Land Use, Land Ideology: An Integrated Geographic Information Systems Analysis of Rock Art Within South-Central California

While rock art is global in distribution, it remains a media fix in placed within particular physical environments. Because of this, it can be examined using various spatial approaches and technologies. By integrating a variety of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications to examine the location and position of rock art in relation to both natural features and other archaeological deposits, a detailed understanding of the positioning of rock art can be advanced. In this case, I employ this methodology to address the presence that rock art exerted within the Emgidiano/HulkuhkuChumash landscape of South-Central California. In so doing, I demonstrate that specific research questions concerning rock art in public or private contexts can be addressed, and that in this example, the pictographs of theHulkuhkuwere visibly integrated within the intimate confines of the most important economic places in the landscape, showing that subsistence and symbolic practices were conjoined through ideological media.