Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-320) and index.

Introduction to Picture Cave and the Picture Cave Interdisciplinary Project / Carol Diaz-Granados -- "Tracings in the idleness of art" : Picture Cave in the context of Southeast prehistoric cave art / Jan F. Simek and Alan Cressler -- The geology and ecology of Picture Cave / Philip W. Newell -- Geochemical analyses of prehistoric pigment materials from Picture Cave / Sarah A. Blankenship -- AMS radiocarbon dates for charcoal from three pictographs and their associated iconography / Carol Diaz-Granados, Marvin W. Rowe, Marian Hyman, James R. Duncan, and John R. Southon -- Documenting spatial order in the pictograph panels of Picture Cave / Jan F. Simek, Nicholas P. Herrmann, Alan Cressler, and Sarah A. Blankenship -- The origins of Picture Cave : an essay on the artists/priests who made the drawings, as interpreted from the salvaged cultural materials / James R. Duncan -- Tradition and horizons in southeastern representation : lessons from Picture Cave / James A. Brown and Jon Muller -- The black warrior pictograph : dating and interpretation / James R. Duncan, Marvin W. Rowe, Carol Diaz-Granados, Karen L. Steelman, and Tom Guilderson -- The cave and the beneath world spirit : mythic dragons from the North American past / F. Kent Reilly III -- The cave, Cahokia, and the Omaha tribe / Richard F. Townsend -- Mortal combat, sacred narratives, and symbolic weaponry : Mississippian culture heroes in Picture Cave / David H. Dye -- The spider in the cave / Kathryn Red Corn -- Transmogrification, healing, and resurrection : extraordinary themes in Picture Cave / Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan -- Color symbolism and preliminary assessment of styles at Picture Cave / Carol Diaz-Granados -- Visions in Picture Cave / George E. Lankford -- Identifying the characters on the walls of Picture Cave / James R. Duncan -- The first man was an artist : meditations on a prehistoric Mississippian cave / Pala Townsend -- Layered pictures, layered stories, layered lives / Anita Fields -- Interviews in Picture Cave and Osage commentary / William Samuel Fletcher, Osage Elder (Hominy, Oklahoma), Alma Jean Maker, Osage Elder (Pawhuska, Oklahoma), Charles Red Corn, Osage Elder (Norman, Oklahoma) -- The future of Picture Cave / Carol Diaz-Granados, James R. Duncan, F. Kent Reilly III, and Jan Simek -- Appendix: Illustrated catalogue of Picture Cave art / Alan Cressler and Jan F. Simek

Text in English