rock art. Bednarik stresses that rock art cannot be understood and interpreted by a cultural outsider, as he himself found while working with Australian indigenous communities. Since there are so few continuing rock art traditions, this frustrates attempts to understand most of the world’s rock art. This idea has been gaining grudging acceptance in the archaeological community and the focus of rock art studies has moved towards recording and gathering data in recent years. Of course, this does not mean people will stop trying; but researchers should at least state what qualifies them to comment on specific images bso their work can be analysed and interrogated. Bednarik pulls no punches in his criticism of others’ work, in language that is often provocative and sometimes dismissive. He directly challenges the conclusions drawn by many archaeologists and rock art researchers. He also drops in a few of his own theories, some of which do not have widespread support across the academic community, such as his belief that Homo sapiens sapiens in Europe is directly descended from ‘robusts’ through a process of neotenisation, and that most Upper Palaeolithic rock art was produced by young people. Many of the works cited in support of these assertions turn out to be by himself. The tempo builds through the book and there is an increasing sense of urgency. This means that Bednarik sometimes leaves the reader behind. For example, the chapter with ‘pareidolia’ in the title takes eight pages before it explains this word. Conversely, Bednarik returns repetitively to this and other ideas. Different chapters go back to the same examples (the Côa Valley is a favourite), which become laboured. This book is a worthwhile read for anyone who wants a deeper and more nuanced understanding of rock art. Its strength lies in its analytical approach and the questions it asks of rock art research. Probing and exposing inconsistencies and weaknesses in theories, evidence and methodologies is a vital component of a robust scientific process – something that Bednarik passionately advocates throughout the book. To his credit, he focuses on sites that he has examined himself, which gives his claims more weight. However, this often leads him to quote his own publications as evidence – which is fine when they are they are supporting opinions, but less comfortable when they are given as fact. Are we to trust his own interpretation over that of others? Surely we would then be doing the very thing that he cautions us against.

中文翻译：

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古老的石头：英国和爱尔兰巨石遗址的实地指南

岩画。Bednarik 强调，岩石艺术无法被文化外人理解和解释，正如他自己在与澳大利亚土著社区合作时所发现的那样。由于很少有持续的岩画传统，这阻碍了了解世界上大部分岩画的尝试。这个想法在考古界越来越不情愿地被接受，近年来岩石艺术研究的重点已经转向记录和收集数据。当然，这并不意味着人们会停止尝试；但是研究人员至少应该说明他们有什么资格评论特定图像，以便他们的工作可以被分析和询问。贝德纳里克对他人作品的批评毫不留情，所用的语言常常是挑衅性的，有时是不屑一顾的。他直接挑战了许多考古学家和岩画研究人员得出的结论。他还提出了一些自己的理论，其中一些理论并没有得到整个学术界的广泛支持，例如他认为欧洲的智人是通过新生过程直接从“健壮”进化而来的，而且大多数旧石器时代晚期岩画是由年轻人创作的。许多支持这些断言的作品被证明是他本人所为。这本书的节奏越来越快，紧迫感越来越强。这意味着贝德纳里克有时会将读者抛在后面。例如，标题中带有“pareidolia”的章节需要八页才能解释这个词。相反，贝德纳里克反复回到这个和其他想法。不同的章节回到相同的例子（Côa Valley 是最喜欢的），这些例子变得费力。对于任何想要更深入、更细致地了解岩画的人来说，这本书都值得一读。它的优势在于它的分析方法和它对岩画研究提出的问题。探索和揭露理论、证据和方法中的不一致和弱点是稳健科学过程的重要组成部分——这是贝德纳里克在整本书中热情倡导的。值得称赞的是，他专注于他自己检查过的网站，这使他的主张更具分量。然而，这经常导致他引用他自己的出版物作为证据——当它们支持观点时这很好，但当它们作为事实给出时就不那么舒服了。我们是否应该相信他自己的解释而不是其他人的解释？我们当然会做他警告我们不要做的事情。