The comprehensive book on Indian petroglyphs in the Southwest.

Rock art studies in south India are few and far between. The huge corpus of rock art has not been systematically documented, studied and analyzed. This book fills up thelacuna to a certain extent. This book constitutes the first comprehensive micro level study of rock art of Andhra Pradesh both at an intra site ind inter site levels. In addition, the other rock art traditions of south India particularly of Karnataka and Tamilnadu are also studied from a comparativeanalogical perspective. This is necessary not only to highlight the characteristic and exclusive traits of the rock arts of Andhra Pradesh, but also to understand the cultural cintacts between various regions reflected in the rock art forms and themes. An attempt has also been made to understand the motives behind the rock depictions in the light of various theories of interpretation.

This unique guide provides an artistic and archaeological journey deep into human history, exploring the petroglyphic and pictographic forms of rock art produced by the earliest humans to contemporary peoples around the world. Summarizes the diversity of views on ancient rock art from leading international scholars Includes new discoveries and research, illustrated with over 160 images (including 30 color plates) from major rock art sites around the world Examines key work of noted authorities (e.g. Lewis-Williams, Conkey, Whitley and Clottes), and outlines new directions for rock art research Is broadly international in scope, identifying rock art from North and South America, Australia, the Pacific, Africa, India, Siberia and Europe Represents new approaches in the archaeological study of rock art, exploring issues that include gender, shamanism, landscape, identity, indigeneity, heritage and tourism, as well as technological and methodological advances in rock art analyses

This book presents a fresh perspective on rock art by considering how ancient images function in the present. It focuses on how ancient heritage is recognized and reified in the modern world, and how rock art stimulates contemporary processes of cultural identity-making.

Along the Atlantic seaboard, from Scotland to Spain, are numerous rock carvings made four to five thousand years ago, whose interpretation poses a major challenge to the archaeologist. In the first full-length treatment of the subject, based largely on new fieldwork, Richard Bradley argues that these carvings should be interpreted as a series of symbolic messages that are shared between monuments, artefacts and natural places in the landscape. He discusses the cultural setting of the rock carvings and the ways in which they can be interpreted in relation to ancient land use, the creation of ritual monuments and the burial of the dead. Integrating this fascinating yet little-known material into the mainstream of prehistoric studies, Richard Bradley demonstrates that these carvings played a fundamental role in the organization of the prehistoric landscape.

Focusing on stunning paintings and engravings from around the world, 16 papers interrogate the driving forces behind global rock art research. Many of the motifs featured were created by indigenous hunter-gatherer groups; this book sheds new light on non-Western rituals and worldviews, many of which are threatened or on the point of extinction.

Covering a vast terrain-from Ladakh and other Himalayan locations, to central India including the Vindhyas, the Satpuras, and the Chhota Nagpur Plateau, to southern Deccan and Sri Lanka-the book presents for the first time a well-rounded overview of rock art in India down the ages.

This book is the pioneering attempt on several Indian rock art sites of diverse regions exhaustively studied by the writer for decades and finally a database is equipped with attributes on early rock art imagery.

This book argues that the development of symbols and signs informing scripts, mainly the idea of coding thoughts through symbols and images, has always been uniquely ‘historical.’ Rock art abuts and occupies long periods of time in which the translation of indigenous thoughts was perfected through numerous mnemonic practices.