Author Description

Foreword: Elena A. Okladnikova, Herzen University, St. Petersburg (Russia), Deputy Director for Museum Work at the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) Translators: Richard L. Bland, Archeologist (retired), U.S. National Park Service, Heritage Research Associates, University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History; Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, Institute of Geology & Mineralogy, Russian Academy of Sciences; and Laboratory of Mesozoic and Cenozoic Continental Ecosystems, Tomsk State University (Russia) The distinguished Russian archeologist Aleksei P. Okladnikov's study reveals how a field archeologist goes about determining and writing prehistory. Over the course of his career, Okladnikov and his wife Vera Zaporozhskaya travelled across Siberia from the Lena River in the north to the Amur River in the south excavating archaeological sites. During that time Aleksei and Vera found and interpreted the rock art of the vast region from the Paleolithic Era to the present day. Relying on petroglyphs and pictographs left on cliffs and boulders, Okladnikov lays out in detail and straightforward language the prehistory of Siberia by "reading" these artifacts. This book permits the past to be told in its own words: the art portrayed on the cliffs of Siberia.