Letter

Differences of Petroglyph Styles among Archaeological Sites with Spatial and Time-wise Distances

Ryuji Takaki¹*, Ritsuko Izuhara², Shinji Mizuno³, Muhiddin Khujanazarov⁴ and Makito Kashiwabara⁵

¹Kobe Design University, Nishi-ku, Kobe, Hyogo 651-2196, Japan
²Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Nonoichi, Ishikawa 921-8501, Japan
³Aichi Institute of Technology, Toyota, Aichi 470-0392, Japan
⁴Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences, Samarkand 703051, Uzbekistan
⁵Colona Publishing Co. Ltd., 4-46-40 Sengoku, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 112-0011, Japan
*E-mail address: jr.takaki@iris.ocn.ne.jp

(Received December 8, 2010; Accepted February 7, 2011)

Abstract. Differences of styles of petroglyphs among several archaeological sites in the Central Asia are estimated based on the method of obtaining shape codes of petroglyphs, which was developed by the present authors. The samples for shape code analysis are confined to the petroglyphs of ibex (wild goat), which were abundantly carved in the Central Asia. It is shown that the style differences are correlated to the mutual distances among archaeological sites, but not to the differences of ages among them. This result supports the common opinion of archaeologists that petroglyph styles have not changed much since the Stone Age. This result is discussed from cultural aspects.

Keywords: Petroglyph, Central Asia, Image Analysis, Skeleton, Style Difference