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.

Bruno David is Chief Investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre and the Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, and Associate Professor in the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He specializes in the archaeology of Indigenous Australia and Papua New Guinea, rock art, and oral traditions.

Ian J. McNiven is Professor of Indigenous Archaeology in the Monash Indigenous Studies Centre and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He specializes in coastal societies and seascapes and ritual and spiritual relationships with the sea. He is a member of the Australian Academy of Humanities.

List of Contributors
Online Supplementary Material

Introduction
1. Towards an Archaeology and Anthropology of Rock Art
Bruno David and Ian J. McNiven

Part I: Geographical and Historical Perspectives

2. Interpretative Frameworks and the Study of the Rock Arts
Margaret W. Conkey

3. North European Rock Art: A Long-term Perspective
Joakim Goldhahn

4. The Rock Art of Sub-Scandinavian Europe
Olivia Rivero and Juan F. Ruiz

5. The Archaeology of Rock Art in Northern Africa
Savino di Lernia

6. The Rock Art of Sub-Saharan Africa
Jean-Loïc Le Quellec

7. Rock Art of Northern, Central, and Western Asia
Andrzej Rozwadowski

8. The Rock Art of South and East Asia
Paul S.C. Taçon

9. Australia's Rock Art Heritage: A Thematic Approach to Assessing Scientific Value
Jo McDonald

10. Rock Art of the Pacific: Context and Intertextuality
Meredith Wilson and Chris Ballard

11. Rock Art of North America
David S. Whitley

12. Rock Art in Central and South America: Social Settings and Regional Diversity
Andrés Troncoso, Felipe Armstrong, and Mara Basile

Part II: Conceptual Approaches to Rock Art: Investigating Meaning

13. Tracing Symbolic Behaviour across the Southern Arc
Natalie R. Franklin and Phillip J. Habgood

14. Signalling Theory and Durable Symbolic Expression
Douglas W. Bird and Rebecca Bliege Bird

15. The Psychology of Graphic Perception
Jan B. Deregowski

16. European Palaeolithic Rock Art and Spatial Structures
Jean Clottes

17. Art and Environment: How Can Rock Art Inform on Past Environments?
George Nash

18. Images of Animals in Rock Art: Not Just 'Good to Think'
Iain Davidson

19. Plants Before Animals? Aboriginal Rock Art as Evidence of Ecoscaping in Australia's Kimberley
Sven Ouzman, Peter Veth, Cecilia Myers, Pauline Heaney, and Kevin Kenneally

20. 'Enigmatic Images from Remote Prehistory': Rock Art and Ontology from a European Perspective
Andrew Meirion Jones and Marta Díaz-Guardamino

21. Rock Art, Music, and Acoustics: A Global Overview
Margarita Díaz-Andreu and Tommaso Mattioli

22. The Production of Ethnographic Records and Their Use in Rock Art Research
Julien Monney and Leïla Baracchini

23. Rock Art and Ethnography in Australia
Liam M. Brady, Robert G. Gunn, Claire Smith, and Bruno David

24. Rock Arts, Shamans, and Grand Theories
Anne Solomon

25. A New Framework for Interpreting Contact Rock Art: Reassessing the Rock Art at Nackara Springs, South Australia
Claire Smith, Jordan Ralph, Kylie Lower, Jennifer McKinnon, Matthew Ebbs, and Vincent Copley Senior

26. Creolization in the Investigation of Rock Art of the Colonial Era
Sam Challis

27. Out of Time and Place: Graffiti and Rock Art Research
Ursula K. Frederick

28. Memory, Materiality, and Place in Ojibway Rock Art Performances
Alex K. Ruuska

29. Rock Art as Cultural Expressions of Social Relationships and Kinship
Liam M. Brady, John J. Bradley, and Amanda Kearney

30. Bodies Revealed: X-ray Art in Western Arnhem Land
Luke Taylor

31. Rock Art and Aesthetics
Thomas Heyd

Part III: Methods: Marks in Time and Place

32. The Science of Rock Art Research
Guy Gibbon

33. Recording Rock Art: Strategies, Challenges, and Embracing the Digital Revolution
Liam M. Brady, Jamie Hampson, and Inés Domingo Sanz

34. GIS in Rock Art Studies
Michelle L. Wienhold and David W. Robinson

35. 3-D Modelling in Rock Art Research: Terrestrial Laser Scanning, Photogrammetry, and the Time Factor
Stéphane Jaillet, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Julien Monney, and Benjamin Sadier

36. Archaeomorphological Mapping: Rock Art and the Architecture of Place
Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Bruno David, Robert G. Gunn, Jean-Michel Geneste, and Stéphane Jaillet

37. Taphonomy on the Surface of the Rock Wall: Rock-Paint-Atmosphere Interactions
Emilie Chalmin, Stéphane Hoerlé, and Ina Reiche

38. Characterizing Rock Art Pigments
Emilie Chalmin and Jillian Huntley

39. The Use of Harris Matrices in Rock Art Research
Edward Harris and Robert G. Gunn

40. Radiocardon Dating in Rock Art Research
Fiona Petchey

41. Optical Dating of Rock Art
Richard G. Roberts

42. Uranium-Thorium Dating of Cave Art
Alistair W.G. Pike

Part IV: The Public Consumption of Art: Applying and Managing Art in the Present

43. Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights in Rock Art: A Case Study of Australian Indigenous Art
Stephen Gray

44. The Conservation and Management of Rock Art: An Integrated Approach
Johannes Loubser

45. Rock Art Tourism
Melanie Duval, Christophe Gauchon, and Benjamin Smith

46. Past Images, Contemporary Practices: Re-use of Rock Art Images in Contemporary San Art of Southern Africa
Leïla Baracchini and Julien Monney

47. The Use and Re-use of Rock Art Designs in Contemporary Jewellery and Wearable Art
Lynette Russell and Myles Russell-Cook

48. Visiting Gonjorong's Cave
Valda Blundell and Woddordda Traditional Owners Donny Woolagoodja, Janet Oobagooma, and Leah Umbagai

Index