This essay explores how rock art can be studied through a biographical lens using both informed and formal methodologies. It demonstrates how identifying the artists-known and unknown-behind the images can illuminate the social, cultural, and historical contexts of their creation. Drawing on global examples, with a particular focus on Africa, Australia, and North America, the essay highlights the need to integrate archaeological, ethnographic, and art-historical perspectives to uncover individual agency, creativity, and intent within rock art traditions. It argues that while biographical approaches offer a powerful means of reconnecting artworks with their makers and communities, such perspectives have often been constrained by cultural-historical frameworks and colonial assumptions that deny Indigenous authorship. By re-centring the artist, their lifeworlds, and ongoing cultural traditions, this study seeks to humanise rock art research and encourage a more inclusive, ethically grounded understanding of this diverse global heritage.
In June 2025, the Garitang Inscription of the Qin-the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau's only in situ Qin-Dynasty rock inscription-was discovered in Maduo County, Qinghai. Linked to some historical debates (Kunlun Mountain's location and Qin Shi Huang's quest for immortality), its authenticity raised scepticism regarding its historical, environmental and logistical feasibility. Researchers addressed these concerns through rock varnish analysis (>= 2500 years old), microerosion dating (quartz erosion, similar to 2100 years, aligning well with 210 BCE), and textual verification via the Shanhaijing to clarify ambiguities in characters like 'Kunlun' and 'medicine'. This discovery fills gaps in Qin western expansion records, establishes an integrated framework for arid-zone inscriptions, and provides key calibration data for Qinghai-Tibet rock art dating. It also confirms early cultural exchanges between Han China and the western frontiers during the Qin-Han transition.
Snake Rock is a singular and major Wiradjuri rock art site in central New South Wales, Australia. Along with other rock art sites in the region, it has not been previously published. Local Wiradjuri tradition describes the site as a highly important congregation place for regional meetings and ceremonies. Detailed recording of Snake Rock documented 96 images in a repertoire of figurative and non-figurative paintings and drawings, and hand prints. The multi-layered art does not conform to the surrounding regional repertoires of south-east Australia, making it, both culturally and archaeologically, a highly significant place.
Rock art research looks in multiple directions. It is often seen as situated between archaeology and anthropology. Archaeology provides the tools and frameworks to categorise and analyse rock art across time and space, while anthropology-especially when supported by informed, emic perspectives-offers rare but invaluable insights into the meaning and creation of these visual expressions. Globally, opportunities to engage directly with rock art artists within living traditions remain exceptional. Our collaborative community-led project, Making Rock Art Today: Encounters with Practising Samburu Rock Art Painters (2025-2027), presents a rare opportunity of this kind. We work closely with several Samburu Lmurran (bachelor warrior) artists, who continue to create both pictographs (paintings) and petroglyphs (engravings). Their firsthand accounts allow us to explore how a biographical approach can enrich traditional formal and contextual analyses of rock art. This article focuses on one artist, Loingeru Leparsore, and his memories of creating rock paintings in three rock shelters located within walking distance of Ngurunit village in Samburu County, northern Kenya.
This article presents an analytical description of a modified cave bear cranium in a private collection, reportedly from a cave in the Bihor region of western Romania. The specimen, dated to 34,472-35,277 cal BP (Early Upper Palaeolithic), exhibits extensive, bi-lateral, near-symmetrical perforations through the frontal vault. A systematic taphonomic assessment evaluates and excludes natural formation processes-including carnivore activity, mechanical damage, and chemical erosion-based on controlled fracture margins, the preservation of fragile internal sinus architecture, and fracture morphologies consistent with modification of fresh, collagen-rich bone. The observed patterning is most parsimoniously consistent with deliberate human intervention. The configuration of the frontal perforations possesses'exogrammatic' properties, reliably eliciting a face-like perception (pareidolia), suggesting the modification may have been intended for visual transformation or display. The findings place the cranium within a broader European context of structured, non-utilitarian handling, curation, and deposition of cave bear remains documented at several Palaeolithic sites, supporting its interpretation as an intentionally altered object.
