00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to the rock art podcast episode one five and we're talking about game drive features and and rock art and blueprints and again check the link in the show notes for some really cool news article and some other stuff but you know Alan the 1 thing I wanted to ask you about. Ah, and I don't know if we can even tell this but I think we're closer to to it with this particular with this particular drawing or carving. We always talk about hunting images like animals especially animals that might have you know Spears pointed at them or somebody actually throwing a spear. 00:21.54 alan Um, yeah, um. 00:36.89 archpodnet Or or ah, a bow or an inner or something like that you know and saying well you know this could be like hunting magic. This could be um, you know honestly a demonstration to say here's how you kill these animals you know I Justly taking the kids and saying look here's what we do. This is the plan and. 00:48.59 alan Um, yeah, this but we never what. 00:53.94 archpodnet But we're never quite sure that that's exactly what it is but I feel like this current research here with these rock carvings of these desert kites like why would you spend the time carving this thing out on the rock if it wasn't to show other people How to make these things you know what? I mean. 01:06.65 alan Probably how to probably how to make them how to experience them how they were engineered and also to to document a narrative a historical record of what was accomplished and then you could share it as a story board or a story. 01:13.47 archpodnet Um, yeah, um. 01:25.87 alan Towards the youths or other people who would then engender a better understanding of what they're trying to accomplish does that make sense. 01:37.37 archpodnet Um, yeah I think so it does make sense. Okay. 01:39.70 alan Yeah, and and 1 of the you know one of the explanatory models for understanding rock art is that these are story boards these are commemorative memorials of important events that took place and that they're mininemonics they their memorials or. 01:58.90 archpodnet Ah. 01:59.60 alan Ways to remember these significant events that took place and to commemorate them. Um in in perpetuity for it but supposedly and almost immortality if you will on the rocks now one of the things I wanted to. 02:09.41 archpodnet Um. 02:16.91 archpodnet Um, yeah. 02:18.62 alan To mention is that I have ah an outstanding example of sort of the scientific study of landscape archaeology cutting edge technology rock art and hunting magic or hunting. Strategy so we have a situation at the place called little lake which I've talked to often. It's in the ah it's and it's in Rose Valley it's in the eastern skirt of the sierras the southern end of the Owens Valley there's ah a naturally fed lake that's been there for the last five six seven thousand years 02:41.78 archpodnet Um. 02:45.30 archpodnet Yep. 02:56.85 alan And then above that bringing the Lake is a love of flow which has which is very steep and very um, it's that columnar basalt that you've seen before all around the lake. So what we have. 03:11.70 archpodnet Ah. 03:15.48 alan Is ah sort of a perfect place that would be an extreme example of these this escape terrain which the bighorn sheep like if they're going to get water or if they're going to be open on any sort of flat surface. They want to always have within earshot escape terrain that will allow them to go you know vertically away and get away from any sort of Hunter or animal that was attempting to kill them So This is a perfect sort of physical. 03:47.31 archpodnet Right. 03:51.95 alan Area to do that. Well there was an extensive study of the rock art done for years ten ten years of rock art with aid with 80 people studying every jot and tittle of all the rock art surrounding little ake and they found what 7000 it individual elements but the argument made by the author of the book. The monograph was that there did not seem to be any compelling evidence for relating those images to hunting right? because well. 04:12.40 archpodnet Wow. 04:27.82 archpodnet Ah, okay, yeah. 04:30.10 alan She was on the flats she was she was looking where most of the rock art was and she wasn't looking above the lake she was looking around the lake and near the lake and where the concentrations of rock art were well lo and behold if you just hike up the hillside. And get above the lake on the plateau sorry there is um, there is ah examples of features associated with hunting these animals. First of all the first of all, there's dummy. 04:54.85 archpodnet Um. 05:06.90 archpodnet Okay, ah yeah I know I know I don't know what those are what is that. 05:09.43 alan Hunters What are dummy Hunters What are dummy Hunters Doctor remember those. These are they call them dead men and they're in the in the southwest or on the plains. They either use wood or they use rock and they create these columnar features that when you look glance at them quickly from down below. They look like. 05:25.40 archpodnet Okay. 05:36.27 alan People and so because the numbers of numbers of people involved in this. They wanted to channel the animals away from certain areas and so that they would be able to hunt and slay them and so they used Dummy hunters um to Muir in talking about these. 05:36.53 archpodnet Nice. 05:51.95 archpodnet Um. 05:55.41 alan Said in every promontory throughout the Sierra Nevadas he found such features so you got you got the dummy hunters. But then you also have these rock hunting blinds and they would be physically configured. 05:59.44 archpodnet Okay, that makes sense. 06:14.21 alan I think he found 5 of them all scattered up on this plateau in a way to orchestrate coordinate and work with the killing and slaying and interacting of the animals. So what? what he was what he was able to do. 06:28.21 archpodnet Wow. 06:33.80 alan They say well. How do you test that? How do you? How do you go about? you know, figuring out what these are well. There's different measures of doing this that people have pioneered all over the world to begin to kind of understand how this all works. 06:52.56 archpodnet Um, okay. 06:53.80 alan You can you can model Escape terrain you want to know how steep is steep and if you have that escape terrain so far away from the features that you're studying then you want to look at the line of sight the view shed analysis where can these people see how can they see and. What can they see and how could that be worked out and so you've got this visibility analysis then you've also got a means of using those drones so you can do the 3 dimensional analysis and recreate the landscape and look at it. 07:29.50 archpodnet Oh yeah, Okay, no no I'm just a this is fascinating. Yeah. 07:30.42 alan Topographically go ahead. so so yes so we're we're using Gis Maximum Cutting Edge you know to to do this this this 3 dimensional graphics to see if we can test. For the viability and the nature the content the character of this interaction of game and hunters does that make any sense. 08:00.28 archpodnet It does. Yeah, it really does. Um, ah we've seen hunting blinds numerous times across Nevada and and Utah just reminded me of seeing those and you know just another another feature on the landscape. You know that doesn't have to really change all that much and people use that kind of stuff today. 08:12.57 alan So so one of the more unusual things another project that's sitting in the back there is when I went down to Imperial County there's a museum. 08:17.32 archpodnet Um, but it's really it's really neat to be able to see that on the on the landscape. 08:32.58 alan They're yeah, almost in Mexico and they had a um they had a display of a object that was found turn of the century last century and the 1920 s 08:37.88 archpodnet Ah. 08:51.70 alan And it was a like ah a disguise that an individual could put on their head to look like so they would not be seen as a human being and so it's it's a vegetal disguise. It's made up of plants and. 08:57.91 archpodnet Ah. 09:05.60 archpodnet Ah. 09:09.90 archpodnet Okay. 09:09.78 alan And so it would be ah a head a head disguise now such a disguise has been found in the great basin at Pionigan. It's a full-bo disguise with the head disguise as well as little little holes for eyes and they said when they were hunting using hot lots. 09:20.49 archpodnet Um. 09:28.69 alan They would wear these disguises and they would sit behind these rock blinds and wait for the sheep to come so they could kill them right? So here. So here's a real live example of one of those and the funny thing was they found that disguise. 09:38.90 archpodnet Ah, right? yeah. 09:48.69 alan Nested in a rock blind right? next to a big horn sheep trail So you so you get so you can't get much better. You can't get much better than that. 09:57.80 archpodnet She's nice good. It makes you wonder how that just gets left there. You know what I mean like to somebody did did they come back to it often. But maybe they just I don't know if they died one season or they get they went on somewhere else and kind of forgot all about it. 10:04.51 alan I know. 10:14.88 alan Um, yeah, and so. 10:14.95 archpodnet Yeah, it's interesting I was wonder you know we we make a lot of assumptions based on how we find stuff in association with with each other but a lot of times those things were just dropped discarded or you know they're they're they're not usually in the context where they were used. Yeah. 10:24.93 alan Just left Well you well remember when I So since these are foragers at Hunter gatherers. They try not to take a lot of baggage with them and sometimes they'll store these things in the rock crevices. 10:42.16 archpodnet Um, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah. 10:43.82 alan And cover them up. Yeah, so so remember when I was talking about in Utah where we found that big horn sheep headdress and it was in a rock crevice and it was ah you know it had it had the horns. It had the it had the leather. 10:55.29 archpodnet Um, yeah, okay. 11:03.81 alan Hood. It had olivela beads hanging from it and it was a thousand years old so it was probably it was probably a headdress which was used either in ceremonial fashion or was used in association with the hunting for a sheep. 11:07.37 archpodnet Wow! Nice, Okay, well. 11:22.88 alan Per se which is what which is the way in which ethnographically you talk about it. 11:27.30 archpodnet Okay, well that is a perfect segue into what I want to talk about in segment 3 So let's take a break and come back on the other side and finish up this discussion back in a minute.