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Dating Crow Rock Art through Multivariate Statistical Comparison with Biographic Artworks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2019

Stephen J. Lycett  and
James D. Keyser
Stephen J. Lycett*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York (SUNY), Amherst, NY 14261, USA
James D. Keyser
Affiliation:
Oregon Archaeological Society, 1815 SW DeWitt, Portland, OR 97239, USA ([email protected])
*
([email protected], corresponding author)
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Abstract

Historic period Plains biographic art provides narratives of the deeds and actions of Indigenous peoples of the region. The Crow (Apsáalooke) are one such people with a rich record of biographic drawings in rock art and portable works. However, chronological and stylistic links between these two media have long been thought out of reach, even though such links are essential if the abundant Historic period rock art is to be fully incorporated into discussions of Apsáalooke history and their connection better ascertained to documented historical and ethnohistorical events and trends. Indeed, the lack of such a framework locks away a vast wealth of history in these hundreds of rock art pictures. In this article we present a statistical framework for comparing better-dated Crow portable artworks with their rock art equivalents. We are able to place rock art imagery from five sites into a relatively fine-grained chronological order, which permits a better understanding of changing patterns in Crow stylistic imagery. This permits a direct association with changing historical circumstances and facilitates a better understanding of the link between social history and the changing patterns seen in these artworks. Moreover, in one case, our analysis provides archaeological confirmation of Crow ethnohistory.

El arte biográfico de las Llanuras del período histórico proporciona narrativas de los hechos y acciones de los grupos tribales de la región. El Crow (Apsáalooke) es uno de esos grupos con un rico registro de dibujos biográficos en arte rupestre y obras portátiles. Sin embargo, los vínculos cronológicos y estilísticos entre estos dos medios se han pensado fuera de su alcance, a pesar de que dichos vínculos son esenciales para que el abundante arte rupestre histórico se incorpore plenamente a las discusiones sobre la historia del Apsáalooke, y su conexión con los eventos y tendencias históricas y etnohistóricas documentadas son mejor comprobados. De hecho, con la falta de dicho marco, una gran cantidad de historia permanece encerrada en estos cientos de cuadros de arte rupestre. Aquí, presentamos un marco estadístico para comparar las obras de arte portátiles de Crow más fechadas con sus equivalentes de arte rupestre. Podemos colocar imágenes de arte rupestre de cinco sitios en un orden cronológico muy preciso, que permite una mejor comprensión de los patrones cambiantes en las imágenes estilísticas de Crow. Como mostramos, esto permite una asociación directa con circunstancias históricas cambiantes, y facilita una mejor comprensión del vínculo entre la historia social y los patrones cambiantes vistos en estas obras de arte. Además, en un caso, nuestro análisis proporciona una confirmación arqueológica de la etnohistoria de Crow.

Keywords

biographic artrock artNorthern Plainsarte biográficoarte rupestreLlanuras del Norte
Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 4 , October 2019 , pp. 632 - 650
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by the Society for American Archaeology 

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