Thirty years ago, anyone interested in the scientific and humanistic study of petroglyphs and pictographs—commonly called “rock art” but regarded here as rock imagery—had to look broadly and dig deeply to find substantive scholarship. This began to change with the infiltration of critical theory and postmodernism into archaeology and related historical disciplines. Researchers started publishing on topics as disparate as neuropsychology, gender, landscapes, ritual, and even behavioral ecology. And then came the “handbooks.”
The first handbook of rock imagery research appeared in 2001 and set the tone, scope, and parameters for its progeny. The latest by Bruno David and Ian McNiven is, by my reckoning, the fourth generation in the lineage. These works invariably feature an international roster of the world's preeminent rock imagery scholars who contribute definitive overviews and syntheses of their areas of specialization. And the editors customarily organize their contributions into thematic groups that, although unique to each volume, can be reduced to four broad topics: regional surveys, theoretical and interpretative frameworks, methods, and management and ethics (and usually presented in that order).
With 48 chapters by 80 contributors parsed into four parts, David and McNiven's handbook follows the standard formula but does so with refreshing nuance and in a format that keeps pace with the rapidly changing nature of publishing itself. As part of the acclaimed Oxford Handbooks Online series, the chapters were first published as individual digital installments beginning in 2017. That ensured each contribution could be received in as timely a way as possible, and it empowers readers to select from the menu rather than requiring them to purchase the entire volume. Of these digital chapters, 27 contain additional figures, text, and references not available in the print publication.
The volume's first batch of chapters is an atlas of “geographical and historical perspectives” (i.e., regional surveys). A short history of interpretive frameworks is followed by 10 chapters that review the state of rock imagery research across the six continents on which it has been found. I find Part I, “Geographical and Historical Perspectives,” to be the least useful one of the handbook. Although there is some freshness in authorship, the contributions add little to areal syntheses that have been published in previous handbooks or that appear semiregularly in the Rock Art Studies, News of the World series (Archaeopress). Furthermore, brief chapters, written mostly by single authors, cannot adequately capture the breadth of perspectives and data available at such vast spatial scales. Consider, for instance, the chapter on North America. It is the region with which I am most familiar and probably the one most relevant to this journal's audience. It bravely attempts to condense 13,000 years of history and an immense amount of cultural and iconographic diversity into a mere 20 pages (inclusive of three full-page figures and more than three pages of references). As a result, important subjects are misrepresented and material omitted, such as the portion of the continent south of the United States (21 countries comprising 12% of North America). Such brevity, although necessary here, is arguably an injustice to the subject and its audience.
Part II, “Conceptual Approaches to Rock Art: Investigating Meaning,” reviews various frameworks for studying rock imagery, and its 19 chapters make it the meatiest part of the handbook. Contributors entertain a slew of theoretical and interpretive paradigms, including archaeoacoustics, costly signaling, creolization, memory, and aesthetics, to spotlight just a few. The conspicuous absence of a chapter promoting neuropsychological and shamanistic interpretations is a surprising and profound departure from prior scholarship, and it heralds the waning influence of that once monolithic paradigm amid a growing spectrum of alternatives. I find Part II to be the most encouraging section of the volume because it exemplifies the considerable maturation in the study of rock imagery over the past two decades and provides aspiring researchers the opportunity to explore a more robust range of theoretical avenues than was previously possible.
Methodological and analytical developments are featured in Part III, “Methods: Marks in Time and Place.” Its 11 chapters detail a range of techniques to date, document, and—in the case of pictographs—chemically characterize rock imagery. Another divergence with previous handbooks is the omission of a chapter covering the geochemical approaches to dating rock coatings such as silica skins and varnish, the latter of which has a tumultuous history that is not missed here. Filling their void is an exciting selection of relatively new digital recording and analytical techniques that highlight the growing sophistication of rock imagery research. Chapters on geographic information systems, three-dimensional modeling, and archaeomorphology seemingly signal a new age of study that is affording less and less room for line sketches and wild guesses.
The handbook's final part (Part IV, “The Public Consumption of Art: Applying and Managing Art in the Present”) on how contemporary people relate with rock imagery may be the most important. As the ethics and management section, its contributors critique the ways we—researchers and consumers alike—treat the very material we study and admire, for better or worse. The authors move beyond issues of conservation and tourism to address the rights and involvement of Indigenous communities in rock imagery research and stewardship. Two chapters debate the (in)appropriateness of appropriating Indigenous iconography, whereas another unpacks the legal apparatus surrounding rights to Indigenous imagery. Oddly, this final part is the first place in the handbook in which we find a chapter with Indigenous coauthorship, and it falls at the very end. Part IV's coverage of Indigenous issues is a most welcome addition to the handbook lineage, but with just six contributions (and only four on ethics), it is the slimmest and comes off as more of an epilogue than an equal and integrated dimension to the collaboration.
Despite topical asymmetry and an obvious skew toward Australian authors, the volume successfully balances an ensemble of familiar scholars with a healthy dose of new voices and next-generation researchers. Top-notch scholarship and state-of-the-art methods, augmented by high-quality color graphics and an extremely professional production, make David and McNiven's handbook the definitive general reference on rock imagery research. For researchers turned off by rock imagery research in the past, and others who never tuned in, this latest compendium shows what they have been missing. Readers will come away knowing that rock imagery research is on a promising trajectory, and it cannot—nor should not—be ignored.
