Rock art across the Indo-Pacific is increasingly recognised as a vital source of historical and archaeological insight. While early scripts and urbanism have traditionally defined historicity in South Asia, prehistoric mark-making predates writing and offers rich, self-reflexive ‘social’ narratives that deserve inclusion in broader historiographical frameworks. This session explores rock art as both a historical phenomenon and a dynamic field of global innovation across Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Pacific Islands. Recent interdisciplinary approaches, such as advanced dating techniques, digital archaeology, and Indigenous knowledge, are reshaping how we interpret rock art. For example, the redating of Indonesian sites to 51,000 years ago challenges existing timelines of visual communication, while ethnographic engagement and technological advances reveal rock art’s role in both ritual and everyday place-making. We invite papers that examine case studies from across the region, emphasising rock art’s temporal depth, internal narratives, and relevance to current global themes. Submissions should highlight empirical and multidisciplinary methods that contribute to understanding rock art as a meaningful historical discourse.