A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest [Paperback]

Alex Patterson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1992

This is the first specifically designed key to the interpretation of American rock art. Interest in the subject has grown significantly among professional archaeologists and informed lay persons in recent years, but the purpose and meaning that the intriguing symbols had for their creators remain a mystery. Although the significance of the symbols will never be known for certain, educated guesses can be made. The "Field Guide" brings together 600 commentaries on specific symbols by over one hundred archaeologists, anthropologists, researchers, and Native American informants. Intended to be used in the field, as well as a reference, the book includes a pictorial key at the beginning and is organized by tentative meaning or by description. The reader can easily find the one or several of the 500 illustrations that most closely match the symbol in question. Patterson emphasizes the tentative nature of the interpretations and has included an index by neutral archaeological description as well as complete documentation of every excerpted comment. The range of the book is from the northern states of Mexico to Utah and from California to Colorado.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Johnson Books (July 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555660916
• ISBN-13: 978-1555660918
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #699,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #86 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Prehistoric & Primitive

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life on the rocks, May 17, 2000

By 

Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest (Paperback)

Work done by others is always fascinating, which is why national parks featuring ancient ruins are so popular; they showcase the incredible and often very beautiful work done in the Southwest before Europeans arrived.

It takes a lot of work and skill to create a petroglyph. I know, I've tried it. A full day's work produces only a small image. First, find a hard river stone with a pointy end; then, spend hours using it to chip away enough desert varnish and surface rock to make a shallow indent on a large boulder or cliff face. When you finish, since rocks don't rot or grow back, the design will last thousands of years.

Rock art wasn't doodles or graffiti, churned out in a trivial moment or so; it is serious statements of faith that Native Americans took days or weeks to produce. The original meanings may never be recovered, which is a great loss; but, the artistry can still be appreciated. Patterson's sketches are clear, concise and free of unrelated static. Since petroglyphs are the originals of modern Native American art, this is also a guide for artists, historians and poets of the Southwest.

It is a bilingual dictionary, everything from "arrow" and "atlatl" to "X-ray styles." In Spanish, it helps to know "Alto" means "Stop;" in the petroglyph language, it helps to know what sign means "Sun." Patterson offers educated insights into 600 common petroglyphs. People today link certain symbols to ideas, such as an "apple" as a gift for a teacher, a still life art object, a kind of pie, or a computer. In all likelihood, every petroglyph had as many or more meanings -- depending on the story teller.

Consider Patterson's description of the sun sign, which is still a popular design for silver jewelry from the Pueblos: ". . . the outer circle represents the ring of light around the Sun, the second represents the sun itself, and the inner circle or dot, his umbilicus, which opens to provide mankind with game and other sustenance." Next, think of modern artists who see the sun and paint a yellow circle, while others paint a yellow circle and create a sun. Now, the petroglyph sun sign takes on new meaning.

Art expresses a sense of adventure. A thousand years ago, petroglyphs were patiently chipped into boulders and cliffs to create a permanent memory of unique and special events. They portray a dramatic history of gods, demons, giants, tricksters and rare events as powerful and devious and clever as any Nordic saga. They also offer maps to the beginning of creation and pathways to a fulfilled life. Petroglyphs are a record of the exploration, knowledge and interpretation of America long before its "discovery" by Europeans. It reminds us that we have much yet to understand; it may not be the "Rosetta stone" of the Southwest, but it is one of the texts.

This is a masterful guide, sensibly devoid of guesswork and idle speculation (that's my field). Every society invents, discovers, experiments and creates to explain its origins and values. Patterson classifies common themes that were important enough to be written on rock. Rock art is one of our cultural treasures. If you want a book of facts about it, this is where to start.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Great Resource with some flaws, November 6, 2003

By 

Jack Purcell (Placitas, NM USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest (Paperback)

Patterson's created one of the best resources available on ancient rock art. As a means of understanding ancient rock art in North America the book probably occupies an unchallenged place on the bookshelf of anyone interested in these 'artifacts'. Unfortunately, as a field guide the book has some serious organizational snags. The specific types of subject matter are arranged in ways to cause a person in a field setting to create some rock-art of his own with his fingernails. Even though my copy of this book is tattered through long use I continue to have difficulties relocating what I'm searching for in the text. I usually carry a simpler and better organized field guide for quick and dirty work and leave the Patterson book for a time when I'm sitting on a rock somewhere catching my breath after the fact.

All this said, I believe this book is a great one and I'd recommend it for home study. There's not a better one available.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A concordance of rock art, February 19, 2007

By 

M. Broderick "mikebinok" (Oklahoma City, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest (Paperback)

My instinct was to refer to this as a dictionary of rock art symbols, but that's not quite right--The book isn't quite that precise. The book lists a number of categories of rock art symbols, with postage-stamp sized illustrations, and brief passages, mostly cited from other authors, explaining what that author thought might be the importance or meaning of that symbol. There is a very brief list (perhaps three pages) of the most important rock art sites, with EXTREMELY cryptic directions ("Exit at I-40, ask for directions at park visitor center", for example). As a result, this book will help you before a visit by preparing you for what sort of things you might see and what they meant, and it will help you afterwards, in figuring out what you saw, but it won't help you plan the visit or be a guide during the visit.

Worthwhile if you really want to try to understand what you are seeing at these sites, but not one-book coverage of the subject--And probably more than you want to know if a single book on rock art is all you want.