Stylistic Change and Emic Cultural Continuity in Archaic-Period Anthropomorphs at No Bear, Montana

A newly discovered rock art site in Montana (No Bear) displays eight anthropomorphic images from an Archaic-period artistic tradition named Foothills Abstract. We present two independent means of establishing the relative chronology and stylistic sequence of change across these anthropomorphs. Two different cultural processes may underpin this sequence of stylistic change: one involving emic and cosmological continuity versus a second involving emulative copying and implying only etic continuity across time. The first would rely on societal continuity, while the second might involve artists from different social traditions and a lack of cosmological correspondence across time. Given that site reuse by artists from different societal groups would involve them seeing multiple older images simultaneously (rather than just the latest image of previous artists), our results dictate that cultural, cosmological, and emic continuity characterizes the linear sequence of descent with modification in the anthropomorphs at No Bear, mediated by social transmission.