Ritual Landscape

William W. Fitzhugh is Curator of Archaeology and Director of the Arctic Studies Center at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. His research centers on circumpolar archaeology, studies of northern culture history and art, culture contacts, and environmental change. Fieldwork has taken him to Scandinavia, Russia, Mongolia, Alaska, Labrador, and Greenland. At the Smithsonian, he produced exhibitions including Crossroads of Continents, Vikings, Ainu, and Narwhal. His Mongolian research began in 2001 seeking connections with ancient Eskimo culture through the study of Deer Stone art. His Altai work, presented here, explores links between rock art and archaeology among nomadic peoples.

Richard D. Kortum is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Humanities at East Tennessee State University. The former Fulbright Scholar obtained his doctorate and taught at Oxford University. Soon after coming to Mongolia in 2001, his interest in prehistoric artforms led to discovery and documentation of previously unknown rock art sites; in 2008 he accomplished the sole survey of southern Bayan Ulgii aimag. His many publications include Ceremony in Stone (Nepko 2018). Kortum has introduced systematic and analytic procedures for recording rock art and is currently working on a novel means of scientifically dating Altai petroglyphs that shows great promise. Kortum, with Fitzhugh, was awarded a National Endowment for the Humanities Three-Year Collaborative Research Grant to conduct the research described in this book.