Academician A. P. Okladnikov made an important contribution to the study of the Siberian and Central Asian rock art in the middle of the XX century. In the beginning of the 1960s the scientist became a founder of archaeological center in Novosibirsk. The study of the rock art has become a priority area in this center.

Ambitious and complex researches on the ancient rock art made by A. P. Okladnikov reveal themselves in full measure through the historical analysis.

In considering the most ancient rock paintings, the scientist includes the sematic analysis of the images and compositions as a mandatory part. Moreover, on his opinion, the ideological foundations could be a supporting factor in determining their cultural and chronological definition. It is clear that the analysis of the possible ideological conceptions, concluded in the research subject, provides an insight into the unknown ancient world.

In the writings of A. P. Okladnikov this section has a clear structure, which is consequence of the extensive knowledge in the related scientific fields. And most important, the scientist made a methodological framework for the semantic analysis. Semantics and approach to the understanding is the complex and multifaceted issue. It is isolated but still very actual topic.

The paper is devoted to the ways we perceive rock art. The author defines external and internal for humans methods of correction of our perceptive system privations, suggests some approaches to modification of the quality of visual information due to correction of internal, culturally and evolutionally conditioned filters of perception.

This paper focuses on traceology of petroglyphs. It is generally accepted that practically the only purpose of experimental and traceological research of rock art is determination of tools material, which were used for carvings creation. But the experience of traceological analysis and experimental modeling in rock art studies shows a number of different approaches, depending on objectives and questions asked by researchers. They are concentrated on numerous aspects. The paper considers method’s constraints as well, which are important to take into account during the work. We describe briefly specificities of traceological study of petroglyphs. This paper is not dedicated to discuss every aspect and every nuance of experimental modeling and traceological analysis of the rock art. But it can be useful for the researchers, who are interested to know and understand general patterns of the method and its opportunities and constraints, even if they will not apply it, but to integrate this kind of expertise into comprehensive studies.

The research of the Shalabolino rock art site is covering quite a long period of time. Every survey is important and makes significant contribution to science both about the site and rock art generally. This paper presents results of research based on one zoomorphic representation taken from the west sector of the 1st section of the Shalabolino rock art site. The visual art object is considered to be a valuable source for further researchers. Authors focused on detailed description of the carving based on the fact that the carving was made in the technique of engraving, monochrome painting and pecking. We carried out two different tracings and two three-dimensional visualization of panel with the engraving due to the use of contact and noncontact methods of documenting. Also the obtained data was compared among themselves. Every used methods of copying carvings was described with emphasizing features, advantages and disadvantages. Besides, it was realized the comparison with tracing made by previous researcher. The outcome allowed to conclude that achievement of the most objective source for further researches requires complex of methods of copying carvings.

The subject of this research is a petroglyph from the Oglakhtinsky mountains. After examining the drawing in various interpretative directions, the authors came to the conclusion that the stone is an image of clothing or a stylized anthropomorphic figure in wide robes, and it can be dated from the 19th to the first half of the 20th centuries. Judging by the plots of Siberian petroglyphs, this tradition appeared in the Eneolithic era (5000 years ago), when stylized frontal female images in wide clothes appeared on the rocks of Altai and Mongolia. Since the beginning of the new era, an artistic tradition has developed in the rock art of the region, providing for the illustration of traditional clothing with an emphasis on its details (shape, interior decor, exterior design). The main attention is paid to ceremonial clothes, patterns on them, their external design, which, apparently, emphasize not only social status, but also carry a certain sacred meaning. We come across the remnants of this tradition on the example of petroglyphs on the Oglakhtinsky plates, where its forms and, possibly, content have been conservatively preserved. It is impossible to exclude the pragmatic aspect of the semantics of the sought petroglyphs, reflecting the desire to combine experience, preserve traditions and pass on to descendants “instructions” for making clothes and patterns.

The bird, as an object of ancient art, is found in petroglyphs and rock paintings of the Russian North and Finland. The article examines drawings in the forest zone. However, the geographical proximity and commonality of the subject does not provide a similar technology for creating drawings. The authors studied the bird image and its role in the rock art of the region, analyzed materials for creating paint, tools and materials for creating petroglyphs. There are results of experiments on making drawings with various hard materials. The experimental-traceological method has established that when knocking out on granite tools from quartz, silicon and granite crumble. The tracks made with hardened steel tools resemble those of petroglyphs. The embossed images were “corrected” or “supplemented” during their existence, or were embossed somewhat later than it is commonly believed. Finnish rock art shows no signs of new painting. There are some technological aspects in the article. Undoubtedly, for a complete understanding of the phenomenon of rock art, the features and techniques of creating images, it is necessary to continue field, experimental and laboratory research in the future.

Ornithomorphic images in petroglyphs remain a poorly studied topic, so their cultural and chronological attribution or the determination of species is a serious problem for the researcher. One of such images is an engraved image of a bird from the first area of pisanita Shalabolinskaya. That image cannot be confidently attributed to any of the well-known traditions of depicting birds. This article attempts to attribute this image based on methods described in the literature. In the course of the work, problems were identified that arise when working with fragmentary images that do not fit into the existing classification schemes, the need for further work on the systematization of already known petroglyphs with images of ornithomorphic characters is postulated. A new algorithm is proposed for determining the species belonging of the figures of birds on the rocks. The bird from the Shalabolinskaya scribble was identified as belonging to birds of prey, among which the most probable variants are an eagle, a seagull or a nightjar (attribution is made by the shape of the beak and features of the modeling of the eyes). Culturally and chronologically, the image can be tentatively attributed to the Okunev style, based on an analogy with a number of images of birds and bird-headed characters on the steles of the Okunev culture.

In most cases when researcher starts working on rock art site he can approximately attribute petroglyphs to some periods. Often we can say if stylistic is archaic or quite recent. But images without any special chronological features are very common too. And every scholar has an experience of attempts to classify and date this kind of depictions. This paper is focused on one petroglyph from the site Poylovo, which can be assigned to this category of images. This rock art site is situated near the self-titled village in Kuragino region of Krasnoyarsk territory. The depiction in the same time has archaic and recent features and it is located in quite complicated context on the panel with calcite. In this paper we propose one of the possible ways to work with such ambiguous and complicated depictions. It’s about combining technological features and surface context analysis with tracing of natural and artificial modification of rock surface. The result gives basis for discussion and for analogies search.

Field research of petroglyphs is the most important stage in the process of studying rock art. The article is devoted to the issues of indexing and topographic survey of objects. Topolandscape characteristics of petroglyphs at different levels of their localization largely determine their semantics. Analysis of the height and spatial parameters of planes with petroglyphs helps to solve the issues of dating images. This method does not require sophisticated equipment; effective for exploration and stationary research of rock art objects. The main principles are fixing the horizontal contour and vertical profiles of the rock, linking petroglyphs with them.

The proposed methods can be used for research purposes and in the preparation of documentation for registration in the State Catalog of Cultural Heritage Objects of the Russian Federation.

The paper is devoted to description of contemporary methods of revealing of faded rock art images, especially made with red ochre. They are the methods of pigment maps and DStretch plugin for ImageJ. The methods are to be compared and the perspectives of the approaches are discussed.