Membership
Rock Art Network Member Profiles:
Neville Agnew
Wendy All
Carolyn Boyd
Sam Challis
Tamia Choqueticlla
David Coulson
Savino di Lernia
Meenakshi Dubey-Pathak
Pilar Fatás Monforte
Jean-Michel Geneste
Jan Magne Gjerde
Nicholas Hall
María Isabel Hernández Llosas
Rachel Hoerman
Richard Kuba
Terry Little
Johannes Loubser
Martin Marquet
Aron Mazel
Tom McClintock
Jo McDonald
Catherine Namono
George Nash
Adhi Agus Oktaviana
Gerard O’Regan
Ffion Reynolds
Peter Robinson
Sharon Sullivan
Paul S.C. Taçon
Noel Hidalgo Tan
Jo Anne Van Tilburg
David S. Whitley
Neville Agnew
Neville Agnew grew up in South Africa and received degrees from the University of Natal in chemistry and geology, followed by a PhD. He taught chemistry at Rhodes University. In the mid-1970s he moved to Australia, taking a research position at the University of Queensland and later in the newly formed conservation department of the Queensland Museum where he worked on a number of field projects including the Lark Quarry Dinosaur Trackways, the historic HMS Pandora shipwreck, and preservation of a penal colony in Moreton Bay. He joined Getty Conservation Institute in 1988 and has participated in a number of the GCI’s research and collaborative international conservation projects, including the Mogao Buddhist Grottoes of Dunhuang in China, the Laetoli hominin trackway in Tanzania, ruins stabilization at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, and the Southern African Rock Art Project. His work in China led to a number of national awards. He organized the conservation theme at the Fifth World Archaeological Congress and co-edited the subsequent publication. In 2019, the GCI team completed the collaboration with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities for Tutankhamen’s Tomb. He leads the Rock Art Network. He is a senior principal project specialist at the GCI.
Wendy All
Wendy All is a toy designer, illustrator, linguist, and writer. She holds degrees in linguistics from the University of California, San Diego, and a degree in advertising and illustration from Art Center College of Design, Pasadena, California. She was trained in scientific illustration at Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Geological Research Division), California Institute of Technology, the Carnegie Observatories, and UCLA. As a volunteer at the Rock Art Archive, headed by Dr. Van Tilburg, at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, she contributed to the Captured Visions project, a successful endeavor to record rock art by trained volunteers in the California desert. She is currently a member of the Easter Island Statue Project Atlas editorial team, also under the direction of Dr. Van Tilburg. She is passionate about designing accessible programs to increase public awareness to protect the legacy of rock art treasures.
Carolyn Boyd
Carolyn Boyd is the Shumla Endowed Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University. She is the founder of Shumla Archaeological Research & Education Center (www.shumla.org), which was established in 1998 to preserve the rock art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands in southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico. Boyd is ex-officio head of research for Shumla and serves as vice president on the organization’s board of directors. She is author of Rock Art of the Lower Pecos and The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, which received the 2017 Scholarly Book Award from the Society for American Archaeology. Boyd teaches Field Methods in Rock Art, a field school offered through Texas State University and gives numerous lectures around the country and abroad.
Sam Challis
Sam Challis is Head and Senior Researcher at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. His focus is on the interaction between hunter-gatherers, pastoralists and farmers, as well as Europeans, as expressed in rock art around the world. His PhD thesis focused on the acquisition of horses by creolized raider groups in the nineteenth century. His research program in the mountains of Matatiele in the Eastern Cape aims to redress the imbalance of this neglected former apartheid region while training local community field technicians.
Tamia Choqueticlla
Tourism professional from the Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia, with postgraduate degrees in culture, languages, university teaching, and research. Master’s degree in University Teaching by Competencies: Specialization in Research and Tutoring from the Bolivian Catholic University “San Pablo”. Researcher and consultant in community-based tourism, linguistic tourism, gender-sensitive tourism, and heritage. Extensive experience in Municipal Public Management, having served as Director of Tourism, Culture, and Heritage in municipalities such as Torotoro, Tiquipaya, and Samaipata. Currently, Researcher at the Archaeological Research Center of the municipality of Samaipata and Community-Based Tourism Specialist at the Vice Ministry of Sustainable Tourism of the Plurinational State of Bolivia.
David Coulson
David Coulson is the Chairman and founder of Trust for African Rock Art (TARA), a Nairobi-based international organization committed to the awareness and preservation of Africa’s Rock Art Heritage. Since its inception in the 1990s, TARA has worked in over 20 African countries and the importance of its work has been endorsed by Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan. Its archive now forms part of the British Museum’s global online collections. His photographs have been viewed by over a million people in exhibitions in Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Nairobi, N’Djamena, Rio de Janeiro, and Washington DC. David is the author and co-author of many publications including African Rock Art: Paintings and Engravings on Stone published in 2001 by Abrams, New York, a definitive book on the subject. He is a long time Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
:
Savino di Lernia
Savino is an Africanist archaeologist based at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy with thirty years of experience working in North Africa, as well as in Sudan and Kenya. His research has focused on SW Libyan central Sahara, where he designed and directed thirty-five archaeological excavations in the framework of the “Libyan-Italian Mission in the Tadrart Acacus and Messak.” His work has also extended to Western Sahara (with King’s College, London and Norwich University, UK) where he co-directed the first Anglo-Italian Expedition in the Tifariti area. In 2014, he established “The Archaeological Mission in the Sahara” based on an ongoing international co-operation with the Institut National du Patrimoine (Tunis) to direct archaeological surveys in poorly explored regions of the northern Sahara, such as the Chott el Jerid and Grand Erg Oriental. In 2016, upon invitation of the National Museums of Kenya, he initiated the first Kenyan-Italian Archaeological Mission, directing research in south-east Lake Turkana. In all these regions he has recorded and studied the archaeological context of art works in close connection with local communities, stakeholders, and institutions.
Meenakshi Dubey-Pathak
Meenakshi Dubey-Pathak is a Wakankar Senior Research Fellow and Rock Art Expert Advisor, Biodiversity Department, Raipur Chhattisgarh and Tourism Department, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. She has discovered dozens of new painted sites during her many years of fieldwork, mostly in Madhya Pradesh (particularly in the Pachmarhi area about which she did her PhD, under the National Fellowship of UGC, NET). She was awarded the high honor of Chevalier des Arts et Lettres (Knight in the National Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Minister of Culture and Communication in 2014. She acted as an International Expert for rock art with ICOMOS and UNESCO and is a member of the Bradshaw Foundation Advisory Board. She has devoted nearly thirty years of her life to the discovery, study, publication, exhibitions, workshops, and protection of Indian Rock Art. Currently involved with research projects on central Indian rock art and ethnic culture, her scientific concerns are now mostly related to prehistoric rock art, focusing primarily on its preservation and recording, the study of its archaeological context, and, most significantly, the problems of epistemology and the search for meaning.
Pilar Fatás Monforte
Pilar Fatás Monforte is currently the Director of the National Museum and Research Center of Altamira (Ministry of Culture of Spain), which manages the Cave of Altamira. She has been developing her work for this museum since 2000, where she was the deputy director for fifteen years, and has belonged to the Spanish Museum Curators Body of the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport since 1999. She holds a postgraduate degree in Cultural Heritage Management and degrees in Art History, Antiquity Sciences (Prehistory and Archaeology, University of Zaragoza), and Social and Cultural Anthropology (UNED). As a researcher, she has participated in and directed conservation efforts for archaeological and rock art research projects at the Cave of Altamira and has coordinated the project “Registration and National Inventory of the Archaeological Pre-ceramic Heritage and Rock Art of Paraguay.” She is currently researching the influence of the Altamira’s rock art on contemporary and modern artistic creation.
Jean-Michel Geneste
Jean-Michel Geneste is an archaeologist and honorary general curator of cultural heritage with the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. His first research projects were dedicated to the study of the lithic production system among Palaeolithic cultures. Geneste has been involved in the study of the archaeology of rock art since 1992, when he was appointed curator and director of scientific research of the Lascaux Cave. Since 2002 he has been in charge of the multidisciplinary research program of the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave, one of the oldest rock art sites in western Europe. Geneste has also coordinated numerous archaeological research programs in France, Ukraine, South Africa, Papua New Guinea, Arnhem Land, British Columbia, and Russia. He is codirector of the ARTEMIR research laboratory at the Archaeology and Ethnology Institute of Novosibirsk University. He has published hundreds of scientific articles and books and is currently directing the edition of a monograph on the Chauvet Cave, whose first volume will be released in a large format.
Jan Magne Gjerde
Jan Magne Gjerde is a Research Professor at The Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. The Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research is an independent institute for applied R&D and for services within the wider field of Cultural Heritage in Norway and beyond. He has an MA from the University of Reading, UK, and a PhD from the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø. His PhD focused on rock art and landscape in Northern Fennoscandia (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and NW-Russia). He has worked with rock art for more than 25 years including the 4-year PhD and a 3-year post.doc. position at the University of Oslo, Norway. Gjerde has also taken part in rock art projects funded by the Norwegian Research Council and the Swedish Research Council. He is also working on projects with the Norwegian Directorate for Cultural Heritage Research. During his work with rock art Gjerde has conducted extensive fieldwork in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and NW-Russia. Even though Gjerde’s key focus is on research on rock art, he has also worked with cultural resource management of rock art. Gjerde has taken part in and been Project manager on large contract archaeology excavations. Gjerde’s has a profound interest in dissemination and in 2017 he received the Norwegian Researchers Associations Brain Power Award for his dissemination on rock art.
Nicholas Hall
Nicholas Hall’s professional interests centre around rock art conservation and management, cultural landscape management, participatory planning, World Heritage site management and management of tourism at heritage sites. He has worked for the Australian Heritage Commission, the Australian Government Department of Environment and Heritage, Tourism Northern Territory, and numerous government and Indigenous organisations. He has worked extensively on rock art, heritage management and tourism for Indigenous owned and managed Protected Areas. Nicholas was the founding coordinator of the Institute for Professional Practice in Heritage and the Arts at Australian National University. Internationally has worked for the World Monuments Fund on Rapa Nui (Easter Island), in Vanuatu establishing a community-based World Heritage area, has provided advice on heritage and tourism management for the Angkor World Heritage Site and was Senior Heritage Advisor to Te Papa Atawhai, the Department of Conservation, in Aotearoa New Zealand. Nicholas is currently Director of Cultural Heritage for Parks Australia, where he continues to work on rock art and heritage management at key heritage sites throughout Australia including Uluru–Kata Tjuta and Kakadu National Parks.
María Isabel Hernández Llosas
María Isabel Hernández Llosas is an archaeologist, rock art, and heritage researcher. She has a degree in anthropological sciences and a PhD in archaeology from the University of Buenos Aires and has completed postdoctoral studies in heritage research and management at the Australian National University, Canberra. Dr. Hernández Llosas has been a university associate and full professor, at graduate and postgraduate levels, at National Universities of Buenos Aires, Rosario, Cordoba, and del Centro in Argentina and at Politecnica del Litoral in Ecuador. She has been an ICOMOS expert consultant in evaluating international rock art sites for proposed UNESCO Heritage listing. She was a conservation guest scholar at Getty Conservation Institute and is a member of the Rock Art Network. Her work in rock art has been conducted primarily in the southern Andes and Patagonia in Argentina and abroad in Mexico, Italy, and Australia. She is regional archaeologist in Quebrada de Humahuaca, Argentina (World Heritage) and has been studying the human-environment long term interactions, resulting in present human landscape for many years. She also address heritage studies with a broad social sciences and humanities approach which considers the importance of human societies’ ancestral connections with their lands, regarding all the cultural aspects involved while stressing the importance of the association between heritage, social memory, and cultural identity.
Rachel Hoerman
Dr. Rachel Hoerman is an archaeologist and adjunct professor at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa with 15 years’ experience throughout the Hawaiian Islands and Indo-Pacific region. Dr. Hoerman specializes in heritage policy, rock art research and landscape archaeology, communities-based heritage management, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS)/remote sensing. Dr. Hoerman has performed ethno-archaeological research throughout the Hawaiian Islands and Pacific Rim, heritage assessments in Southeast Asia, historic preservation work and underwater archaeology in Micronesia, and rock art research globally. She is committed to working in partnership and solidarity with Indigenous and Native communities seeking justice and greater autonomy in the stewardship of their heritage. In addition, she lectures in the University of Hawai’i system.
Richard Kuba
Richard Kuba is senior research fellow at the Frobenius Institute, Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany) and curator of the Institute’s pictorial and rock art archive. He holds a PhD in Anthropology from Bayreuth University and has conducted extensive fieldwork in Nigeria, Benin, and Burkina Faso. His research focuses on pre-colonial history and the European encounter with Africa. He has edited numerous volumes such as Land and the politics of belonging in West Africa (Brill 2005), L’avant et l’ailleurs. Comparatisme, ethnologie et préhistoire (Cerf 2020), and Construire l’ethnologie en Afrique coloniale: politiques, médiations et collections (Presses Sorbonne Nouvelle 2020). He has curated rock art exhibitions in Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, in Museo Nacional di Antropologìa, Mexico-City, in Musée Théodore Monod, Dakar, and in Museum Rietberg, Zurich. Currently he heads a German Research Foundation project on rock art recording in Northwestern Australia in the 1930s and 1950s.
Terry Little
Terry Little is Senior Adjunct Lecturer at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria (since 2019) and advisor to TARA (Trust for African Rock Art). His work in the field of cultural heritage has been with a focus on conservation, communications, and community engagement. He has firsthand experience on museum, rock art, and other heritage projects in Angola, Benin, Brazil, Chad, Chile, Djibouti, Ethiopia, France, Ghana, Guinea, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Portugal, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. He has been a lecturer in communications and marketing of cultural heritage at the University of Cassino and the Venaria Reale/University of Torino, Italy. At TARA, he led the development of outreach programs and community rock art projects around Africa and mobilization of financial, technical, and moral support from numerous partners. He has been engaged in conservation and outreach projects with the British Museum, British Council, École du Patrimoine Africain (EPA), Getty Conservation Institute, UNESCO, National Museums of Kenya, and the Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilization in Nigeria (CBAAC).
Johannes Loubser
Dr. Johannes (Jannie) Loubser, PhD, RPA, is an archaeologist and rock imagery specialist with more than four decades of international fieldwork and conservation experience.His qualifications span advanced academic training, international research, and hands-on preservation projects in Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Notable projects that he completed as CEO of Stratum Unlimited include the following: recording and preservation of petroglyph boulders at the Jacana Ball Court, Puerto Rico; recording and management planning at Judaculla Rock, North Carolina; recording and graffiti mitigation at rock writing sites in the White River Narrows, Nevada; mapping and authentication of piled stone bird-looking effigies in Jackson County, Georgia; and recording and graffiti mitigation at Painted Bluff, Tennessee (the latter received the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Chairman’s Award in 2014).
Martin Marquet
A Franco-American living in the US since 2005, Martin Marquet studied at the Atelier de Sèvres in Paris and then began his career at Films de Mon Oncle, dedicated to the restoration, distribution, and promotion of the films of Jacques Tati. Since that time, he has worked on the releases of more than 200 audiovisual projects around the world. Marquet has worked on the theatrical release and promotion of films from major Hollywood filmmakers and has represented films at the Cannes and Sundance film festivals. Concurrent with his film career, he has branched out into archaeology, with a particular interest in the origins and meanings of rock art. Working with a team of interactive designers, architects, and 3D engineers, he is currently developing an exhibition of rock art panels listed as UNESCO World Heritage. The Adventure of Rock Art will utilize innovative techniques of reproduction and of immersive forms of presentation to transport visitors through time and space for a physical and emotional experience worthy of what can be felt in the original sites. This project builds on an exclusive twenty-eight-minute, single-sequence shot through the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave, allowing audiences to experience through a cinematic narrative the totality of 37,000-year-old paintings in the cave. Entitled The Final Passage, this film premiered in 2015 at the Locarno Film Festival and has shown also at Getty Center in Los Angeles, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the British Museum in London, and the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Aron Mazel
Aron Mazel is a Reader in Heritage Studies at Newcastle University and a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand. Before relocating to the UK in 2002, Aron had a twenty-five-year career in archaeological research and heritage and museum management in South Africa (SA). He has researched hunter-gatherer history through excavation and rock art, museum and archaeology histories, digital heritage, and the management and interpretation of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Aron has recorded rock art in the uKhahlamba-Drakensberg (SA) and Northumberland (UK) and has published on many rock art topics such as safeguarding, distribution, acoustics, domestic animals, seasonality, colonial imagery, and chronology.
Tom McClintock
Tom McClintock is a Research Associate at Getty Conservation Institute where he is undertaking research on the conservation and management of rock art sites. Tom is trained as a multidisciplinary conservator whose early career focused on the treatment of studio materials, primarily paintings and paper. After developing an interest in the preservation of rock art sites, Tom pursued a master’s degree from the UCLA/Getty Interdepartmental Program in the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, graduating in 2016. Beyond rock art preservation, Tom specializes in advanced photographic imaging techniques and their application to the field of conservation.
Jo McDonald
Professor Jo McDonald is the Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia. She has been recording rock art in Australia for almost forty years. She holds the Rio Tinto Chair in Rock Art Studies, funded by RTIO’s Conservation Agreement for the Dampier Archipelago National Heritage Place (Murujuga). She has formulated regional management plans (e.g., Sydney Basin, Port Hedland) as well as site specific Plans (e.g., Whale Cave). She co-wrote the National Heritage Listing and Outstanding Universal Values documents for Murujuga. Her ARC Future Fellowship compared rock art in Australia’s Western Desert and in Great Basin National Park in the US. She has developed collaborative partnerships with the Aboriginal communities across the Pilbara and is currently leading an ARC Linkage Project investigating dating Murujuga’s rock art using innovative science. She is the Chair of Australia ICOMOS’ National Scientific Committee on Rock Art.
Catherine Namono
Catherine Namono is a Senior Lecturer in rock art, heritage management, and conservation at the School of Geography, Archaeology, and Environmental Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She is interested in developing an understanding of the complex symbolism of rock art in approaches that include perceptions of landscape of past and present communities. Catherine is passionate about heritage conservation and management, archives and social responsibility, community heritage tourism, African knowledge systems, and the inclusion of local voices in knowledge production.
George Nash
George is an Associate Professor and part-time lecturer at the Geosciences Centre, University of Coimbra (IPT), Portugal. He is a member of the management and academic committee and lectures about architectural and landscape theory, prehistory and art, and excavation and European heritage planning legislation and policy. Before this, George lectured at Bristol University. George has an extensive publishing record with over thirty-six authored, edited, and co-edited books and 150 academic papers: focusing mainly on prehistoric art. In May 2018 George published Archaeologies of Rock Art: South American Perspectives through Routledge and is currently surveying all Welsh prehistoric rock art sites. George, along with colleague Aron Mazel, organizes the British Rock Art Group (BRAG) annual conferences. As part of an ongoing publishing commitment, George and Aron will be producing their second edited book on the rock art of the British Isles and Ireland (due out in late 2021).
Adhi Agus Oktaviana
Dr. Adhi Agus Oktaviana is a leading Indonesian archaeologist whose research has fundamentally reshaped global narratives of early human creativity. Specializing in Pleistocene rock art, he has co-authored landmark studies in Nature & Science Advances, documenting the world’s oldest known rock art—including a 67,800-year-old hand stencil in Sulawesi—and the earliest known evidence of medical amputation in Borneo. Recognized with the 2023 Shanghai Archaeological Forum Field Discovery Award, Dr. Oktaviana challenges Eurocentric perspectives by positioning Indonesia at the center of prehistoric discourse. His work combines traditional archaeological approaches with cutting-edge digital methods, including 3D modelling, AI-assisted image analysis, and virtual heritage platforms, advancing both scientific precision and cultural accessibility. He also led the Indonesian Rock Art project for Google Arts & Culture, featuring over 500 site entries, 32 interactive stories, and 24 virtual tours.
Gerard O’Regan
Gerard O’Regan has worked in New Zealand heritage management for over thirty years. Starting as an ethnology technician and Māori collection manager at the National Museum, Wellington, he then provided professional advice to small community museums in Otago and Southland. Gerard has served on the NZ museum’s association council, undertaken contract research on bicultural developments in museums, and has been a ministerial appointee to the Māori Heritage Council of NZ Historic Places. Within his tribe, Ngāi Tahu of the South Island, Gerard has been active in his marae (local Māori community), served on the tribal council, and was the first tribal heritage manager. Throughout, he has maintained an active interest in Ngāi Tahu’s rock art heritage, initially managing the tribe’s survey project, then setting up a tribal rock art trust and leading the establishment of the Ngāi Tahu rock art visitor center. At the University of Auckland, his master’s thesis in archaeology examined South Island rock art, his doctoral dissertation explored Māori belief of place through the archaeological context of rock art, and his post-doctoral research has been documenting the character and distribution of rock art in the North Island. He is now Curator Māori at Otago Museum, Dunedin, where he continues researching and archiving Māori rock art heritage.
Ffion Reynolds
Dr Ffion Reynolds trained as an archaeologist at Cardiff University, completing her PhD at the university in 2010, focusing on the rock art of Neolithic passage tombs in the UK. Her research took her to Namibia in 2017, where she still works to promote public interest in heritage and rock art, with the archaeology department at the University of Namibia. She currently works for Cadw, the historic environment service for the Welsh Government, overseeing their public programs. She co-directs a public archaeology excavation in the multi-period landscape around the important site of Bryn Celli Ddu Neolithic passage tomb, on Anglesey, UK.
Peter Robinson
Peter Robinson is the Editor of the Bradshaw Foundation. He is a contemporary artist working primarily as a sculptor, elected into the Royal Society of British Sculptors in 1998. He is a co-director of Emotive Design, a graphic art and website design agency. In 1999 he was appointed Project Controller for the Bradshaw Foundation to direct rock art preservation projects. These include the Dabous petroglyph moulding and casting project in the Sahara, organizing research expeditions, establishing affiliations and working relationships with rock art research institutions, and developing the Bradshaw Foundation website as an online resource. In 2004 he was appointed Editor of the Bradshaw Foundation and co-director of Boilerplate Productions, the Bradshaw Foundation’s in-house film production company, producing the iLecture short film documentary series on rock art.
Sharon Sullivan
Sharon Sullivan, AO, is a former executive director of the Australian Heritage Commission and a former member of the World Heritage Committee representing Australia. She has been deeply involved in the development of cultural heritage management approaches in Australia and internationally. Sharon has worked as a cultural heritage consultant for the Australian government, the World Bank, the World Monuments Fund, Getty Conservation Institute, and the government of the People’s Republic of China. She has been particularly interested in rock art site management, developing and running courses for the GCI and ICCROM, and collaborating with Nicholas Hall and with Australian Indigenous rock art custodians to establish community-run site management and sustainable tourism regimes. Sharon has been appointed an Officer in the Order of Australia and a life member of ICOMOS for her services in heritage conservation. She also is a recipient of the Rhys Jones Memorial Medal for Services to Archaeology.
Paul S.C. Taçon
Paul S.C. Taçon FAHA, FSA is an ARC Australian Laureate Fellow (2016-2021), Chair in Rock Art Research, and Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology in the School of Humanities, Languages, and Social Science, Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. He also directs Griffith University’s Place, Evolution, and Rock Art Heritage Unit (PERAHU) and leads research themes in the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research and Griffith’s Research Centre of Human Evolution. He has conducted archaeological and ethnographic fieldwork since 1980 and has over ninety months field experience in remote parts of Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, southern Africa, Thailand, the Philippines, and the US. In December 2016, Prof. Taçon was awarded the top award at the annual Australian Archaeological Association conference: the Rhys Jones Medal for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Archaeology. He also received the 2016 Griffith University Vice-Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award for Research Leadership.
Noel Hidalgo Tan
As a senior specialist in archaeology at SEAMEO-SPAFA, Noel Hidalgo Tan works in capacity building for archaeology across Southeast Asia. His research highlights have been documenting rock art sites across mainland Southeast Asia and discovering the hidden paintings of Angkor. His larger research interests lie in the archaeology of Southeast Asia, in particular the rock art of Southeast Asia. His career has seen participation in a number of projects across Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia. His interests in rock art are influenced by his journalism background and he has published works in the mainstream and online media as well as in the academic press. He runs the Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog.
Jo Anne Van Tilburg
Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg is an archaeologist, director of the UCLA Rock Art Archive, a member of the global Rock Art Network, and director of the Easter Island Statue Project (www.eisp.org). She heads an international, interdisciplinary research team conducting a comprehensive field inventory, excavations, and conservation of Easter Island statues. An advocate for site preservation, she was appointed twice to the United States National Park Service Advisory Committee, U.S. National Landmarks Commission.
David S. Whitley
David S. Whitley specializes in the prehistoric archaeology and ethnography of far western North America, with particular interests in sacred sites, rock art, chronometrics, and cultural heritage management. He has also worked in southern Africa, the European Upper Palaeolithic, and Guatemala. His professional publications include eighteen books/monographs and approximately 100 articles and chapters. Included among his recent books are Cognitive Archaeology: Mind, Ethnography, and the Past in South Africa and Beyond (Routledge, 2020), Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief (Prometheus Books, 2009), and Belief in the Past: Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeology of Religion (Left Coast Press, 2008). His Introduction to Rock Art Research (Left Coast Press, 2005, second edition 2011) received a Choice Outstanding Academic Book Award for 2006. His publications have been translated into six languages beyond English. Dr. Whitley has written nominations for 460 sites that are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), and the 100 site Carrizo Plain Archaeological National Historic Landmark (NHL) district, approved in 2012. In 2001 he received the Thomas King Award for Excellence in Cultural Resource Management from the Society for California Archaeology.
