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Megalithic art studies by Chippindale and Taçon

• An archaeology of rock-art through informed methods and formal methods, P. Taçon and C. Chippindale, pp 1 10.

This provides general discussion of rock-art. Four essential questions need to be answered when looking at rock-art:
1. what the stuff is?
2. what date is it?
3. how is it studied with informed methods (myths, tales, still living people)?
4. how is it studied with formal methods (statistics, etc.)?
5. how is it studied by analogy (looking for comparable environments)?
• Pacific rock-art and cultural genesis: a multivariate exploration, Wilson, M., pp 163 - 184

Gives an overview of a 18 motif classification found in Pacific rock-art: circle, dot, oval, semi-circle, heart, scroll, crescent, spiral, serpentiforms, eye, line, star, cross, teardrop, zigzag, U-shape, rectangle, y-shape.
It also provides some idea how to analyze these motifs using formal methods (multiple-choice method). Using this it was possible to find the usage of the motifs over different Pacific islands (and the time of their introduction).
• Spatial behavior and learning in the prehistoric environment of the Colorado River drainage (south-eastern Utah), western North America, R. Hartley, A.M. Wolley Vawser, pp 185 - 211.

A method for measuring information in the rock-art compositions is by given, using the Shannon formula.
• The tale of the chameleon and the platypus: limited and likely choices making pictures, B. Smith, pp 212-228.

"One formal approach to pictures of which we do not have inside knowledge is to suppose that the naturalistic rule also holds there: by observing the traits of the picture, we should be able to figure out the traits of the subject it represents. How secure is this reasoning/ What general rules of picture-making may there be which will be instructive?"

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