My bookshelf·Index No. 0283

Myths about Rock Art

On My Shelf, Not Yet Read

Bednarik is a self-taught Australian researcher with more than a thousand papers and no formal degree, and he has spent his career telling the rock art field it is making things up. This is the catalog of that. Natural cracks and mineral stains identified as engravings. Confident readings of what a figure means from people with no connection to the culture that made it. Dating methods that don’t hold. The shaman-in-trance theory applied to everything everywhere. Sensational claims that get press and never get retracted. He’s abrasive about it, and the useful part is the standard he’s arguing for: Say what you can actually demonstrate, and admit that meaning is usually gone.

Myths about Rock Art
By Robert G. Bednarik. Archaeopress Archaeology, 2016. 220 pages.