University of Alabama Press (2005)
Research associate and lecturer in the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences
The Rock-Art of Eastern North America brings together 20 papers on rock-art research ranging over 12 states and four Canadian provinces. Authors include professional archaeologists and art historians, as well as retired orthopedic surgeon, a carpenter, a lawyer, two photographers and others. Sections focus on the history, ethnography, recording methods, dating and analysis of pictographs, petroglyphs and dendroglyphs (or carvings on trees). A selection of chapters integrates this information with the archaeological data.
Rock-Art is within the same realm of archaeology as is material culture with its portable artifacts, and it is an excellent record of in situ human activity. Rock-Art is finally coming into its own as these iconographic remnants on the landscape become recognized as windows into the ancient objects and clothing, lifeways and belief systems.
—(From the back of the book)
“I’d been trying to put together a book like this for a few years because I’d been organizing and chairing symposia on the topic at national and regional meetings and had access to many rock art scholars and papers,” Diaz-Granados said. “Eastern rock art research is lagging behind western rock art research. We needed to catch up and this volume is a major first step.”
This is the first book of its kind, Diaz-Granados said. “It is the first in-depth look at these often neglected, and endangered, archaeological resources. The book is a collection of 20 papers on American Indian rock carvings and paintings ranging over 12 states and four Canadian provinces.”
Rock-Art is available at the Campus Store.
— Neil Schoenherr