This volume contains cutting edge 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.

ON DOCUMENTING ROCK ART

Rock art management: juggling with paradoxes and com­promises, and how to live with them Anne-Sophie Hygen

Expressing intangibles: A recording experience with /Xam Rock Engravings Janette Deacon

Aspects of documentation for conservation purposes exemplified by rock art Terje Norsted

The spatial context of rock art sites: what might GIS have to offer in the absence of a temporal resolution of rock paintings? Thembi Russell

Rock art in context – theoretical aspects of pragmatic data collections Tilman Lenssen-Erz

Representing southern African San rock art: a move towards digitisation D.Winnie Mokokwe

The routine of documentation Knut Helskog

Prehistoric explorations in rock – investigations beneath and beyond carved surfaces Trond Lødøen

ON UNDERSTANDING ROCK ART USING INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE

Politics, ethnography and prehistory: in search of an ‘informed’ approach to Finnish and Karelian rock art Antti Lahelma

Ethnography, history, rock art: the significance of social change in interpreting rock art David Pearce

Symbols on stone – in the footsteps of the bear in Finnish antiquity Juha Pentikäinen

Animals and humans: metaphors of representation in south-central African rock art Leslie Zubieta

Ways of knowing and ways of seeing: spiritual agents and the origins of Native American rock art David Whitley

Shamanism, rock art and history: implications from a Central Asian case study Andrzej Rozwadowski

ON PRESENTING ROCK ART

Presenting rock art through digital film Paul Taçon

Rock art at present in the past Lindsay Weiss

The importance of Wildebeest Kuil: ‘a hill with a future, a hill with a past’ David Morris

Theoretical approaches and practical training for rock art tourist guiding and management Janette Deacon and Neville Agnew

Two related rock art conservation/education projects in Lesotho Pieter Jolly

Scandinavian rock art in the past – the present – and the future Gitte Kjeldsen

The presentation of rock art in South Africa: what are the new challenges? Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu

Yellowstone, Kruger, Kakadu: nature, culture and rock-art in three celebrated national parks Catherine Namono and Christopher Chippindale

Benjamin W. Smith is Director of the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He is President of the Pan African Archaeological Association and Research Editor of the South African Archaeological Bulletin. His research interests include the herder and farmer rock arts of Africa, the Batwa (Pygmy) rock art of central Africa, theory and method in rock art studies and the role of rock art in modern society.

Knut Helskog is Professor of Archaeology at Tromsø University Museum, University of Tromsø, Norway. His responsibilities include the management of the Norwegian Cultural Heritage Act, salvage archaeology, archives, collections, museum exhibitions, popularisation and research. His research interests are oriented towards hunter–fisher-gatherer populations in northern Fennoscandia with a special focus on the interpretation of rock art.

David Morris is Head of Archaeology at the McGregor Museum in Kimberley, South Africa. His work involves collections management, museum display, public archaeological site management and contract archaeology. His research focus is the archaeology of South African hunter-gatherers and herders with a particular focus on rock art.