ABSTRACT
The analysis of stylistic variation has been the concern of archaeologists for many years. The literature dealing with the term ‘style’ is extensive but often muddled, failing to draw distinctions between various coexistent models and definitions. Generally there has been a failure to distinguish between the broad quality ‘style’, and particular manifestations of that quality on prehistoric artefacts. This chapter is concerned with an investigation into a particular set of data-a sequence of styles in Australian prehistoric rock art. It therefore considers style as a particular manifestation of a ‘highly specific and characteristic manner of doing something’ (Sackett 1977, p. 370), or a particular effect produced on an artefact, which is peculiar to a specific time and place.
