Palaeolithic engravings and sedimentary environments in the Côa River Valley (Portugal): implications for the detection,interpretation and dating of open-air rock art

The pre-Magdalenian phase of the Côa River Valley open-air rock art is mostly distributed at the boundary between the rocky valley slopes and the floodplain that correspond to the most favourable geomorphological setting for the preservation of pecked and deeply superposed engravings of the most famous artistic phase of the area. The natural vertical panels of the engraved art located at this geomorphological interface have suffered weathering during two cold events of the Lateglacial. They were buried by several colluvial and alluvial deposits. The reconstruction of the sedimentary and archaeological context of the CôaRiver Valley engraving permits a better assessment of the preservation processes and interpretation of Palaeolithic open-air rock art.     

Rock Art and Ritual: An Archaeological Analysis of Rock Art in Arid Central Australia

Rock art researchers throughout the world have explicitly or implicitly invoked ritual as an activity associated with the production of rock art but the articulation between the structure and composition of rock art assemblages and ritual behaviour remains poorly understood. Anthropologist, Roy Rappaport (1999) argued that all ritual, whatever the content or focus, has a universal structure. We review this proposition in the context of ritual studies and propose a method aimed at assessing the potential for identifying ritual structure in rock art assemblages. We discuss an archaeological analysis undertaken on the rock art assemblages in arid Central Australia, which aimed at distinguishing such a ritual structure among engraved assemblages, likely to have a Pleistocene origin, as well as more recent painted, stencilled and drawn assemblages. This analysis, despite its limitations, provides the foundation for developing a model, which will enhance the understanding of the relationship between the production of rock art and ritual.     

The Upper Paleolithic Rock Art of Iberia

Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both geographically and temporally in recent years, in close coincidence with the growth of contemporaneous archeological evidence: cave art loci in Aragón and Levante attributable to the Solutrean and Magdalenian, many cave art sites and a few open-air ones in Andalucía and Extremadura that are mostly Solutrean (in line with evidence of a major Last Glacial Maximum human refugium in southern Spain), the spectacular Côa Valley open-air complex in northern Portugal (together with a growing number of other such loci and one cave) that was probably created during the Gravettian-Magdalenian periods, and a modest, but important increase in proven cave and open-air sites in the high, north-central interior of Spain that are probably Solutrean and/or Magdalenian. Despite regional variations in decorated surfaces, themes, techniques and styles, there are broad (and sometimes very specific) pan-Iberian similarities (as well as ones with the Upper Paleolithic art of southern France) that are indicative of widespread human contacts and shared systems of symbols and beliefs during the late Last Glacial. As this Ice Age world and the forms of social relationships and ideologies that helped human groups survive in it came to an end, so too did the decoration of caves, rockshelters and outcrops, although in some regions other styles of rock art would return under very different conditions of human existence.     

贺兰山岩画博物馆选址分析

以文物遗址为依托的博物馆建设,一直是考古、历史、建筑、规划等专业人事关心和研究的课题之一。本文以贺兰山岩画博物馆选址为研究对象,在分析贺兰口岩画和聚落遗址空间分布特点的基础上,论述岩画、聚落遗址、生态环境与博物馆选址的关系,并着重从地段环境、生态环境、空间格局和视觉景观4个方面对拟选的3个方案进行综合比较分析,确定贺兰山岩画博物馆选址的最终方案,最后还为其他文物遗址博物馆选址提出了5条建设性原则。     

Latest developments in rock art recording: towards an integral documentation of Levantine rock art sites combining 2D and 3D recording techniques

This paper presents a further step in the integral documentation of prehistoric rock art, combining 2D and 3D digital recording techniques. Image processing and digital enhancement techniques are an invaluable aid to obtain high quality and accurate 2D recordings, especially when working with faint motifs or complex superimpositions. But what constitutes a real breakthrough is the possibility of combining 2D digital tracings with metric 3D models, providing a whole set of metric outputs that improve our understanding of the motifs in their context and, at the same time, can be used to deliver accurate metric reproductions.     

石窟岩体稳定性监测系统应用与研究

石窟岩体不稳定病害是威胁石窟安全的主要问题之一,需实时对石窟类岩体稳定性变化进行监测,获得的大量基础数据,可进一步验证和校核石窟类岩体保护的各种数学模型的有效性、可靠性。本研究以云冈石窟作为研究对象,探索各种监测手段在石窟岩体稳定性分析评价中的应用。成功地引入工程安全监测中的分析方法,研发了石窟岩体稳定性监测数据分析系统,对岩体表面变形、危岩体倾斜及岩体表面温度场分布等与岩体稳定性密切相关的因素进行了探索性应用研究。本研究促进了文物保护与其他专业学科的交叉与融合,加强了我国石窟文物保护的科技支撑能力。     

论岩画阐释中的多元视界

岩画意义的解释经常会出现望图生义或者恣意猜度的现象,导致学术界对岩画的解释产生了偏见。为了避免这种情况,在解读岩画的时候应当充分考虑各种可能的因素,如岩画所处的环境,岩画自身之间的关联,岩画产生地所呈现出来的地方性知识,其他学科的支持等。     

Minateda rock shelters (Albacete) and post-palaeolithic art of the Mediterranean Basin in Spain: pigments,surfaces and patinas

The inorganic and organic fractions of two microsamples of prehistoric paint from the same site, the Minateda rock shelters, are analysed here for the first time. The two samples correspond to two rock shelters of different styles (Levantine and schematic) – Abrigo Grande de Minateda (The Great Rock Shelter of Minateda) and Abrigo del Barranco de la Mortaja (Del Barranco de la Mortaja Rock Shelter). Since its discovery, historiographical tradition has emphasised the Abrigo Grande de Minateda, with its magnificence and complexity, as emblematic of the origin and evolution of rock art in the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula (a UNESCO World Heritage Site). Four complementary techniques –Microphotography, Scanning Electron Microscopy-Energy Dispersive X-Ray Spectroscopy (SEM-EDX), Raman Spectroscopy and Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectroscopy (GC–MS)– were combined to identify and characterise the physicochemical properties of the paint and of the surface. We present an interpretation of the results that leads us to define complex taphonomic alterations beyond the usual distinction of layers that include the surface, pigments and patinas.     

贺兰口岩画附近典型危岩体稳定性分析

通过前期现场调查,分析了贺兰口岩画的主要病害,提出岩画附近的危岩体是其中威胁较大的一类地质病害。根据现场勘察将贺兰口岩画附近不同状态的危岩体分为坠落式、滑塌式和倾倒式三类失稳模式。经过室内试验得到了岩石矿物组成、密度、气孔率、吸水率、单轴抗压强度等物理性质,并且利用Hoek-Brown准则、贯通率法以及岩石表面回弹值估算了危岩体与主控结构面的强度参数,例如单轴抗拉和抗压强度、变形模量、内摩擦角和黏聚力,然后利用不同失稳模式的计算方法进行稳定性分析。结果表明部分危岩体处于不稳定状态中,需要进行加固。     

The Classic-period pictographs at Juliq’ Cave,Alta Verapaz,Guatemala: an interdisciplinary approach to cave art as organizing principle

The Cave of Juliq’ in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala contains an impressive corpus of ancient Maya rock art. Unlike other examples of rock art in this area, the Juliq’ pictographs are simply rendered, generally consisting of lines, handprints, and other basic shapes. We thus focus on context rather than on iconographic content in order to access the meaning of these ancient pictographs. We argue that they were used to record human presence in and movement through the alien cave environment in specific ways, demarcating procession routes, points of transition, moments of physical prowess, and places charged with sacred power. These circuits within Juliq’ reflect attempts to order the Underworld landscape and link it to the surface world through ritual movement akin to aboveground ritual processions.