00:00.16 archpodnet Welcome back to the third and final segment of episode 1 oh 3 of the rock art podcast and you know I'm wondering when you were talking about the the style of petroglists that is at the Winamucka Lake site and you know the the shapes of it. The abstract nature of it. I'm wondering if other rock art in other parts of the world notably Europe and probably Australia and and even Asia for that matter of the same time period if that follows along with that style of rock art and and I think the initial answer is probably. Not really all that much because you can see images of animals and things going back. 25 to 35000 years in in Europe but it sounds like all the rock art that was the oldest we've seen in in North America is is still sort of in the abstract phase and not really in the you know drawing animals phase yet is that. Accurate. 00:53.49 Alan That's very accurate. It's something something that's beenach a very very enigmatic characteristic. There was a book published recently about the enigmatic abstract early archaic rock art and um. I don't know if they really grapple with that question. It's ah it's a mysterious one in the sense that um, why in Europe in the old world. Do we have these ultra-realistic imagery images of animals that have power and vitality and. 01:24.37 archpodnet Um. 01:27.86 Alan My word. They're just magnificent and here in Americas we have these I wouldn't say primitive but there's they're simple and they're elegant and they're powerful but they're purely abstract and they're non-representational and not realistic. So. 01:28.64 archpodnet Um, yeah. 01:37.86 archpodnet Ah. 01:42.37 archpodnet Um, yeah. 01:46.58 Alan I Can't answer that question I don't understand what what? what was the driver or the engine that created those different platforms. 01:56.30 archpodnet It makes me wonder if there's a if we examined rock art around the world and looked for similar styles. But that are you know, maybe ah, 2 or 3 to to 5 or 7000 years older assuming. Maybe it took that up to that long to to come from wherever that is to to wherever this is um if we could look at that and see if that matches up with say the genetic and linguistic clocks I'm sure somebody's done that study but it's just making me think about that kind of association just looking at other rock art and saying well do we see these styles somewhere else. And does the genetic and linguistic clock match up and not only that. But the the ability to even get here and and where that could have been does that even make sense. You know what I mean. 02:37.99 Alan Yeah, and one of the things that it's unusual about the rock art that I've looked at most often in the cosos is that the most ancient rock art after this great basin carved abstract. Pops in and becomes rather realistic rather ornate very ah elaborate and fine-grained and rather magnificent in its execution. Very impressive, Very beautiful and and um people are impressed by these depictions Of. Of animals and and decorated animals Human figures. Why is that that's that's quite unusual. That's not something that um is is you know characteristic of this kind of evolution of an artistic tradition. So There's something something something went on there. 03:22.34 archpodnet Ah. 03:33.40 archpodnet Right. 03:37.15 Alan That's ah, a little different. Um I know that when I've read some of the earliest works on Coso rock art. They talk about a ah Island of rock art. You know an isolated Island of artistic tradition. Um, and it's it is interesting. Um. 03:49.83 archpodnet Right. 03:57.50 Alan And I anyways I have ah I have a book coming out in the next month or 2 that talks about trying to explain these ah these andig enigmas so we'll ah yeah, we'll we'll wait on talking about that then but no, um. 04:03.81 archpodnet Um. 04:09.76 archpodnet This is the one with turtha. No okay, you mentioned ah in no no continue, go ahead. 04:16.24 Alan Also, there's there was another go ahead. Go no I'm just wanted to say that there was a master's thesis that was just completed examining this ah early carved great base and carved abstract rock art. And the way she dated it was looking at the associations of time sensitive early holocene and late pleistocene projectile points and those correlations with those particular sites and. She was able to pinpoint them and date them just looking at the ubiquity the the proliferation the tremendous frequency of finding these ancient diagnostic points in association with these sites now. Besides that she noted that environmentally. That there's a correlate of the locations of these sites as their upland you know three thousand feet or higher locations and that this may have been associated with a land use pattern where the native people early on were harvesting what you called geophytes. 05:18.10 archpodnet M. 05:30.31 Alan These are those bulb plants the plants that have bulbs or tubers and um I think she might may have something going on there because I do know that some of these areas are um, are ripe are proliferation. Of those kinds of plants that I know were very um, useful early on and easy to Harvest and also quite quite tasty and would would provide solace to the native people. So anyways. 06:03.91 archpodnet You know it's interesting talking about the elevation as well because I can vividly see that in my mind because I've driven by the the way. Amaka it's a dry lake now when ammmaka is and in fact, this year it might have water in it given all the snow that's happened in the sierras and the water that's coming through there. 06:05.56 Alan There's that one too. 06:13.70 Alan Get get. 06:21.60 Alan Sure. 06:22.78 archpodnet Ah, but it won't last for long. Yeah, but win amak is a ah, really long North South oriented also incredibly wide dry lake bed and any one of the sort of dry plaias that you can see in especially Northern Nevada 06:38.30 archpodnet Used to have water in them around the time that we're talking about and that's why your older sites are up higher right? because there was water down in the lower sites and you can you can see the sites. You can see the ages get younger and younger as you get closer and closer to the you know to the older shorelines until it dried up completely. 06:44.87 Alan Absolutely. 06:56.77 archpodnet And it's really cool because you can look out across the landscape as you know and see some of the ah places where the shoreline was relatively consistent for a while because it's like it's like layers on the ah on the stratigraphy because you can see those oh you know there's a shoreline there. There's a shoreline there. There's a shoreline there and that's just. That's where you look for sites if you want to look for older sites as you look up in that area. So um, that's yeah. 07:17.76 Alan And you can and you can date the ah occupations precisely by the elevations of those of those shorelines and and so and and I was done with China Lake as well that we can look at those specifically. 07:23.85 archpodnet For sure. Yeah. 07:31.20 archpodnet Oh. 07:34.33 Alan And associate a particular time period or an episode of occupation that should have X y kinds of projectile points and a particular kind of chronological specificity in that particular precise location. 07:48.89 archpodnet Um, ah. 07:51.51 Alan It's fascinating. It's really wonderful. 07:52.65 archpodnet Do you remember the study you mentioned just a few minutes ago with the projectile points at association with the rock art. Do you remember how it was determined that those projectile points were actually in association with the rock art because if they're if they're just sitting on the ground and you got stuff sitting on a wall and rocks and you got stuff sitting on the ground How do we know conclusively that those are related to each other right. 08:14.72 Alan We don't and and that was done also for the for the um for the work that was done at the at China Lake as well. All we do is if we can if we can identify physically what occurs nearby or. 08:22.78 archpodnet Ah. 08:30.60 Alan Close or in some sort of ah association and then we can date it and we can look at enough sites and get some sort of correlation between what what is occurring and where it's located and if that pattern. 08:40.59 archpodnet Um, right. 08:49.45 Alan Appears to be persuasive and if you're finding an overrepresentation of certain projectile point forms in association with those kinds of sites then you got your answer um the same thing was done with Upsidian hydration and another. 09:01.81 archpodnet Okay. 09:08.67 Alan Researcher did that she used the Obsidian that was there laying around at the base of the projectile points at the base of the the rock card sites and looked for narrow segments of time that were represented So if we had a ah single component. 09:24.33 archpodnet Um. 09:27.20 Alan Representation Perhaps it it targeted or associated with that particular site and that kind of ah association that correlation worked extremely well to place those sites in time. Yeah so on and on and on we go. 09:42.40 archpodnet Indeed indeed all right? Well in the last couple minutes here. What are some final thoughts. We want to have on this oldest rock art in North America 09:45.70 Alan Are. 09:53.81 Alan I Don't think rock art is impossible to date I Think if we're creative and we can ah come after it using a whole bevy of techniques and cross correlate them and evaluate them independently. We can get. 10:08.52 archpodnet Ah. 10:11.56 Alan At a reasonable estimate of the age of rock art. Um I've been privy to that using various techniques and um I think I I think people look at rock art and. 10:31.46 Alan Don't have a sense of what they're seeing um and yeah and one has to really spend a tremendous amount of time looking at the rock guard understanding where it is what it is and then understanding enough of it and its associations. Um. 10:35.36 archpodnet Um. 10:50.73 Alan Finally, after that long association and that intense scholarship one can then ask ask some fairly good probing questions about their age and sometimes it gives up a date. Yeah yeah. 11:04.60 archpodnet Right? Nice, Nice Okay, well with that I think we'll close out the show. It's been awesome having this discussion and I always look forward to these of course it's really fun doing this kind of stuff and I hope we can continue doing this in the future. So all right. 11:08.75 Alan A. 11:23.57 archpodnet Well with with that any final thoughts all right sounds good. Don't forget to look down at your device or on the website that you're looking at this on for all the links we have related to this show and of course. 11:25.61 Alan Thank you all see in the flip flop. 11:38.89 archpodnet Allen's resources including his website and his Patreon where you can get some fun extra stuff and also support these efforts because while we don't get paid to do this It's also not free to do and takes a lot of time and effort and resources and it's nice to to get a little kickback from the listeners for that. So but you're not paying for nothing. Go there and see what you can get on that Patreon that would be amazing and the link is in the show notes all right? We'll see you guys next week