Field school: Rock Art in California
Prof. Bovy
rock art. I will also upload a flyer about the project.
Prof. Bovy
Excavating Rock Art in California
The Enculturating Environments Project is a field school based on the
Wind Wolves Preserve in South-Central California. As the largest
private preserve in the American West, it is rich in wildlife and
dedicated to the protection and restoration of the native environment.
It is a beautiful landscape with sandstone mountain peaks, open oak
woodlands, grassland potreros, beguiling rock formations and some of
the most spectacular rock paintings found anywhere in North America.
These fragile, often multicoloured pictographs are found on sandstone
surfaces; as irreplaceable works of art, it is essential that they are
properly recorded and researched in controlled and careful
circumstances. Our work aims to educate the need to conserve these
vital expressions of the native artistry. Found close to these
paintings are complex archaeological sites with evidence of a range of
associated activities.
Our international collaborative project includes rock-art specialists,
historical archaeologists, and environmental archaeologists. We are
investigating the past context of these enigmatic works of Native art
through digital survey techniques, excavation, and geo-archaeology.
The prehistory of this landscape is only now beginning to be explored;
excavations focus on pigment quarry sites and middens containing
abundant material culture such as lithics (i.e. arrow heads and other
chert tools and manufacturing debris), ground stone (i.e. mortars,
pestles, manos, metates), cooking waste (small mammal, deer, river
muscle), and importantly beads (both prehistoric shell and historical
trade beads). As an historical landscape, the region itself is famous
for Native resistance to Spanish and Mexican incursions, as a refuge
for Mission Indians after the coastal revolt of 1824, and later, for
its ranchero operations, even as a hideout for outlaw gangs such as
the infamous Joaquin Murietta, the 'Mexican Robin Hood' of the 1850s.
Students are invited to apply for places, which are limited. As a six
week field school, we will teach you rock-art recording, digital
survey, field excavation, geoarchaeological investigation, and
laboratory analysis while you learn about environmental conservation
and the wildlife of this spectacular habitat.
You also will learn regional archaeological sequences and the
historical development of Western landscapes, including the American
and Modern periods, with the development of 'big business'
agriculture, water manipulation and oil extraction, in one of the most
intensely transformed environments ever to be attributed to human
impact.
Equally, you will be part of an international expedition, with
students and staff from many universities both local and distant,
including University of California Los Angeles, Southampton (England),
University of Central Lancashire (England), and others. You also will
meet and learn from local professional archaeologists, rock-art
conservators, preserve personnel, and biologists.
As part of the UCLA Archaeology Field Program, this is an accredited
fieldschool with a full summer quarter's allocation of credit.
For further information, see the new on-line free access Project Page
just published on Antiquity:
http://antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/robinson323/
To sign up for the field school, go to:
For inquiries, contact Dr. David Robinson (dwrob...@uclan.ac.uk).
http://www.uclan.ac.uk/scitech/forensic_investigative/files/sci_fz_doc_enculturatinglandscapes.pdf
For further information on the Preserve, visit:
http://www.wildlandsconservancy.org/twc_preserve_wind_wolves.html