Teacher's Guide for DIG ^TM Rock Art

Background:
In his article "The Start of Art," Dr. Paul Bahn states that the purpose of some rock art is "probably narrative or 'memory triggers' for remembering stories." Stained glass windows in Christian churches serve much the same function.

Our culture uses many symbols that convey meanings: the bald eagle, the 'golden arches,' round 'mouse ears,' a red cross, and a circle with a diagonal slash all convey meanings.

Objective:
Students will discover how symbols can convey meanings and how difficult it can be to interpret symbols, even when the creator and the interpreter live at the same time and are from substantially the same culture.

Materials:
Paper and pencils / markers

Process:
Divide class into groups of three or four. Each group is told to draw pictures about what they did over the past weekend (a pictograph). They may not use any letters or numbers. (Give students 15 minutes.)

Have each group make paper airplanes or wadded paper ball out of their "pictographs." They then fly or throw their pictograph to another group.

Tell your students that they are a team of archaeologists and because they are experts on the culture of your room number they have been called in to interpret recently found pictographs.

Ask students to write down their interpretations of the pictograph. (Give students 15 minutes.)

Have each group present their interpretation to their colleagues.

How close are the interpretations to their intended meaning?

Background:
Rock art is a message from the past. It is the result of creative and spiritual expression closer to works of religious art than modern graffiti that defaces public and private property. The forms of rock art are found around the world. Some images look representational to modern eyes and we can recognize animals and people. Many rock art images are symbolic and their meaning is lost in the mists of time.

PETROGLYPHS are rock art that are scratched or pecked into a rock. In the deserts of North America many rocks form a patina on their surface known as "desert varnish." When scratched or pecked the rock underneath is a lighter color. The PETROGLYPHS made on these rocks standout and are more visible than on other rocks.

PICTOGRAPHS are rock art where a pigment is applied to a rock surface. The most common colors used were black, red, yellow and white.

GEOGLYPHS (p 24) are large images made on the ground by removing or piling earth. Related, PETROFORMS involve laying out rocks on the ground to form images.

When conducting this lesson, it may be tempting to leave out session four. PLEASE DO NOT. It is vital to model the ethics of preservation and not writing on rocks.

Objective:
Students will learn about the difference types of rock art and investigate ways of protecting them.

Materials:
Clay, spray paint (for teacher use only), a paper clip for each student, paint & brushes, or markers, bags of colored rocks

Class time:

Option 1, Four 40-minute sessions or
Option 2, Two 40-minute sessions

Preparation
Teacher - Make a "rock panel" by slicing off sections of a "brick" of prepared clay (Red Clay works well.) and letting dry completely. Spray paint one side of the clay slice a flat brown. Have examples of rock art available for students. (There are many in the issue.)

Option 1

Process:
Divide class into groups of four. Give each a group a "rock panel" you have made.

Session One:

Have the students create pictographs on the unpainted side of the "rock."

Session Two:

Have the students create petroglyphs by carving on the painted side of the "rock panel" with the paper clips.

Session Three:

On the playground, have each of the groups make a geoglyph image by piling up or scraping away dirt or make a petroform image with the colored rocks.

Session Four:

Have a discussion on how fragile the rock art is and the problems in protecting and preserving them for the future. (See "Handle With Care" pages 28 - 30.)
Have each group come up with a plan to protect the rock art they have created. For the pictographs and petroglyphs, the protection plan is based on the assumption that the panels are mounted on the wall outside their classroom. For the geoglyphs / petroforms, the plan is based on protecting the images remaining outside, where they were made.
The plans need to consider protection from weather (if necessary) and vandalism. How much would it cost? Would the plan involve physical barriers, public education, camouflages, or hiding them, etc.

Option 2

To reduce the time taken by the lesson you could assign the groups only one style of rock art to make and protect, i.e. Groups 1 & 2 make pictographs, Groups 4, 5 & 6 make petroglyphs, and groups 7 & 8 make geoglyphs.

BASIC VOCABULARY

Anthropology:	the study of humans
Bison:	species of bison including the American "Buffalo"
Conservators:	people who work to protect, save and restore things from the past, usually in a museum setting
Geoglyphs:	images made on the ground by removing rocks, or earth
Graffiti:	drawn or painted images that deface public and private property
Homo erectus:	an early species of humans that existed from about 1.8 until 250,000 years before the present
Ice Age:	period when large parts of the earth were covered by sheets of ice. The last "ice age" reached maximum about 18,000 years before the present.
Mammoth:	extinct species of elephant
Neanderthals:	archaic humans who existed from about 100,000 to 30,000 years before the present
Panels (Rock Art):	a continuous section of rock with related pictographs or petroglyphs
Petroforms:	images created on the ground by placing rocks on the ground
Petroglyphs:	images carved or pecked into rocks
Pictographs:	drawings or paintings made on rocks
Pyrenees:	mountain range between France and Spain
Rock Art:	artistic activity created on rock or the ground by people. Most has been created in prehistoric times but some has been created in historic time. In Australia, the tradition of creating rock art still continues. Types of rock art include pictographs, petroglyphs, petroforms, and geoglyphs.
Tassili n' Ajer:	a plateau located in the Saharan desert of southeast Algeria

MORE RESOURCES
There are many publications on Rock Art. The shop at your local history or natural history museum should have some.

An Example:

Lauber, P. 1998, Painters of Caves. National Geographic Society, Washington D.C.
The book is written for the same age range as DIG^TM. It deals with what we think we know about the people who made the famous cave paintings of Chauvet in Southern France.

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Updated: 7/20/08 06:48 pm
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