00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to episode 120 of the rock card podcast and we're talking about little Lake California a really small but special and unique place in the in the prehistory of California and that region and and just the native people there. So. Let's talk about the rock art. That's there. That's obviously what we want to discuss on this show. So what kind of what kind of density is there. It's nothing like some of the stuff at china lake na weapon center like we've talked about I don't think anythings like that. But what kind of rock art density room looking you find there. 00:29.83 Alan Well, but well believe it or not. It's not too different from the density that we can find within the ah little call with the ah. 00:38.77 archpodnet M. 00:45.60 Alan You know the coso landmark national registered district I was retained as a graduate student at UCDavis to do the cultural resource management plan for little lake and fossil falls and so I spent the better part of several months at least? um. 00:59.48 archpodnet Um. 01:04.93 Alan Walking along and and looking and studying and meeting and talking and trying to get a ah ah bead on what exactly little lake was what archeological resources are there what the rock art was there and what that all could and indeed have meant to the native people. And ah it it is a remarkable place. A very remarkable place for a variety of reasons. Ah the most diligent work that really has uncovered or discovered the character of that place was done by Joann Van tilberg 01:24.83 archpodnet Um, yeah. 01:44.13 Alan As part of her work at the ah Ucla Cotson Research Institute she had eighty volunteers eighty eight zero that volunteered for a week or 2 every year for 10 years to somehow record and document could. 01:51.50 archpodnet Wow. 01:59.24 archpodnet Cheese. 02:03.76 Alan The rock art of little lake and she ended up recording over 6000 individual instances of rock art at little lake and she says and she says she may have gotten maybe 80% of it at best at best. 02:12.68 archpodnet Wow, That's impressive. 02:22.66 Alan She was using sort of old school rock art recording techniques. But ah, one of the things that was is very striking about littlelake is that of those 6000 instances of rock art 20% of them which would be on the order of what you know? ah. At least a thousand right? Um of those are all numbmmick scratched our friend the numbmick scratched and so that exists in great profusion and Joe and and tiberg argues that it's probably related. 02:46.43 archpodnet Um, okay yeah. 03:00.27 Alan To the historic women who occupied that place and scratched imagery relating to their subsistence and ceremonial and religious life there at littleig. 03:05.59 archpodnet Are. 03:16.37 archpodnet I Don't think we've talked about numic scratched in a while because we've been focusing on some other things. Can you describe what? that looks like again for our listeners and for me because I remember a little bit of it. But I haven't seen it a while either. 03:24.85 Alan yeah yeah number yeah, yeah yeah Numby ratch rock art is a little bit different. It's it's not something that was readily recognized until relatively recently it's if you go back to 1 68 where they talk about Coso Rock art with. The pioneers of trying to characterize the rock art of that region. They had. There was no mention of it at all and so only recently they were able to discern that what they thought was maybe graffiti was actually historic or late prestoric engravings. 04:02.60 archpodnet If. 04:04.10 Alan Little tiny etchings very thinly etched and scratched into the rocks some thought at 1 time to deface or embellish the ah older images that were done at a much different fashion technologically crafting these. Much thicker and much more embellished and much more deeper in representational or naturalistic elements. The numic scratched is typically done as a cross-hatching or a set of diagonals or some sort of ah. 04:30.90 archpodnet Um. 04:38.45 archpodnet Are. 04:41.21 Alan Largely completely abstract and non-naturalistic and non-representational series of designs that are on other rock guard or on rocks themselves and they're done in such a superficial way. That you can't really see them very well or see them at all only with glancing light or with ah special cameras or using different techniques or hopefully if the if the clouds have covered up the sky you can catch a glimmer. Of What's called Numbic scratched. 05:20.57 archpodnet Okay, so what other kinds of rock art. Can we find there I'm I'm thinking I'm curious about the ah not just the type of of rock art like. 05:27.95 Alan Um, the other kinds of rock guard that are there are. 05:34.99 Alan There's There's the there's the classic rock art of Koso there in profusion. So we have the ah classic Koso bighorn sheep. We have ah flat. You know the flat back boats shapebodied with full front facing bifurcated horns. 05:36.90 archpodnet E. 05:52.76 Alan Ah, some of them quite large. We have depictions of dart Points. We have a tremendous profusion of ah Lotl images those are of course the the um implements that are used to spear and kill the wild animals the larger. Adidactys and then there's ah ah, other imagery. Ah you know, decorated animal Human figures not in profusion and then there's a host of other rock art there that is pictographs paintings and Their're Polychrome They're red. They're white. They're black, Etc. And um, these these exist in a great abundance at certain areas of little lake if you go to little Lake and you look at the um geography and landform. The Lake itself is rather small and wrapping around the lake. 06:31.25 archpodnet Um. 06:45.32 archpodnet Great. 06:49.70 Alan Is a singular and impressive basalt flow that looks like a snake it has that columnar basalt. That's right above the lake as well and it's a black brown intense ah color and then at the end of the. 06:57.22 archpodnet Um, yeah. 07:09.77 Alan Lava Flow terminus. It has a bulbous end and that's either called the head or tail of the rattlesnake and that is where there's an enormous concentration of rock drawings. Both Petrolyphs Pictographs numbaccraed and ancient. Ah, rock art that has been dated using Portable Xrf methods state of the art portable Xrf to ten thousand years ago. 07:33.33 archpodnet He. 07:39.78 archpodnet Well, that's impressive. Yeah is ah but do you think this site meant anything I don't know different or unique to the people of that area as compared to other rock art sites. You know. I mean similar to the ones on China Lake and and in the area or was it special or was it just I don't I don't want to say an ordinary but just like another place where you know there's a there's a collection of rock art that people went to frequently and maybe that's the reason why there's so much there or do you think there was something special about it. 08:12.56 Alan I think there was something very special about it because of the presence of the lake. What? what's unusual in part is that on the base we have a class of beings super mundane beings. We call them. Pattern body dance promorphs. Ah, decorated animal-human figures or animal human avian women. Ah so lunar goddesses, etc. Those are absent at littlelake. You can't find almost a one of them if your life depended on it I think there's a total of 2. 08:42.98 archpodnet Yeah. 08:50.40 Alan Or maybe even 3 or 4 at most of these decorated animal-human figures I'm not sure why I am not not sure exactly why. But for whatever reason those particular class of figures elements are absent there yet. The area is solidly a singular archaeological establishment where you can't put your foot down without stepping on an artifact that is where the ah pinto site the stall site at little lake exists and that's where Mark Grim and Harrington in one fifty seven 09:23.88 archpodnet Oh. 09:28.24 Alan Working for the Southwest Museum excavated and found what he felt to be house floors and a um living spaces and burials and a very rich and abiding expression of ah permanent occupation. There on the shores of little lake. 09:48.77 archpodnet That's interesting has anybody gone back to I mean that was in the nineteen fifty s no no shade on 1950 s archeology but has anybody gone back to reanalyze that thinking and and see what we think about today using modern methods or is that still accepted. 10:06.15 Alan Well, there's been lots of different studies and you know minimal excavations here and there at little Lake but nothing substantial and nothing. Ah nothing to really sink your teeth into vis-a-vis as. 10:13.75 archpodnet Oh. 10:24.19 Alan As grand as what Harrington did in 57 or what Joanne Van Tilberg did a few years back to hopefully characterize the rock art now when when Tilburg was in there. Ah. 10:35.91 archpodnet Okay. 10:44.90 Alan She went to town and tried to very very intensively to examine the ethnographic record the archaeological record. What? all the other archaeologists had said about Coso Rock art what they had said about the ethnographic peoples that resided around that. Area and what we might believe would have gone on at little lake and 1 of her 1 of the resulting conclusions was in contrast to what some of the other scholars rock art scholars said. 11:12.60 archpodnet Ah. 11:20.43 Alan She had said there's was very very little evidence of anything that she could pin her pin pin down to relate to hunting activities. She did not see that as a significant subsistence settlement element. To all of her research there at little lake itself which is interesting because because one of the continuing controversial elements when you think about Coso Rock art has been the ongoing dialogue between all kinds of various people. 11:43.26 archpodnet Okay. 11:59.82 Alan Over the years one 68 including Campbell Grant David Whitley Dr. Alllan Garfinkel etc um about the role of hunting and its significance or lack thereof in the subsistent settlement activities of the people who lived. And the coso rage interesting hu. 12:21.58 archpodnet Yeah, okay, all right? Well with that. Let's take our last break and then talk about what a trip out to little Lake would look like and how you can participate in one of those. We'll be back in the minute.