world examine how the availability of ethnographic analogies, or lack thereof, affect the interpretation of rock art.

Rock art is one of the most visible and geographically widespread of cultural expressions, and it spans much of the period of our species' existence. Rock art also provides rare and often unique insights into the minds and visually creative capacities of our ancestors and how selected rock outcrops with distinctive images were used to construct symbolic landscapes and shape worldviews. Equally important, rock art is often central to the expression of and engagement with spiritual entities and forces, and in all these dimensions it signals the diversity of cultural practices, across place and through time. Over the past 150 years, archaeologists have studied ancient arts on rock surfaces, both out in the open and within caves and rock shelters, and social anthropologists have revealed how people today use art in their daily lives. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art showcases examples of such research from around the world and across a broad range of cultural contexts, giving a sense of the art's regional variability, its antiquity, and how it is meaningful to people in the recent past and today - including how we have ourselves tended to make sense of the art of others, replete with our own preconceptions. It reviews past, present, and emerging theoretical approaches to rock art investigation and presents new, cutting-edge methods of rock art analysis for the student and professional researcher alike.

This unique volume demonstrates that there are archaeological and anthropological ways of accessing the past in order to investigate and explain the significance of rock art motifs, and highlights the importance of regional rock art studies and regional variations.

This unique volume demonstrates that there are archaeological and anthropological ways of accessing the past in order to investigate and explain the significance of rock art motifs, and highlights the importance of regional rock art studies and regional variations.

Cutting edge contributions that consider new approaches to the documentation of rock art; its interpretation using indigenous knowledge; and the presentation of rock art. This volume contains contributions that consider new approaches to three areas: the documentation of rock art; its interpretation using indigenous knowledge; and the presentation of rock art. Working with Rock Art is the first edited volume to consider each of these areas in a theoretical rather than a technical fashion, and it therefore makes a significant contribution to the discipline. The volume aims to promote the sharing of new experiences between leading researchers in the field. While the geographic focus is truly global, there is a dominant north-south axis with strong representation from researchers in southern Africa and northern Europe, two leading centres for new approaches in rock art research. Working with Rock Art opens up a long overdue dialogue about shared experiences between these two centres, and a number of the chapters are the first published results of new collaborative research. Since this volume covers the recording, interpretation and presentation of rock art, it will attract a wide audience of researchers, heritage managers and students, as well as anyone interested in the field of rock art studies.