00:02.38 archpodnet Welcome back to the rock art podcast episode 120 again. We're talking about little Lake California and the rock art in this really small place with ah with a lot of with a lot of rock art to see so you might be asking yourself. Well, how can I get out there and and and really check this out. Um, first off. Can just an average person if they know where that's at visit this site or is it protected or blocked or somehow um can anybody get there if they know where it's at. 00:27.59 Alan So That's a very good question very astute question and the answer of course for most of Cosa rock art is that it's protected either by the bureau of Land management or by the owners of the private little Lake Duck Club. Or by the China Lake Naval Weapons Center itself. So this concentration of rock art is locked up behind fences and guarded. It's It's highly protected Now. There is some available on the outskirts and and fringes that you can see and and go and visit. 00:51.24 archpodnet Um. 01:04.95 Alan But the the largest concentrations and larger expressions are ah pretty much difficult and near impossible to get to see also especially with with the ah issues of Covid the issues of an enormous. 01:13.86 archpodnet Earth. 01:24.79 Alan Earthquake that hit the base two years ago in excess of 7.1 that had they estimate $8000000000 worth of damage and then with the little lake Duck club. 01:32.32 archpodnet Yeah, you. 01:40.95 Alan Ah, being hit by that monsoon and destroying all their roads and having to put tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars back into reconstructing all of those roads. Um, they've been a little bit adverse to opening up their private duck club. The general public again I think because of liability issues and the issues of of maintenance maintenance to try to keep up such a pristine property. They um, they spend $1000000 to ah, clean it up to ah they go regularly in there and. 02:01.39 archpodnet I bet. Yeah. 02:19.48 Alan Clean up the ah the deposits of weeds and other undergrowth that that cloud cloud and create. Ah, you know a difficult lake environment and they um it it cost them a lot of money. Um, they only have 25 members and I think the members pay. Ah, some unbelievable amount of money for access to the lake once or twice a year during during the year to to ah hunt and to ah spend time at the lake. Um, when you get there. 02:46.36 archpodnet A. 02:51.74 archpodnet Well. 02:54.80 Alan Which and we're going in there one 1 time this year and I imagine in in the future. We'll have other times that we can go into little lake again and I'm sure at some time in the future they're going to open up the base and there'll be times that we could go into see little petrolyph canyon as well. Um. 03:14.53 Alan Ah, will see some treasures at little lake itself when you get there, you'll see the ah stall site itself which is ah an open air campsite. It's covered in huge flakes of Obsidian because. The coso obsidian quarry is less than a couple miles away and so it's covered in these enormous flakes that were um, thin down for the manufacturer of what they call bifaces or rough outs or and huge dart points. There's also a yeah. Rock shelter there that has ah a rock image in there relatively recently and a lot of other pic graphs that can best be seen using d-stre and d-t stretch of course is a a postprossing element ah a modality of. 04:04.49 archpodnet Yeah. 04:12.87 Alan A program that brings out the invisible and making it makes it visible in terms of pigment but also in terms of some of the images of rock art. So There's that and then when you get all over the ah little Lake itself. There's whole walls of rock art. That are just covered with a lot of representational images with ah models with dogs with what else milling slicks everything under the sun can possibly see in in great basin Rock art. 04:35.92 archpodnet Ah, so. 04:43.55 archpodnet Who. 04:50.63 Alan Both representational realistic and abstract is perceived. There's ah examples of rattlesnakes. There's examples of the um Mountain Lions are represented frequently on and on and on I could go on so. But there's every class of figures that can be found on the base are also seen at little lake itself. 05:20.87 archpodnet Nice. Yeah i. Highly recommend. Anybody who's a fan of going and visiting rock art sites to download destretch onto their phone I know it has ah an Iphone app I've got it on mine and it works completely offline so you don't have to you know if you're out of the middle of nowhere. You can take a photograph with your. Camera roll and then open up d stretch bring it in and try these different presets for ah different um well different presets for different basically exposure settings and color settings that help that are that are known to help pull out some of these sort of hidden images that you can see in rock art. It's pretty cool. So check that out. It's not a free app. You can download it. But then they you know there's like 1 guy that's created this and is supporting it so help support him a little bit and and get the app. So um, but it's pretty neat. So what does it. 06:02.13 Alan Um, yeah. 06:08.10 archpodnet Talking about the California Rock Art Foundation field trips to little like what is it? What is a what does a day look like like that like where do they? What do they meet? You know what do you guys? do for the day you know what does that take us through that that field trip. Okay. 06:17.49 Alan We we meet there at about 9 a m yeah yeah, we meet there about 9 a m and it's at the um, the ah it's the entrance to little lake there at three hundred five they'll open up the gate for us then we we assemble. And then we drive in. There's a house there. We fill out some paperwork that's a liability form and then they they let us go which is rare they you know they let us go wherever we want to go that we let us walk on anything. We want to walk on. They let us touch whatever we need to want to touch and. 06:34.31 archpodnet Okay. 06:44.68 archpodnet Um. 06:54.14 Alan That's unheard of by the way you don't you normally don't have that freedom to sort of get intimate with the rock art as you do at littlelake so people take advantage of that to to photograph it up close and personal. They um also are able to see things that they've never really seen before. 06:54.23 archpodnet A. 07:01.48 archpodnet Yeah. 07:13.38 Alan With such an amazing concentration of representational naturalistic paintings rock art. Ah archeological features open air campsites flakestone. It's got everything under the sun all packaged up under one umbrella. 07:30.32 archpodnet Wow, That's really cool. 07:32.76 Alan So it's impressive. Plus it's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place. Um, it really is to see ah a spring fed natural Lake ah much as it was throughout. Prehistory is an honor and a privilege to actually you know experience that. 07:49.81 Alan We then? ah you know, go to various places that have been identified as ah concentrations of the rock art Some some are in alcoves Some are exclusively paintings some are ah other areas that are sort of in Cul- De-sacs and then we'll we'll stop for lunch. Right? near the lake and have something I'll probably give a bit of a lecture or answer questions as we go around to the various sites trying to do my best to field all the questions and do my best to do to answer them as best we can based on our studies and research. 08:09.37 archpodnet Oh. 08:29.26 Alan And then um and about mid-afternoon we'll we'll say you do and some people then have ah take ah some further time and they go out ah to Fossil Falls and they'll take pictures there as well and then we end up leaving for our various doomiciles or. Going in to ridgerest and maybe getting a bite to eat and then going home with ah with a wondrous day experienced and and people you know are never but never the same because they they can't get those images out of their mind because they're They're very very compelling. 08:55.11 archpodnet Nice. 09:09.16 Alan How do one explain this these are images that that cause one to emote. They're emotional images. They're images that produce surprise they also produce ah joy or Drama or inspiration. They'll show individuals with hands. 09:12.61 archpodnet Over. 09:28.80 Alan Arising towards the sky those are called adorants who are praying to ah ah to their deities and so um, some of this is is is rather it's a it's a freeze frame. Into the minds of people that lived hundreds and thousands of years ago 09:55.38 archpodnet Awesome. Okay, so how can people join in with these field trips to little like I know you're doing one already that that it's gonna have gone after we release this episode but ah, where can they watch where can they keep an eye out to. 10:09.69 Alan Um, I would ah yeah I would stay vigilant but I would join the um California Rock Art Foundation or or support the um the efforts that we have with our podcast in underwriting or sponsoring. 10:10.45 archpodnet Ah, to really find out when these are happening. 10:21.75 archpodnet E. 10:26.58 Alan These podcasts and we'll keep you apprised. Also there from time to time we have situations where we can get in to interesting places that have remarkable rock art and we ah we sometimes have so have those. 10:44.21 archpodnet Um. 10:45.34 Alan Field trips that are on rather short and you know short turnarounds so we will blast out a quick email and get people there rather quickly. 10:51.10 archpodnet Yeah. Nice, okay, well the California Rock Art Foundation is at Ca Rock Art Dot Org and that is always linked down in the show notes so you can go check it out and if you scroll down to the bottom of that homepage you can enter your email address and get their newsletter. And there's a lot of good stuff in the newsletter things like these trips are sometimes announced there if they have time and things like that. So definitely check that out. Ah I think with that alan do. You have any final thoughts on on little lake before we end the show. 11:22.97 Alan Well, it was it was interesting. We just came back for the society for California archeology meetings in Riverside. We spent a couple days there and um I know this isn't a cultural resource management platform per se but I did confirm that here we are in California right? that it's A.Ground0 for the greatest concentration of cultural resources professionals anywhere in the world. There is a 2000 such people that are actively engaged in various ways studying the past or preserving the past or teaching about the past and history and prehistory and architecture. 11:56.93 archpodnet No. 12:02.36 Alan And that's rather exciting and um ah join us for ah ah the ability to see and and experience some of these magnificent sights and I'll see in the Flip-flop gang. 12:19.14 archpodnet All right? We will call that the end I'm going to leave it recording so we can just do the outro when we don't have a guest. There's no reason to do a segment 4 We can just cut all this out. So ah, let's go ahead and just keep this going like I said and and do the outro when you're ready this is episode 120 12:34.69 Alan Okay, hello out there in archaeology podcast land this is Dr Alan Garfinkel your host for episode one twenty we're gonna do a deep dive into the archeological and rock art site of little lake right? there on the. 12:35.10 archpodnet Go ahead. 12:53.66 Alan Eastern skirt of the Sierra Nevadas and the very edge of the coso range will do a virtual rock art tour and answer some of your questions about what's so interesting about little a see in the flip flop gang.