INTRODUCTION

The reasons for documenting rock art vary from cultural management according to law, claiming historic continuity to land rights, analyses of meanings and so on, through to methods varying from photography, tracings and photogrammetry to high resolution 3D video-laser scanning. To document is to see and what is seen connects not only to some of the above factors but also to the knowledge and understanding the recorders have of rock art, and the methods available.

Documenting rock art from a management perspective aims to inform on what the art depicts, its condition and where it is found. It aims to increase our understanding of those who made and used the art, and the meanings it might have had in the past and does have in the present. Often this documentation is insufficient for solving specific research problems. This is because the uniqueness of each problem requires relevant theories and methods to collect and connect the data with the problems at hand. It appears to be virtually impossible to collect a set of data that can provide a sound basis for solving all problems. Ideally, researchers should document their data in relation to their specific research problems. Today this is regarded as self-evident but reminders of this are still needed.

With the development and expansion of modern communication systems, the flow and exchange of data and knowledge has increased tremendously and few researchers or managers need to be isolated from colleagues in the same field of research. Between 2003 and 2006 the Research Council of Norway and the National Research Foundation of South Africa financed a joint rock art project between the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI) at the University of the Witwatersrand, situated at 26° S and 23° E, 1500 masl in the interior of South Africa, and Tromso University Museum/ Institute of Archaeology at the University of Tromso on the North Sea coast at 69° N and 19° E. The two research institutions could hardly have been further apart seen in a north–south perspective. The environments are (and were) extremely different, as are the cultural histories of the populations in the two regions and the research histories pertaining to rock art.