D S Whitley
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 12461 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | D S Whitley |
| NOMBRES | D S |
| APELLIDO | Whitley |
| FIRMA | WHITLEY D S |
| AFILIACIONES | ASM International |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1647-1427 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 46 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 346 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 47 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1984 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 11 |
Problems of Dating Petroglyphs Using Measurements of Manganese Accumulation in Rock Varnish
Recent attempts at petroglyph dating have focused on measuring the manganese accumulation in the rock varnish coating that develops in a motif groove after it was engraved, under the assumption that this amount is systematically related to age. These efforts reflect the basic need for chronological control for both heritage management and research purposes. Despite the wide availability of portable X-ray fluorescence devices and their ability to …
Rock Varnish Dating, Surface Features and Archaeological Controversies in the North American Desert West
Archaeological surface features on desert pavements, including geoglyphs, are notoriously difficult to assess. Lacking temporally diagnostic artifacts, they may be impossible to place chronologically, limiting their inferential utility. Not surprisingly, controversies have developed in the North American desert west over certain of these features. We describe methods for chronometrically constraining the ages of desert pavement features using thr…
Cognitive science, dreams and supernatural power in far western North America
What do hunter-gatherer rock art motifs portray, and what does this tell us about their religious experiences? David Lewis-Williams was instrumental in establishing the connection between certain cultures’ corpora of art, shamanism and altered states of consciousness imagery. But one aspect of that spectrum of consciousness has been previously understudied. This is the place of Jung’s ‘Big Dreams,’ including specifically nightmares, in hunter-gat…
Beyond Correlation to Causation in Hunter–Gatherer Ritual Landscapes
Why are rock art sites found in certain places and not others? Can locational or environmental variables inform an understanding of the function and meaning of the art? How can we move beyond observed patterning in spatial associations to a credible explanation of such meanings and ensure that we are not confusing correlation with causation? And what variables were most relevant in influencing site locational choices? These and related problems, …
Ontological Beliefs and Hunter-Gatherer Ritual Landscapes
Landscapes are socially produced and reproduced spaces. This is easily recognizable for large-scale urban groups with built environments that dominate living places. But it also pertains to all types of societies and cultures, even small-scale hunter-gatherers, once the ontological beliefs structuring landscape perception and use are acknowledged. The foragers of south-central and southern California and the Great Basin illustrate this fact. They…
Etnografía, chamanismo y el arte rupestre del lejano oeste norteamericano
en el idioma principal de la revista): El lejano oeste norteamericano tiene un registro etnográfico muy detallado que incluye aspectos significativos acerca del chamanismo y su relación con el arte rupestre. Se resume aquí la evidencia etnográfica de tres áreas culturales (California, Gran Cuenca y Meseta de Columbia-Fraser). Dicha evidencia demuestra vínculos generalizados entre el arte y la representación de experiencias visionarias, considerad…
Threshold of Weathering Needed for Fire to Erode Rock Art
A Sonoran Desert petroglyph panel experienced an intense wildfire event in July 2021 that eroded the entire surface, removing the Hohokam-style rock art. Field observations during sampling in 1995 indicated that the panel: (1) was coated with a heavy rock varnish, (2) had a ‘fresh’ visual appearance, and (3) had some granite-derived sand (angular grus) at the panel’s base. Micron-scale back-scatter and nanoscale transmission electron microscopy o…
North American Rock Art
The Archaeology of Madness
Significant archaeological research has focused on the appearance of “cognitively modern” humans, yet one aspect of cognition, emotion, has largely been ignored. I argue that emotional modernity, as a component of our cognitive evolution, was only achieved when the full range of human emotions appeared; specifically, when mental illness had developed within the human population. Mood disorders, as a class of mental illness, were widely associated…
Ways of knowing and ways of seeing
Shamanism, Natural Modeling and the Rock Art of Far Western North American Hunter-Gatherers
Belief in the Past
Human actions are often deeply intertwined with religion and can be understood in a strictly religious context. Yet, many volumes and articles pertaining to discussions of religion in the archaeological past have focused primarily on the sociopolitical implications of such remains. The authors in this volume argue that while these interpretations certainly have a meaningful place in understanding the human past, they provide only part of the pict…
Belief in the Past
Advances in rapid condition assessments of rock art sites
Introduction to Rock Art Research
First published in 2005, this brief introduction to methods of studying rock art has become the standard text for courses on this topic. It was also selected as a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book in 2005. Internationally-known rock art researcher David Whitley takes the reader through the various processes needed to document, interpret, and preserve this fragile category of artifact. Using examples from around the globe, he offers a comp…
Anthropology and the Cognitive Challenge
Religion in the Emergence of Civilization
Few archaeological sites are more iconic than Catalhoyuk. Long seen as an exemplar of the Neolithic transition, it is large in size (about 14 hectares) and housed an ample population (3500–8000 peo
Le plus vieil art rupestre dans l’extrême ouest de l’Amérique du nord
Nous avons une série de 67 gravures rupestres datées par chronologie absolue, basée sur 106 analyses indépendantes provenant de la région du désert de Mojave en Californie, États‐Unis, dont une série de la Coso Range de renommée mondiale. Ces dates ont été obtenues en utilisant les techniques de datation par microlamination des patines (MLP) et par proportion de cations (PC). Nous avons pu évaluer cette suite de dates par recoupement, tests à l’a…
Archaeologists, Indians, and Evolutionary Psychology
The Earliest Rock Art in Far Western North America
We have developed a suite of 67 chronometrically-dated rock engravings, based on 106 independent assays, from the Mojave Desert region of California, USA. These ages have recently been crosschecked, blind-tested, re-sampled and evaluated by two analysts using the VML and CR techniques. The most conservative interpretation, based on independently verified chronometric ages, is that the engraving sequence extends from 11,100 to 250 YBP; that is, fr…
Rock Art Dating and the Peopling of the Americas
The peopling of the Americas is both the oldest and most frequently researched question in American archaeology. Although rarely considered, early art has the potential to provide insight into questions that may be obscured by other kinds of evidence, particularly stone tools. What part did art play in the peopling of the Americas? This question is addressed starting with a reconsideration of rock varnish chronometrics as applied to Great Basin, …
In Suspect Terrain
This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Rock Surfaces and Rock Engravings Rock Varnish Dating Approaches Squabbles or Issues of Fact? Aftermaths and Outcomes References
Solving Stonehenge
(2011). Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma. Time and Mind: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 107-109
The Impossible Land
New Perspectives in Cultural Resource Management
Archaeology has experienced a sea change. Near exclusively an academic discipline in the early 1970s, when I entered university, it is now primarily oriented towards cultural resource management (C
By the hunter, for the gatherer
The western Great Basin witnessed a transition from generalized hunting and gathering to a strategy emphasizing seed gathering at c. AD 1200. This was matched by accelerated production of ritual art: rock engravings, depicting big game and hunters. To explain this paradox, seed gatherers creating hunters' art, I examine directly relevant ethnography to show that the art concerns an application of a shaman's power: killing a mountain sheep was a m…
Handbook of Rock Art Research
Chapter 1 Rock Art and Rock Art Research in Worldwide Perspective: An Introduction Part 2 Analytical and Management Methods Chapter 3 Rock Art Recording Chapter 4 Management Planning for Conservation Chapter 5 Relative Dating Methods Chapter 6 Dating by AMS Radiocarbon Analysis Chapter 7 Chronometric Techniques: Engravings Chapter 8 Physical and Chemical Analysis Chapter 9 Style and Classification Part 10 Interpretive Approaches Chapter 11 Studyi…
New Perspectives on the Clovis vs. Pre-Clovis Controversy
We consider the Clovis vs. pre-Clovis debate from three perspectives: migration models; petroglyph and surface-artifact ages; and scientific method. First, we test the hypothesis that a Clovis migration can account for the temporal and spatial distribution of South American Paleoindian sites 'accepted' by Clovis-first advocates. Using a Clovis-first model, site ages are underpredicted by approximately 1,500 years, suggesting that the Clovis hypot…
Shamanism and Rock Art in Far Western North America
Ethnographic data on the production of rock art in far western North America - the historic hunter-gatherer cultures of California and the Great Basin - are reviewed and analyzed to identify widespread patterns in the origin and, in certain cases, symbolism of the late prehistoric/historical parietal art of this region. These data, collected in the first few decades of this century by a variety of ethnographers, suggest only two origins for the a…
Sympathetic Magic in Western North American Rock Art
Much rock art worldwide was traditionally interpreted in terms of 'hunting magic,' in part based on the related concept of 'sympathetic magic' In the last forty years, these interpretations were disproven in many regions and now are largely ignored as potential explanations for the origin and function of the art. In certain cases this may be premature. Examination of the ethnographic and archaeological evidence from western North America supports…
Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California
The combination of ethnographic and cognitive neuroscience research provides considerable insight into the origin and symbolism of Native Californian rock art. Although made by different social groups for different purposes in various parts of the state, the ethnographic record demonstrates that the art depicts the mental imagery and somatic hallucinations of trance, taken to represent supernatural experiences. When this art is viewed from a cogn…
New Approach to the Radiocarbon Dating of Rock Varnish, with Examples from Drylands
New electron microscope observations reveal that organic inclusions are often trapped in pockets under rock varnish. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of subvarnish organic detritus provides a new method of constraining when a rock was exposed by cultural or geomorphic processes. Applications are exemplified for human artifacts and landforms found in drylands. Three radiocarbon dates from 30,000 to 36,000 yr B.P. indicate rock engravings in South Au…
Rock art chronology in eastern California
Cation‐ratio dating has allowed us to obtain chronometric ages for 13 rock engravings from the Cima region, and an additional date from the Coso Range, eastern California, North America. These fourteen new dates, in combination with five previous dates from the Cosos and other lines of evidence, enable us to reassess the rock engraving chronology for eastern California. Rock engraving is indicated as beginning in the Late Pleistocene and continui…
Chronometric and Relative Age Determination of Petroglyphs in the Western United States
This paper presents chronometric age determinations of petroglyphs from the Coso Range and Cima volcanic field and relative dating from other locations in the western United States using the new rock varnish technique of cation-ratio dating. Our results verify the proposed Great Basin relative stylistic chronology, which indicates that curvilinear abstract was followed by rectilinear abstract and representational. However, these styles have great…
Sally's Rockshelter and the Archaeology of the Vision Quest
Quartz, the most common mineral on earth, is almost universally associated with shamans. Why this ritual association occurred worldwide has remained unexplained scientifically, at least in part because western scientific thinking assumes that religious beliefs and practices are epiphenomenal and not worthy of study. This association is archaeologi-cally evident at Sally's Rocksheiter, a small rock engraving-vision quest site in the Mojave Desert,…
Rock Art Dating and the Peopling of the Americas
The peopling of the Americas is both the oldest and most frequently researched question in American archaeology. Although rarely considered, early art has the potential to provide insight into questions that may be obscured by other kinds of evidence, particularly stone tools. What part did art play in the peopling of the Americas? This question is addressed starting with a reconsideration of rock varnish chronometrics as applied to Great Basin, …
Spatial autocorrelation tests and the Classic Maya collapse
Introduction to Rock Art Research
First published in 2005, this brief introduction to methods of studying rock art has become the standard text for courses on this topic. It was also selected as a Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Book in 2005. Internationally-known rock art researcher David Whitley takes the reader through the various processes needed to document, interpret, and preserve this fragile category of artifact. Using examples from around the globe, he offers a comp…
Socioreligious context and rock art in east-central California
El Bálsamo Residential Investigations
Faith in the past
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
New Light on Old Art
Rock art is the most visible aspect of the prehistoric hunter-gatherer archaeological record. Covering cave walls, cliff slides and boulder faces with painted and engraved designs, it challenges the archaeologist to address the symbolic, aesthetic, and religious sides of the past. Though traditionally marginalized in mainstream archaeology, recent advances in chronometric dating and interpretive techniques along with the development of cognitive …
Is there a shamanism and rock art debate
Advances in rapid condition assessments of rock art sites
The Rock Art Stability Index
Aesthetics and Rock Art. Editors
Ontological Beliefs and Hunter-Gatherer Ritual Landscapes
Landscapes are socially produced and reproduced spaces. This is easily recognizable for large-scale urban groups with built environments that dominate living places. But it also pertains to all types of societies and cultures, even small-scale hunter-gatherers, once the ontological beliefs structuring landscape perception and use are acknowledged. The foragers of south-central and southern California and the Great Basin illustrate this fact. They…
Religion in the Emergence of Civilization
Few archaeological sites are more iconic than Catalhoyuk. Long seen as an exemplar of the Neolithic transition, it is large in size (about 14 hectares) and housed an ample population (3500–8000 peo
A new strategy for analyzing the chronometry of constructed rock features in deserts
The western Great Basin contains thousands of constructed rock features, including rock rings, cairns, and alignments. Unlike subtractive geoglyphs, such as the Nasca Lines of Peru, that remove desert pavement, these surface features alter the location and positioning of cobble‐ to bouldersized rocks. The chronology of surface rock features has remained unconstrained by numerical ages because no prior chronometric approach has been able to yield …
Chronometric and Relative Age Determination of Petroglyphs in the Western United States
This paper presents chronometric age determinations of petroglyphs from the Coso Range and Cima volcanic field and relative dating from other locations in the western United States using the new rock varnish technique of cation-ratio dating. Our results verify the proposed Great Basin relative stylistic chronology, which indicates that curvilinear abstract was followed by rectilinear abstract and representational. However, these styles have great…
Spatial autocorrelation tests and the Classic Maya collapse
El Bálsamo Residential Investigations
Rock art chronology in eastern California
Cation‐ratio dating has allowed us to obtain chronometric ages for 13 rock engravings from the Cima region, and an additional date from the Coso Range, eastern California, North America. These fourteen new dates, in combination with five previous dates from the Cosos and other lines of evidence, enable us to reassess the rock engraving chronology for eastern California. Rock engraving is indicated as beginning in the Late Pleistocene and continui…
Socioreligious context and rock art in east-central California
New Approach to the Radiocarbon Dating of Rock Varnish, with Examples from Drylands
New electron microscope observations reveal that organic inclusions are often trapped in pockets under rock varnish. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of subvarnish organic detritus provides a new method of constraining when a rock was exposed by cultural or geomorphic processes. Applications are exemplified for human artifacts and landforms found in drylands. Three radiocarbon dates from 30,000 to 36,000 yr B.P. indicate rock engravings in South Au…
Shamanism and Rock Art in Far Western North America
Ethnographic data on the production of rock art in far western North America - the historic hunter-gatherer cultures of California and the Great Basin - are reviewed and analyzed to identify widespread patterns in the origin and, in certain cases, symbolism of the late prehistoric/historical parietal art of this region. These data, collected in the first few decades of this century by a variety of ethnographers, suggest only two origins for the a…
New Perspectives on the Clovis vs. Pre-Clovis Controversy
We consider the Clovis vs. pre-Clovis debate from three perspectives: migration models; petroglyph and surface-artifact ages; and scientific method. First, we test the hypothesis that a Clovis migration can account for the temporal and spatial distribution of South American Paleoindian sites 'accepted' by Clovis-first advocates. Using a Clovis-first model, site ages are underpredicted by approximately 1,500 years, suggesting that the Clovis hypot…
By the hunter, for the gatherer
The western Great Basin witnessed a transition from generalized hunting and gathering to a strategy emphasizing seed gathering at c. AD 1200. This was matched by accelerated production of ritual art: rock engravings, depicting big game and hunters. To explain this paradox, seed gatherers creating hunters' art, I examine directly relevant ethnography to show that the art concerns an application of a shaman's power: killing a mountain sheep was a m…
New Light on Old Art
Rock art is the most visible aspect of the prehistoric hunter-gatherer archaeological record. Covering cave walls, cliff slides and boulder faces with painted and engraved designs, it challenges the archaeologist to address the symbolic, aesthetic, and religious sides of the past. Though traditionally marginalized in mainstream archaeology, recent advances in chronometric dating and interpretive techniques along with the development of cognitive …
Cognitive Neuroscience, Shamanism and the Rock Art of Native California
The combination of ethnographic and cognitive neuroscience research provides considerable insight into the origin and symbolism of Native Californian rock art. Although made by different social groups for different purposes in various parts of the state, the ethnographic record demonstrates that the art depicts the mental imagery and somatic hallucinations of trance, taken to represent supernatural experiences. When this art is viewed from a cogn…
Sally's Rockshelter and the Archaeology of the Vision Quest
Quartz, the most common mineral on earth, is almost universally associated with shamans. Why this ritual association occurred worldwide has remained unexplained scientifically, at least in part because western scientific thinking assumes that religious beliefs and practices are epiphenomenal and not worthy of study. This association is archaeologi-cally evident at Sally's Rocksheiter, a small rock engraving-vision quest site in the Mojave Desert,…
Heart and Soul
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Handbook of Rock Art Research
Chapter 1 Rock Art and Rock Art Research in Worldwide Perspective: An Introduction Part 2 Analytical and Management Methods Chapter 3 Rock Art Recording Chapter 4 Management Planning for Conservation Chapter 5 Relative Dating Methods Chapter 6 Dating by AMS Radiocarbon Analysis Chapter 7 Chronometric Techniques: Engravings Chapter 8 Physical and Chemical Analysis Chapter 9 Style and Classification Part 10 Interpretive Approaches Chapter 11 Studyi…
Faith in the past
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Aesthetics and Rock Art. Editors
Is there a shamanism and rock art debate
A new strategy for analyzing the chronometry of constructed rock features in deserts
The western Great Basin contains thousands of constructed rock features, including rock rings, cairns, and alignments. Unlike subtractive geoglyphs, such as the Nasca Lines of Peru, that remove desert pavement, these surface features alter the location and positioning of cobble‐ to bouldersized rocks. The chronology of surface rock features has remained unconstrained by numerical ages because no prior chronometric approach has been able to yield …
Sympathetic Magic in Western North American Rock Art
Much rock art worldwide was traditionally interpreted in terms of 'hunting magic,' in part based on the related concept of 'sympathetic magic' In the last forty years, these interpretations were disproven in many regions and now are largely ignored as potential explanations for the origin and function of the art. In certain cases this may be premature. Examination of the ethnographic and archaeological evidence from western North America supports…
Archaeological Evidence for Conceptual Metaphors as Enduring Knowledge Structures
A key issue in cognitive linguistics concerns whether conceptual metaphors represent enduring knowledge structures and thus whether they comprise basic building blocks of human thought, with opinion divided over whether linguistic evidence alone can answer this question. Archaeological data in the form of rock engravings are combined with the ethnographic record from the western Great Basin of North America to resolve this problem. The evidence s…
Great Basin Rock Art
The Rock Art Stability Index
The Impossible Land
Solving Stonehenge
(2011). Solving Stonehenge: The New Key to an Ancient Enigma. Time and Mind: Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 107-109
In Suspect Terrain
This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Rock Surfaces and Rock Engravings Rock Varnish Dating Approaches Squabbles or Issues of Fact? Aftermaths and Outcomes References
Archaeology (35 obras) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (30 obras) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (28 obras) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (27 obras) · History (23 obras) · Geography (22 obras) · Rock art (22 obras) · Geology (14 obras) · Art (13 obras) · History (12 obras)