Early Rock Art of the American West: The Geometric Enigma

"Here, finally, is a book that presents the remarkable first paleoart of North America comprehensively and in all its glory. Malotki?s marvelous ability to capture rock art photographically has been noted before as being without equal, and this book is no exception. . . . But what makes this volume so precious is the most propitious combination of Malotki?s encyclopedic knowledge of the Southwest?s rock art with Dissanayake?s sophisticated understanding of the nature of art-like production."

Robert Bednarik, Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture

"Drawing on the insights of ethology, cognitive archaeology, evolutionary biology, and the psychology of art and art-making, the authors succeed in building a brilliant, substantive case for the antiquity of the early geometric enigmas that span the American West, and for the psychology behind their creation. . . . Essential. All readers."

Choice

"In this fascinating volume, linguist Ekkehart Malotki and scholar Ellen Dissanayake parse images created up to 15,000 years ago by Palaeoamericans from Arizona to Idaho, speculating about their origins and functions. Alongside Malotki?s stunning photographs of some 200 examples, the authors recontextualize the relics as products of ritualistic activity (?artification?) rather than symbolic artworks."

Nature