Rock art sites of Russia: recording and systematization – problems and solutions

The article discusses the results of three-year-long work by the team of the authors to create the first nation-wide archaeological map of rock art sites. The database “Rock Art Sites of Russia” with GIS elements integrates the information on and reflects the spatial distribution of rock art locations on the Russian territory. At the moment, it contains information on more than 1,200 sites in different regions from Karelia to the Far East. The sources for the database content filling included scientific reports on archaeological activities stored in the Scientific and Subject-Field Archive of the Institute of Archaeology RAS; filing documents from heritage protection inspections; literary and archival sources, as well as materials from the authors’ own field research and information from personal contacts with fellow archaeologists and local historians. The article considers cases from the implementation of similar international and Russian projects, analyzes methodological problems of filing and systematization of information on rock art sites. The paper substantiates the authors-developed methodological approaches to the creation of a database integrating information on the locations of rock art in Russia, as well as the principles of description and rules for data systematization.