00:01.27 alan Welcome back gang this is Dr Alan Garfinkel Rockard Podcast episode one one 5 with Lindsay Lafayette who's talking about the archeological conservancy. What they do how they do it and some of our interesting interrelationships Lindsay so we. Ah, you introduced me to an enormous panel a rock art panel that shocked me I have to say it was so surprising to see that. Um, it's about five miles I think outside of the cosos itself and yet. 00:41.60 alan It Shouts coso in in many ways and it has ah really some standard elements. Ah both naturalistic and realistic on that panel that I've seen regularly occurring in the cosos themselves. 01:00.43 Linsie Lafayette Yeah, well I was I was glad you were able to see it because um, we haven't had anybody professionally come and and analyze that rock art. Um, there were like I mentioned excavations done there in the 80 s and I haven't read all of everything that's been um. 01:00.45 alan Lindsey. 01:15.91 Linsie Lafayette Published or reported on those excavations but I hadn't seen anything related to the rock art yet. So I was happy to um to get an expert's opinion on and what was going on there. Um, at in that location. 01:20.75 alan No, and I've and I've. 01:27.85 alan But I've I've read extensively even cited the work of ah of Mark Allen and and other individuals on portuguese bench in my dissertation and I knew there was a rock art site. There. A panel of you know a boulder but it's not mentioned in any of the publications I had run across ah 2 masters theses and any other discussions. No one mentions it but on that panel after post processing it. There's um. An individual holding a snake. There's snakes at the top There's a mountain lion There's a um, a tortoise and bighorn sheep and then another very large individual with their um hands outstretched. What could be. An alco pro projectile point depiction and several other figures and a smattering throughout the whole panel of ah bighorn sheep including a classic coso sheep with full front-facing horns and navicular body and flat back. Very characteristic. It's a hallmark of the coso canon of rock art and such panels um are fascinating and I've had the opportunity to deconstruct and talk about some of those symbols over the course of my career. 03:02.85 alan Studying Cosa rock art so it was almost like seeing a ah new friend coming home. 03:10.82 Linsie Lafayette You must have had a chance to really analyze that after we left with your pictures and and the de stretch analysis that you did was there any other ways that you. 03:20.80 alan Yeah I did D D stretch I post processed it several different ways and it was amazing. How much came out of ah of that image and things that we could see so. 03:34.34 Linsie Lafayette And you think those are fatable right? Those ah images. 03:37.20 alan Yeah I would I I would I would say with some confidence that much of the much of the panel would probably date to the newberry period meaning from about a d one to about 2000 bc so about two thousand to four thousand years ago no doubt they're they're just very characteristic of of the ah of the material that's been dated within koso that classic form of bighorn sheep begins about 2000 bc and continues proliferates during the later periods. And grows to a larger than life-size image that appears in the coso range itself. 04:26.22 Linsie Lafayette Well, that's great that um, that we were able to preserve that and and have that information available to you to see? yes. 04:35.49 alan Yes, um, and then we um, we had time to look at that bit of a I don't know if it's enigmatic but interesting site there at little Lake and that has historic. Ah, materials and even ethnographic materials and prehistoric brock art and historic inscriptions as well sort of a real mixture. 05:06.60 Linsie Lafayette Yeah, it seems to be um, a path that has been used. You know for Millennia and into the historic times. It must have been a very important. Um you know pathway throughout all time going past that water source there in the desert. 05:20.10 alan Absolutely And what what was partially shocking to me was you just wandered around and found several new Glyph elements that I'd never seen before and I'd been out there literally dozens of times you found a series of out lotls and another. 05:22.65 Linsie Lafayette Yeah. 05:39.41 alan Depiction of a classic coso bighorn sheep that you yourself had discovered just wandering around the rocks there. 05:45.14 Linsie Lafayette Yeah, um, and I saw that you recorded it in 1976 I got the site records from from. But. 05:54.12 alan A very a very primitive a very primitive recordation that was during my my ah infancy in archeology I was working as an intern for the bureau of Land management and doing ah unbelievable amounts of work. Living at the little Lake hotel and trying to develop a cultural resource management plan to protect the resources. So Ah I have to apologize for sort of the primitive nature of that documentation. 06:25.60 Linsie Lafayette That's all right? Um I'm wondering though if you're working for the Blm why you were on private land analyzing recording those um those panels. 06:35.58 alan I guess I guess at the time we did know was private. Um I guess we did. We thought that it was all blm um and um, they even had me doing a lot of work looking at the little Lake Ranch itself um even though they knew that was private because they. They wanted me to to do a nomination for both what they call Fossil falls that you didn't see and little lake as a singular nomination which I did and as well. I um I did a publication I did my master's thesis on that. Particular site and ah the the bureau of land management owns actually the the top most mesa top of that flow that basalt flow that exists around little lake so. It's sort of a. An intermingled set of private and public. You know landscape does that make any sense. 07:42.14 Linsie Lafayette Yeah, there's a lot going on in that tiny little spot. 07:46.57 alan Yeah, exactly. And in fact, I'd mentioned this on one of my earlier programs but a colleague of mine. 1 of the board members of the California Rock Art Foundation did his master's thesis on that mesa top. There on the ah blm um land and what he discovered was ah hunting blinds and Dummy hunters that were being used to hunt the bighorn sheep and he used a state of the art drones and and you know three dimensional mosaics to recreate. The landscape and test models regarding the feasibility intervisibility in the landscape and whether they could in fact, be used to hunt and slay sheep. 08:36.88 Linsie Lafayette Right? I'm sure that entire area was being used intensively for a long time. It has a lot of attributes for for hunting and gathering and. 08:44.56 alan Absolutely it was a it was ah as I said it it was a given that that's a you know of a freshwater lake in the in the desert which is so rare. Um, that would be a you know sort of ah a magnet for. Variety of occupation act and cultural activities and it was the same even through historic times where they had a road and a um, a stage coach stop all there at little lake they called it. La Gunita in the past and that was the historic. Spanish name for the site and that was the um that was the ah ethnographic village of Pagunda that Julian Stewart Dot Dot documented and um and so. 09:41.24 alan So back in 1938 he documented. There were several different ethnic groups there anyways quite an interesting place. 09:51.21 Linsie Lafayette Yes, thanks for showing me. 09:55.74 alan Lindsay. Do you have some final comments conclusions that you would perhaps want to share with the audience. 10:02.92 Linsie Lafayette Why sure? Um, well I'm I'm here tonight. Um, thank you very much alan for inviting me to promote the archaeological conservancy and we're a nonprofit so we accept tax tax deductible. Donations of course and with those ah and and you can make have a membership to the conservancy for I think it's just $25 a year and we have a lovely magazine that comes out quarterly which um, you can also find back issues on our website archeologicalconservancy.org. 10:38.69 Linsie Lafayette And um, we run we raise money through tours. Um, there is a tour coming up in March for the Guatemala highlands and Kopa and in Mexico that is run you know with an archeologist. Um with the tour group. Um, as a tour guide and another one of our representatives will go along as well and in may we have a rafting trip on the yompa river in Utah um, we'll have a conservancy representative there as well as ah, an archeologist who works with blm in the in the region who. Who knows about the archeology and the and the Fremont rock art that that we'll see on the river in that ah area I think I believe it goes through dinosaur national park. It's like a 5 a five day rafting trip which sounds amazing. Um, let's see. Um. 11:32.72 Linsie Lafayette We also have. 11:33.89 alan I guess I guess 1 thing that we should make ah the general public aware of is if they know of an archeological site. It's that's privately owned or an historic site that needs protection and that is is available for sale or could be for sale. 11:39.49 Linsie Lafayette Yes. 11:50.17 alan They should probably alert you right. 11:51.74 Linsie Lafayette Yeah, yes, those are the best tips I mean I have I can go on the you know things like Nev Chris and and Chris in California and um. Oregon and Washington e equivalents like at the the archeological databases and I find archeology sites that look great and they're on private land and I write I write letters to the landowners and um, but more often than not I do not hear back. So. 12:18.48 Linsie Lafayette If I don't have that tip of someone who you know is interested in sellinging their land anyway and wants to preserve the archaeology on their land. That's that's the best kind of tip to have um otherwise I'm just kind of sending a letter out into space. It feels like trying to. Trying to see if um people are are interested in preserving their land and um, we don't need. You know you don't have to. We're not pressuring anybody to sell their land. We're very patient. We can answer questions. Um, you know people don't have to um. Sell it right? away they can they can put it in their will they can um, have ah they can live on their land. Um live on the land while we own it. Um. 13:06.73 Linsie Lafayette I Think it's called a life estate so you can you can still sell the land and live on it and you can have and you can have um and you can be on the committee that makes decisions about that property after we acquire it So there's lots of options to be had and um. 13:21.44 alan Thank for can thank it all the down. 13:24.98 Linsie Lafayette Go ahead and and ask us questions and see how we can work together to preserve archeological resources. 13:34.98 alan Um, let's it's a pleasure connecting with you and I'm honored that you had a chance to share the joy of doing the work for the archeological conservancy and all you people out there in podcast land happy holidays Merry Christmas and Happy New Year talk to you 2024 god bless see in the flipop gang. 13:56.39 Linsie Lafayette Okay, happy holidays.