Plains Indian Rock Art

The ultimate guide to the rock art of the Plains region that stretches from the Rockies to the western Dakotas

The Plains region that stretches from northern Colorado to southern Alberta and from the Rockies to the western Dakotas is the land of the Cheyenne and the Blackfeet, the Crow and the Sioux. Its rolling grasslands and river valleys have nurtured human cultures for thousands of years. On cave walls, glacial boulders, and riverside cliffs, native people recorded their ceremonies, vision quests, battles, and daily activities in the petroglyphs and pictographs they incised, pecked, or painted onto the stone surfaces.

In this vast landscape, some rock art sites were clearly intended for communal use; others just as clearly mark the occurrence of a private spiritual encounter. Elders often used rock art, such as complex depictions of hunting, to teach traditional knowledge and skills to the young. Other sites document the medicine powers and brave deeds of famous warriors. Some Plains rock art goes back more than 5,000 years; some forms were made continuously over many centuries.

Archaeologists James Keyser and Michael Klassen show us the origins, diversity, and beauty of Plains rock art. The seemingly endless variety of images include humans, animals of all kinds, weapons, masks, mazes, handprints, finger lines, geometric and abstract forms, tally marks, hoofprints, and the wavy lines and starbursts that humans universally associate with trancelike states. Plains Indian Rock Art is the ultimate guide to the art form. It covers the natural and archaeological history of the northwestern Plains; explains rock art forms, techniques, styles, terminology, and dating; and offers interpretations of images and compositions.

James D. Keyser conducts research for the Indigenous Cultures Preservation Society. He has taught anthropology at SUNY Buffalo and the University of Tulsa, and served as Northwest Regional Archaeologist for the USDA Forest Service. He is the author of Clan Crests and Shamans' Masks: Petroglyphs in Southeast Alaska (Indigenous Cultures Preservation society, 2012), Rock Art of the Oregon Country (Oregon Archaeological Society Press, 2010), Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau (University of Washington Press, 1992); and coauthor of Plains Indian Rock Art (University of Washington Press, 2001).

"An outstanding study of the rock art of the northern Great Plains from Colorado to Alberta. This area contains some of the earliest evidence of human occupation in the Americas, and there is rock art covering thousands of years."

"In the empire of rock art (at least on the northwestern plains), Keyser and Klassen reign supreme."

"An outstanding contribution to rock art studies, of value . . . to those interested in the prehistory and history of the indigenous inhabitants of the Great Plains."—H-Net Reviews, H-AmIndian, H-Net Reviews, H-AmIndian