This study is concerned only with images of !people. Dealing exclusively with a single motif type has positive and negative effects. It could be like examining only the personal nouns and pronouns of a Shakespearian play and restricting our view of the whole. But it also restricts the field of investigation to something of manageable proportions. All archaeology—like most other disciplines—works on samples, because it must.

This restriction is a logical one. !people, that is pictures that look to the present observer like pictures of people, are likely to include pictures that actually are of people. There is no way of determining what any ancient picture meant to its makers or users in the absence of a gloss. Pictures of people are good to study. What can be more important to people than people? This is the stuff of human myths and narratives. It is an appropriate subject for investigation. Moreover there are cross-culturally plenty of such figures, whereas other sorts of pictures are culturally limited. There are no eland pictures in Australia nor kangaroo pictures in Europe.

I will ignore a number of aspects of rock art that have been regarded as central by those who made the recordings I use. They may be central to its recording, but they are not central to its relation with other forms.

Here a controversy may occur, for it was impossible to maintain complete consistency. An attempt was made to limit each image to only one person. Holding hands was not considered a close enough association to treat the two figures as a single image. Separate images were made. A child being carried papoose style was regarded as a part of the adult image. If a person carried an implement and such implement was regarded as part of that person's representation, then it was included. Making these decisions was harder than it would seem as various bits and pieces were ever closer or further away. A !person's clothing was always included but a bird apparently hovering overhead presented a more difficult problem. These aspects were included on a subjective basis. For a better understanding of my methods it is essential to read the images.

Constant attempts were made to minimise interpretation. No attempt was made to interpret a scene—the subject of this study is the way the individual figure is depicted.

The age of a depiction was ignored. There are only a few images for which a firm independent date exists. To have used only these would have restricted the selection of images to the point where the exercise would have been meaningless.

Size was not regarded as a significant factor. To include it would have been to make a value judgement as to the meaning of size. Is bigger better or more important? Is the height of the head a more relevant factor? If these questions could be answered for all cultures for today would the same understandings have applied 10,000 years ago? There is no way of knowing so size was standardised.

Should the colour of a depiction be a factor? It would be an easy distinction to make if there were only three colours or three hundred colours and all were equally available at all sites. One would also need to assume that the colours had not changed over time. Such is not the case and on these grounds colour was not considered.

Allied to the previous factor is whether a distinction should be made between engravings, carvings, stencils, prints and paintings or any combination of these. Selection may have been a matter of choice by the artists, or it could have been imposed on the artists by their culture and so should be included. Possibly no choice was involved and the landscape was the deciding factor (a lack of sheltered sites could lead to engravings and carvings being favoured). No distinction has been made on these grounds in this analysis.

Sexual differentiation was frequently contentious. Other researchers make much of associated objects to diagnose or attribute sex. The belief that only women carried net bags, digging sticks and certain types of weapons is demonstrably untrue for some cultures. What is true is that mostly the activity that is the male preserve is granted the higher status. Dr Serpenti studied the inhabitants of Pulau Dolak in Irian Jaya (formally Frederik-Hendrik Island) where the production of yams was a part of the most prestigious occupation. This was carried out exclusively by men. I have taken the view that the only sure way of determining sex is by sexual anatomy. The images will be classified as being sexed or unsexed. No distinction will be made between female and male.

I have chosen to avoid ethnographically based descriptions of rock art in selecting attributes for this analysis. I have attempted to restrict my data to artifactual evidence. Where a base for interpretation is given by people with Eurocentric mindsets it often stems from ethnography.

A number of 'experts' in the past have utilised their imagination in interpreting rock art. These concepts are fairy stories and have been eschewed in selecting my attributes.

Finally and most importantly, the pictures were examined as they were imaged. There were no assumptions that because they are now contour drawings (a contour drawing is a drawing that is depicted only by an outline) that an infill colour had weathered away or had been missed by the copier. A gap in a depiction was not interpreted as anything other than a gap. The same system was applied to all aspects that were missing from images but could have been expected to have been shown. This factor means that some figures may have been processed in an incomplete form. There was no other way to do it.

In studying the attributes that I have used please except that the names that I have ascribed are mind prompts or tags for my own use. The description that follows has more significance.

The aspects that are appropriate to use in the comparison of rock art in this instance are described hereunder:
 

'Front Facing': The image is recorded as front facing if there is no indication of any part of it being deflected to the left or the right. In a full infill image it could equally well be back facing. I have chosen to ignore this possibility.

'Right Facing': The image is in full profile and is facing towards the observer's right.

'Left Facing': The image is in full profile and is facing towards the observer's left.

'Other Right': The image is facing in any direction between front facing and right facing.

'Other Left': The image is facing in any direction between front facing and left facing.

'Other Facing': The image has attributes that indicate two or more directional facings. Not to be confused with twisted perspective or contorted where the attitude is considered impossible to exist in the normal world.

'Active': The image is not at rest. This state covers the gamut of movements from a raised arm to a flat-out run. Standing, sitting or lying are not factors in this state.

'Standing': The image is portrayed in a vertical or near vertical position. Motion is not a factor in this attribute.

'Sitting': The image appears to be of a !person bearing its weight on its bottom.

'Lying': The image is in a horizontal or near horizontal position.

'Other': It is unclear whether the image should be assigned to one of the previous three states.

'Infill': The image is not an empty outline. It can be a full infill, a stippled infill or a shaded infill. This may include a pattern that would also be entered as a decoration.

'Stick Figure': The image is composed of single lines. A line is a mark best described as being longer than it is wide, with parallel sides. An engraved line can be quite wide but it cannot be described as having infill.

'Enhanced Stick': The image is mostly thin. The lines (sticks) that make it up vary in thickness so are not parallel sided. Unlike stick figures some 'shape' is depicted but less than would be expected in a photographic likeness.

'Shaped': The image has a shape that while presumably human, does not appear to relate to reality. The shaping, rather than the portrayal of action or position appears to be the aim.

'Realistic Shape': The image approaches the normal proportions of a human for the majority of the depiction—length to thickness.

'Rectangular Shape': The image has a rectangular trunk.

'Triangular Shape': Some part of the image is shown as a triangle.

'Stick Head': The head of the image is represented by a single straight line—a very distinctive feature.

'Twisted': The image is portrayed in twisted perspective. Usually obviously contrived and could not occur naturally.

'In Proportion': The lengths of legs, arms, body and head are in natural or near natural proportion.

'Pronounced Bottom': The bottom protrudes. This is a realistic aspect of the physiology of the current San.

'Bird Head': The image has a bird head or mask.

'Large Disc': A large solid circular object is displayed held or attached to the body. It is possible that it is spherical. Some have decorated edges but none have internal decoration. No distinction has been made here between the decorated and undecorated forms.

'Head-dress': The head in the image carries a decoration—very common. Abundant hair could account for this in some cases.

'Beehive Head-dress': A specific type of head-dress common to many Australian images.

'Apron Small': The image has an apron or lap-lap. It can be at the front or rear or both but does not go all around the body.

'Tri-sash': An apparently decorative or ceremonial item that resembles a part of a bat wing. Usually worn at the waist.

'Hat': A hat-like object.

'Object': An unidentifiable item.

'Bag': A bag.

'Vessel': An apparently solid object that by appearance does not fit in the basket or bag class.

'Musical Instrument': An object that appears to be intended for making noise.

'Spear Barbed': A spear having one or more barbs.

'Sword': Where a sword or its natural companion a scabbard are depicted in an image I have indicated their existence as 'sword'.

'Knife': A knife.

'Bow': Where a bow or its natural companions, arrows or quiver are depicted in an image I have indicated their existence as 'bow'.

'Stick': Appears to be a stick and is shorter than a spear.

'Hook': Any item having a hooked shape. Its purpose has not been considered.

'Club': Thicker than a stick. A purely subjective evaluation.

'Decoration': An item or items that are associated with or attached to an image that appears to serve no survival function.

'Sexed': An image is sexed if it displays sexually specific anatomy. Male and female are not differentiated.

Algeria: Actual data was more clustered, on average, than shuffled data. The MIOD of the shuffled data was smaller than, or equal to, the MIOD of the actual data on 6 out of 999 occasions.

India: Actual data was more clustered, on average, than shuffled data. The MIOD of the shuffled data was smaller than, or equal to, the MIOD of the actual data on 238 out of 999 occasions.

Zimbabwe: Actual data was more clustered, on average, than shuffled data. The MIOD of the shuffled data was smaller than, or equal to, the MIOD of the actual data on 243 out of 999 occasions.

Inspection of the Correspondence Analysis Graph discloses three obvious outliers. Two in India (26 and 49) and one in Zimbabwe (60). The removal of these would, no doubt, have a considerable affect on all of the statistics and should perhaps be investigated.
I have chosen not to do this as to me it would smack of attempting to adjust data to display desired statistical results.

The results as they stand disclose a number of implications.

(1) It would appear that while many of the sampled rock art images have much in common they are also regionally specific to a marked extent.

(2) There is much diversity in the samples tested and larger samples may give different and more reliable results.

One question that is raised is whether the environment is a determining factor in rock art form.

Multivarite Analysis has fulfilled its scientific role as an exploratory technique.