15 Facts About Rock art

Rock art continues to be of importance to indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, who view them as both sacred items and significant components of their cultural heritage.

Term rock art appears in the published literature as early as the 1940s.

Parietal art is a term for art in caves, the definition usually extended to art in rock shelters under cliff overhangs.

Parietal Rock art is found very widely throughout the world, and in many places new examples are being discovered.

Rock art is a global phenomenon, being found in many different regions of the world.

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Miniature stencilled Rock art has been found at two locations in Australia and one in Indonesia.

In other instances, the rock art is pecked out through indirect percussion, as a second rock is used like a chisel between the hammerstone and the panel.

Rock art reliefs are generally fairly large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air.

Rock art can be found across a wide geographical and temporal spread of cultures perhaps to mark territory, to record historical events or stories or to help enact rituals.

Some Rock art seems to depict real events whilst many other examples are apparently entirely abstract.

Australian Indigenous Rock art represents the oldest unbroken tradition of Rock art in the world.

In 2008 rock art depicting what is thought to be a Thylacoleo was discovered on the north-western coast of the Kimberley.

Discipline of rock art studies witnessed what Whitley called a "revolution" during the 1980s and 1990s, as increasing numbers of archaeologists in the Anglophone world and Latin America turned their attention to the subject.

In doing so, they recognised that rock art could be used to understand symbolic and religious systems, gender relations, cultural boundaries, cultural change and the origins of art and belief.

However, the study of rock art worldwide is marked by considerable differences of opinion with respect to the appropriateness of various methods and the most relevant and defensible theoretical framework.