Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit

Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit

Paul S.C. Taon recently established the Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) at Griffith University. This research unit is located within the School of Humanities and advocates multidisciplinary, multicultural and scientific approaches to rock art and cultural evolution research. He has close collaborations with the Rock Art Research Centre at the Australian National University and the Centre for Rock-Art Studies at the University of Western Australia. Together, these three research groups are the foremost authority on rock art research in Australia

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Rock art of Uganda

Within the African nation of Uganda there is rock art that "sits within a broad geometric rock art belt straddling East and Central Africa." More specifically, "In Uganda, rock art is mostly concentrated in eastern part of the country, especially in the districts of Kumi, Pallisa and Kaberamaido." The rock art has a few aspects that make it unique. Most of it is geometric art with circular, rectangular, sausage, dot and lines making up the basic shapes. These shapes occur repeatedly throughout the country. Some shapes do occur more frequently than others. Catherine Namono notes that "concentric circles are the most commonly painted shapes in the rock art of Uganda." There are also concentric circles with rays coming out of them, possibly representing the sun. Red was the most common color along with white, or both creating a bi-chrome pigment.

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Coso Rock Art District

Coso Rock Art District is a rock art site containing over 100,000 Petroglyphs by Paleo-Indians and/or Native Americans. The district is located near the towns of China Lake and Ridgecrest, California. Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964. In 2001, they were incorporated into this larger National Historic Landmark District. There are several other distinct canyons in the Coso Rock Art District besides the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons. Also known as Little Petroglyph Canyon and Sand Tanks, Renegade Canyon is but one of several major canyons in the Coso Range, each hosting thousands of petroglyphs (other locations include Haiwee Springs, Dead End Canyon, and Sheep Canyon). The majority of the Coso Range images fall into one of six categories: bighorn sheep, entopic images, anthropomorphic or human-like figures (including animal-human figures known as pattern-bodied anthopomorphs), other animals, weapons & tools, and "medicine bag" images. Most of the Coso Range is on the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, where visitation is restricted, vandalism is low, and preservation is most likely. The Coso Range is between the Sierra Nevada and the Argus Range. Indian Wells Valley lies to the south of this location. This north-south trending range of about 400 square miles (1,000 km2) consists of rhyolitic domes and outcrops of volcanic rock. The most popular subjects are bighorn sheep, deer, and antelope. A November 2007 Los Angeles Times' Travel feature article includes it within a top 15 list of California places to visit. The area was also mentioned in Groupon's "10 Most Unique Autumn Festivals in the Country" as a part of the Ridgecrest Petroglyph Festival.

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Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape

The Gobustan Rock Art Cultural Landscape represents the history of humanity from the Upper Paleolithic era to the Middle Ages in Eurasia. It is situated at the south-east end of the Greater Caucasus ridge in Azerbaijan. it is located approximately 64 km away from center of Baku. The area of the site is 537 ha. The cultural landscape covers three rocky highlands in the semi-desert territory of central Azerbaijan. There are more than 6.000 rock engravings on more than 1.000 surfaces of rocks that reflects 40.000 years of history of rock art. During the archaeological excavation, 104 small-sized engraved stones were also discovered at different archaeological stages Petroglyphs in Gobustan dating about 5,000 to 8,000 years back contain longships similar to Viking ships. The discovery of ship illustrations among the rock paintings in Gobustan shows its relationship with the Mediterranean and the European continent. Jingirdag, Boyukdash, and Kichikdash mountains and Yazili hill are located in Gobustan, which are the home for the ancient rock art. Most of the rock carving can be found on the upper surface of Boyukdash and Kicikdash mountains. The paintings on the rock walls date back to 3-4 thousand years ago mainly reflect hunting scenes. Human (dancers, hunters, men wearing tropical helmets) and animal (deer and goat) paintings are depicted on the rocks of more sheltered sides. Images of animals on Gobustan rocks vary depending on the periods because of the change in the hunting targets (from big animals like aurochs and wild horses (during the Pleistocene period) to relatively smaller Holocene animals such as deer, wild boar and bird) according to the climate change starting at the beginning of the Holocene period. The petroglyphs on the walls of the living sites as "Firuz-1", "Firuz-2", "Gaya-arasi", "Gaya-Arasi-2" on Kicikdash Mountain, "Kaniza", "Ana-Zaga" on Boyukdash Mountain are similar to the petroglyphs on some stones in this site. One of the rocks has a Latin inscription belonging to the period of Roman Emperor Domitian's reign (81-96 AD), which shows the temporary stay of the 12th Roman Legion led by Fulminate on the Caspian shores. Another remnant of the early time is so-called "gaval chalan dash" (tambourine stone), an ancient musical instrument described in Gobustan Rock Art. In 1996, by the decree of the Council of Ministers of Azerbaijan SSR, the mountains were declared as Gobustan State Historical Artistic Preserve. By the decree of the president, the mountains were declared as National Reserve in 2007. For its quality and density of rock art engravings, Gobustan was declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007.