23rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists. Maastricht (NL)

Rock art is one of the most fascinating and widespread cultural manifestations of humankind, a special and significant visual archive of past societies. It is present in almost every region around the world, with great variability in terms of chronologies, techniques and geo-cultural contexts. Rock art has always got the attention of scientists, ‘amateurs’, administrations and, stakeholders, and more recently of tourist operators. However, for a long time and in many regions rock art research has been marginalized from the mainstream archaeological and anthropological debates. This is mainly due to substantial problems in obtaining absolute dates to place rock art in context. In some international discussion forums, such as EAA meetings, this has led to focus attention on management and preservation or to symbolic and religious aspects, provoking rejection of those advocating for the scientific study of rock art. The ‘Third Science Revolution’ of the last decade has also influenced rock art research. The use of state of the art technologies to digitally record rock art, landscape approaches based on quantitative and GIS modelling, as well as the physicochemical and isotopic analysis of pigments, are becoming standard tools in approaching rock art. But how new digital technologies contributed to our understanding of rock art? Are new analytical methods contributing to explore new research questions? Have they improved our understanding of past forms of art? We invite scholars working on rock art research anywhere in the world to discuss any of these topics from their own perspectives and experiences.