Towards an Archaeological Approach to Prehistoric Rock Carvings. From Method to Symbolics: the Finale Area (Western Liguria, Italy) as a Case-Study

This article presents an insight into archaeological approach in the study of rock carvings. The first section is mainly methodological and highlights the significant problems within dating this kind of evidence. Furthermore, it delves into the specific contribution of interdisciplinary research in this field. The second section focuses on the Finale area (Liguria, Italy) as a case study, which has not been studied systematically until now. A hypothesis on the dating and significance of carvings from the Finale area is formulated by comparison with two contexts in which rock-carving art has been studied in detail: the Mount Bego area (France) and Valcamonica (Italy). A table as an appendix is made to propose a first chrono-typology of the carvings from the Finale area.