The term “Western Message Petroglyphs” (WMPs) refers to a number of petroglyph sites found scattered among eight western states that are recognized by their shared image content and layout. The imagery is drawn largely from a mash-up of late historic Native American sign-gesture language and picture-writing traditions inter-mixed with pan-cultural imagery from around the world. An increasing number of sites that fit this mold have been reported over the past 85 years or so, currently numbering 39 in all. There is no question that these sites date to post-European contact based on images in some panels that depict Euro-American cultural content (e.g., western-style house, rifle, whiskey keg, horse, etc.). The post-contact era is also apparent in the method used in rendering the engraved images evidenced by the smooth angular lines and chisel strikes produced by metal tools. This paper focuses on narrowing the time frame for these sites based on two additional streams of evidence. First, patterned associations with historic landscape settings tied to the era of western expansion bind the sites together into a coherent whole and set a floor for their oldest probable dates. An example of four sites located in Utah and Arizona illustrates their connection to the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the opening years of the twentieth. Secondly, a study of their imagery supports the proposed dates by revealing a “smoking gun” for the source of many of the individual icons. An example of the methodology used to translate a Western Message Petroglyph panel is described, and a profile of the central author who appears to have acted with a small group of others is suggested in order to aid in the search for this person(s) in the historic record of the American West.

Recent museum, archaeological, and observer record evidence suggests that North American beaver (Castor canadensis) were historically native to the watersheds of California's coast, including San Francisco Bay. A wide variety of animals are abundantly represented in Native American petroglyphs and pictographs with their representations fulfilling intentions ranging from the mundane to ceremonial and mythological purposes. However, beaver symbols are poorly represented in California rock art and absent from the San Francisco Bay Area. A novel record, in the form of Western Message Petroglyphs, suggests that a beaver lodge was present in the late nineteenth century in the Alameda Creek watershed, potentially the last evidence of beaver prior to their extirpation in the region by the fur trade.

The Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database is an open access; online resource that fulfills the need for a searchable portal into the world's rock art literature. Geared to the broadest interests of rock art researchers; students; cultural resource managers; and the general public; the RAS database makes rock art literature accessible through a simple search interface that facilitates inquiries into multiple data fields; including authors' names; title and publication; place-name keyword; subject keyword; ISBN/ISSN number and abstract. The results of a data search can further be sorted by any of the data fields; including: authors' names; date; title; and so forth. An ever increasing number of citations within the database include web links to online versions of the reference cited; and many citations include full author's abstracts. The data compilation has been undertaken by Leigh Marymor with the year 2018 marking the 25th year of continuous revision and expansion of the data. Over 37,000 citations are currently contained in the database. The RAS database first launched online as a joint project of the Bay Area Rock Art Research Association and University of California's Bancroft Library. After thirteen years of collaboration; the project found a new home and collaborator at the Anthropology Department at the Museum of Northern Arizona. The Paleolithic Rock Art bibliography results from an export of data from the RAS database and captures a freeze-frame in the state of the rock art literature for the world's Paleolithic rock art as compiled here in the year 2018. The online version of the RAS Bibliographic Database at the Museum of Northern Arizona is updated annually; and we refer the reader to that resource for up-to-date bibliographic data revisions and additions. Researchers who consult the online database in concert with their reference to the Paleolithic Rock Art bibliography will discover a powerful ally in further refining geographic and thematic inquiries.

The Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database is an open access, online resource that fulfils the need for a searchable portal into the world's rock art literature. Geared to the broadest interests of rock art researchers, students, cultural resource managers and the general public, the RAS database makes rock art literature accessible through a simple search interface that facilitates inquiries into multiple data fields, including authors' names, title and publication, placename and subject keywords, ISBN/ISSN number and abstract. The results of a data search can further be sorted by any of the data fields, including: authors' names, date, title and so forth. An ever increasing number of citations within the database include web links to online versions of the reference cited, and many citations include full author's abstracts. The data compilation has been undertaken by Leigh Marymor with the year 2018 marking the 25th year of continuous revision and expansion of the data. Over 37 200 citations are currently contained in the database. The RAS database first launched online as a joint project of the Bay Area Rock Art Research Association and University of California's Bancroft Library. After thirteen years of collaboration, the project found a new home and collaborator at the Anthropology Department at the Museum of Northern Arizona. The Australian Rock Art Bibliography results from an export of approximately 1980 citations from the RAS database and captures a freeze-frame in the state of Australian rock art literature as compiled here in the year 2018. The online version of the RAS Bibliographic Database at the Museum of Northern Arizona is updated annually, and we refer the reader to that resource for up-to-date bibliographic data revisions and additions. Researchers who consult the online database in concert with their reference to the Australian Rock Art Bibliography will discover a powerful ally in further refining geographic and thematic inquiries.