Rock Art of the Caribbean focuses on the nature of Caribbean rock art or rock graphics and makes clear the region's substantial and distinctive rock art tradition.

Social and behavioral scientists study religion or spirituality in various ways and have defined and approached the subject from different perspectives. In cultural anthropology and archaeology the understanding of what constitutes religion involves beliefs, oral traditions, practices and rituals, as well as the related material culture including artifacts, landscapes, structural features and visual representations like rock art. Researchers work to understand religious thoughts and actions that prompted their creation distinct from those created for economic, political, or social purposes. Rock art landscapes convey knowledge about sacred and spiritual ecology from generation to generation. Contributors to this global view detail how rock art can be employed to address issues regarding past dynamic interplays of religions and spiritual elements. Studies from a number of different cultural areas and time periods explore how rock art engages the emotions, materializes thoughts and actions and reflects religious organization as it intersects with sociopolitical cultural systems.

This unique guide provides an artistic and archaeological journey deep into human history, exploring the petroglyphic and pictographic forms of rock art produced by the earliest humans to contemporary peoples around the world. Summarizes the diversity of views on ancient rock art from leading international scholars Includes new discoveries and research, illustrated with over 160 images (including 30 color plates) from major rock art sites around the world Examines key work of noted authorities (e.g. Lewis-Williams, Conkey, Whitley and Clottes), and outlines new directions for rock art research Is broadly international in scope, identifying rock art from North and South America, Australia, the Pacific, Africa, India, Siberia and Europe Represents new approaches in the archaeological study of rock art, exploring issues that include gender, shamanism, landscape, identity, indigeneity, heritage and tourism, as well as technological and methodological advances in rock art analyses

Publisher description.

Association of Catholic Publishers 2022 Excellence in Publishing Awards: First Place, Theology Catholic Media Association, Honorable Mention in Theology: Morality, Ethics, Christology, Mariology, and Redemption Unveiling divine mysteries across continents and centuries. Revelation in the Vernacular retrieves a hermeneutics of the vernacular that is rooted en lo cotidiano, in everyday life and experience. Traversing time and geography, Ruiz remaps a theology of revelation done latinamente, beginning with sixteenth-century encounters of Spanish colonizers with Indigenous peoples in the Caribbean. Drawing on the theology of the Incarnation articulated by Fray Luis de León (1527–91), he offers rich resources for interreligious engagement by believers in today’s religiously diverse world. Through an analysis of the documents of the 2019 Amazonian Synod, including Querida Amazonia, the Postsynodal Exhortation by Pope Francis, he explores a culture of encounter and dialogue that has been a hallmark of this pontificate. From the inscriptions in the caves of la Isla de Mona through the writings of the Latin American Bishops (CELAM), this book establishes a solid basis on which to discern the “Seeds of the Word” in our times.

This international volume draws together key research that examines visual arts of the past and contemporary indigenous societies. Placing each art style in its temporal and geographic context, the contributors show how depictions represent social mechanisms of identity construction, and how stylistic differences in product and process serve to reinforce cultural identity. Examples stretch from the Paleolithic to contemporary world and include rock art, body art, and portable arts. Ethnographic studies of contemporary art production and use, such as among contemporary Aboriginal groups, are included to help illuminate artistic practices and meanings in the past. The volume reflects the diversity of approaches used by archaeologists to incorporate visual arts into their analysis of past cultures and should be of great value to archaeologists, anthropologists, and art historians. Sponsored by the World Archaeological Congress.