The Prehistoric Rock Art of Portugal presents significant interpretive perspectives in Portuguese rock art research and offers an excellent representation of core rock art areas, along with current thinking and interpretations.

The various chapters deliver a personal approach to the many issues, themes and approaches that are embedded within the rock art of the outpost of western Atlantic Europe. Ethnographical perspectives have often dominated the study of rock art but unlike other well-studied regions, the western Iberian Peninsula is absent of an ethnographical or ethno-historical past and therefore the production of rock art can only be archaeologically assessed.

Thus, the work promotes interpretive perspectives on Portuguese rock art, illustrating the richness, chronology and context of these unique artistic expressions and explores the variability of rock art imagery and the diversity of landscapes and social contexts in which it was produced.

Although focusing on Portuguese rock art the book includes a number of universal themes that will appeal to a broad range of scholars researching in archaeology and anthropology, history of art, as well as professionals engaged in rock art heritage and conservation.

About the Editors

 Sara Garcês is a Rock Art Researcher, Contract Researcher and Guest-Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Tomar. She is also a Researcher at the Geosciences Centre of the University of Coimbra (u. ID73 – FCT), and Earth and Memory Institute (ITM) in Portugal. Dr Garcês is a specialist in post-Paleolithic rock art of the Iberian Peninsula and gained her doctorate at Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro University in Portugal. Dr. Garcês is engaged with paintings and engravings 2D and 3D tracing and several multidisciplinary research projects about prehistoric pigments archaeometry across the Iberian Peninsula, UK, Israel, Italy, and Brazil. Her research also focuses on archaeological rock art pigment analyses both in caves and open-air contexts. Her doctoral research is based on the prehistoric rock art of Tagus River Basin. Currently, Dr Garcês is engaged in TURARQ project and FIRST-ART project. Dr Garcês has authored three books on Tagus rock art and has written papers in several national and international journals.

George Nash is an Associate Professor at IPT, a Researcher at the Geosciences Centre of the University of Coimbra (u. ID73 – FCT), and Earth and Memory Institute (ITM) in Portugal and an Associate Researcher within the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool. Dr Nash is a specialist in Palaeolithic rock art, and gained his doctorate at NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. Here, Dr Nash researched engraved and painted hunter-gatherer rock art along coastal Norway and Levantine Spain. Between 1998 and 2016, Dr Nash taught at the University of Bristol and was responsible for the latter part of the part-time degree in Archaeology. Dr Nash has undertaken research from many parts of the world and has published over 170 peer-reviewed articles and has edited, co-edited and written 48 books. In 2022, Dr Nash was invited to advise and participate in a six-part television series that dealt with the movement of early modern humans in Europe and the rock art they produced. Dr Nash is currently part of the First Art team, undertaking fieldwork in the caves and rock shelters of Spain and Portugal.

Book Details

Title: The Prehistoric Rock Art of Portugal: Symbolising Animals

Editors: George Nash & Sara Garcês

Publisher: ‎Routledge

Publication Date‏: October 30, 2023

Language‏: ‎ English

Hardcover: 368pp

Available @ Amazon.com