00:00.53 Alan Well hello out there with all you listeners in the archaeology podcast land this is your host Dr Alan Garfinkel for episode rock art episode 68 if you can imagine it. How exciting. And I have to shout and announce that we're having quite a ah volume of listeners over the course of this rock art podcast were the only rock guard podcast in the world and the the top. Podcast that we've had in terms of the most downloads or listeners who have ah gleaned information from us come from a gentleman who hails from the wonderful continent. The nation of Mexico just south of our border from guanawato university. He's of East Indian ancestry and his name is tritha mukkahambaai and I always say vanab by me a vo because it's it's a very difficult name to to to spell properly. But I've I've learned Tertha are you with us. 01:14.12 Tirtha I'm I'm right here Adam thank you very much. Don't worry about him. Yeah. 01:15.58 Alan Oh good. Yeah god god god bless you and I know we ah, we're old pals. We've ah we've published 2 articles and now we have a book that's that we've been working on for just a few years I would say and it's just been accepted. Ah. 01:22.20 Tirtha Of course we have been working. Yeah. Okay, okay. 01:34.83 Alan Peer reviewed and we're going to be publishing it under the banner of I believe Bergen Books is that correct and where yes. 01:38.71 Tirtha Yes, the begen publishers based and off burgen burgen publishers based in they're based in Oxford and New York but our book is going to be published from New York so we are waiting. 01:47.75 Alan Okay. But it is ah it is a prestigious banner and we're very very very very excited. We are our manuscript I that I looked at just like I'd say of either a day or so ago and I clicked on the number of words and yes, it's very near 70000 words. 01:57.79 Tirtha Yes. 02:12.14 Tirtha Yes, and but we also have a lot of maps and images to to corroborate. Yeah. 02:12.47 Alan Ah, tertha 70000 count them. So maps maps and images and and it's it's yes and it's a remarkable journey and so ah I think I'd like to kick it off with ah maybe. A little bit of a vignette about how you and I have gotten together and and where we've where we've been where we're at and where we're headed together so you want to you want to sort of riff on that or reflect on that association or whatever other elements you think would be appropriate at this point. 02:32.40 Tirtha Um. 02:45.66 Tirtha Yes, yes, sure ah sure and and thank you I I would I'd I just say that meeting you was at first more of like an accident and but and. 02:49.27 Alan Go ahead. 03:02.54 Alan Ah, a happy ax a happy accident. Don't you think? yes. 03:04.73 Tirtha Happy. Yes, yes, happy accident is is the best description because you were from from a very hard archeology background with the. A lot of emphasis on precision and and findings and the metrics of rock art of everything that pertains to cultural material studies, material culture studies and um on the other hand. I came from more of a background of cultural. Ah anthropological studies hermenetics and I came to California in 2013 on a fulbright so senior research fellowship and i. I didn't know anything about the California Rock Art Foundation or your works to be honest because I was simply interested in the rockw art of the cosos and I came to ridge crest and I wanted to know more about. Rock art and in this region and the landscape fascinated me and it was nothing like the kind of landscape that we have in India from from where I come ah and as long as you you are not traveling more towards the north and across the. Himalayas um into Tibet and towards it central Asia but um, that that backdrop that that lack that sacred landscape context and chosaro art that interested me and tried to do some it. Ethngraphic cultural studies so around around the region at the University Of California Santa Cruz and then I became familiar with your work. Ah and some of the other. Very important anthropologists and archaeologists and their work on on the cosa rock arts and then I came to know more about your work and then we got to communicate with each other and we started you know on this journey and after about 7 even eight 9 years we are here and we have managed to compile our findings our insights into a very comprehensive yet. Ah very insightful ah view of the the native american. 05:53.63 Tirtha Especially the Me Meso American as second ah art the prehistoric prehispanic prehistoric art and and and of course we are looking at this art from a very broad historical perspective and that's all. That's all so interesting. 06:11.28 Alan Um, what's what's so fascinating about this is you know Serendipity plays into this. So so much and it seems as though my research you know it almost seems like you know? ah. 06:19.00 Tirtha S. 06:28.63 Alan Has been centered upon this Eastern California this nexus between the far Southern Sierra the western mojave desert the southwestern corner of the great basin call it the koso region but it's also the far Southern Sierra the innomono the eastern current area e cetera and it. And that particular area from a research standpoint has a tremendous tug because it's an area linguistically that's rather diverse. Um, it is an area that some people have called it the potential proto numbic homeland it has the greatest. 07:05.90 Tirtha Yes, but. 07:07.50 Alan Linguistic diversity probably in the entire great basin and as well. It's an area that other linguists have called it the Proto Uto as Techan Homeland am I correct. 07:19.77 Tirtha Yes, it starts from I mean since we have been looking at that very early pres prehistory I mean we're not even sure if we could call it history from any. Ah, tangibly rational perspective because we have tried to look at what was happening when the ah all tethermals set in after the glacial. Ice melts which started from about 15000 years before the common era before present and then as the ice started melting and the the human ah groups populations in the region. Especially in the great basin area. They started moving out more towards the ah the western sorry the eastern Sierra Nevada and south south easternstern Sierra Nevada to be precise. And the literature also seems to support what we have ah conjectured all and all along and the evidence that we seem to collect from from artifacts from. Ah, the iconography of the most ancient peoples ah Hunter Gab yes 08:49.54 Alan And ah, and also and also from the linguistics when people look at the the languages and the comparative linguistics and they're looking about the the centers of diversity they're doing reconstructions of you know the pro proto areas that relate to. Animals and plants and how that would would look you know, geographically it. It is rather surprising that that this particular area is one that has been targeted both from the standpoint of ancient or archaic uos s tech in presence by ah Catherine Fowler 09:12.30 Tirtha Yes. 09:26.99 Alan But got to meet actually for the first time at the great basin conference recently in Las Vegas Nevada and and also that this area it go ahead. 09:33.60 Tirtha Okay, and had you been? okay. 09:42.15 Tirtha I Just wanted to know if you had an opportunity to talk to fowler about the the kind of research we were doing or or. 09:43.89 Alan Go ahead. 09:52.89 Alan No, no, not a bit I was I was kind of in awe of connecting with her and and she was there with her husband and I I was so thankful just to see her and shake her hand and she had mentioned that she used the Kowaasu handbook. 09:57.29 Tirtha Okay, right. Well, that. 10:11.61 Alan Volume extensively in her work and I was so honored I thought thought it was amazing and I mean she's such a pioneer and a prestigious researcher that's on a scale of 1 to 10 That's an 11 so she's um, she's very influential and and very knowledgeable and. 10:25.20 Tirtha Um, yes, it. 10:31.37 Alan And um, this is a classic person who really has influenced my work from you know the last fifty years I have to say but in any ah in any event. Um, what seems to be rather amazing is I live probably what an hour an hour and a half away from the coso region and. Ridge Crest maybe 2 hours at most here in Bakersfield and that area has a tremendous tug on my heart as well as my head because there's so so many interesting questions and so many ah issues. 10:53.88 Tirtha Let's. 10:59.40 Tirtha I Have a hack. 11:08.70 Alan That seemed to revolve around this. Ah this piece of the California desert. You know you wouldn't you wouldn't think that it would have such a such a yeah, you wouldn't think that it would be such ah an um, an amazing place but yet. Um. 11:14.77 Tirtha The that's layer layers of history. We are looking at news. Yeah. 11:27.94 Alan And about a hundred square miles we have one of the most remarkable artistic records anywhere in the entire in the entire western hemisphere. 11:28.80 Tirtha Yes. 11:37.17 Tirtha Oh yes, absolutely Alan I mean um, you you are an all of Katherineine Fowler and you you know Fowler Eighteen forty up apoy 1919801983 that in her seminal research. 11:51.88 Alan Um, yeah. 11:57.10 Tirtha Ah, she elevates this whole hypothessis of the origin of the utos second homeland the the kind of you know she she takes it off from ah Hopkins who published his seminal work in 1965 12:10.90 Alan Right. 12:16.60 Tirtha And there you have the origins the provenance of this method of looking at the core Us tech and culture in terms of ah the origins around the place where you happen to be doing your research. Um, that iconography for a long time isn't it. 12:35.19 Alan And you fast forward to the most recent work even of my colleagues Sandy Rogers and Robert Yoey and and others who are now trying to assert that the coso region may have in fact, been. 12:41.89 Tirtha Yeah. 12:53.29 Alan Synchronous or you know, contemporaneous and equivalent to a very earlier ancient homeland and presence for the UtoSHec and people which is remarkable now moving now moving moving there because of our I don't mean to. 12:59.88 Tirtha Um. 13:05.70 Tirtha Um, yes, in fact, um. 13:12.35 Alan Obsess about the earliest material but there appears to be a a series of hallmarks call them semiotics call them metaphors what have you that appear to connect the dots all the way from Eastern California 13:19.54 Tirtha Yeah. 13:31.13 Alan The american southwest to the northern most parts of Mexico right into the heartland of Aztec country. 13:38.00 Tirtha Um, yes, yes, the debate. The debate is very interesting and now we have started calling it the homeland debate and but the debate was actually started by linguists. And whereas Hopkins or fowler shal they seem to suggest that the that this migration massive transm miration started out of the you know the the the entrenched topography of. 14:11.23 Alan Yeah, the north to south. 14:13.38 Tirtha Between the Humboldt River and yes, ah church the Sierra Nevada and that that's the area where we see the first stirrings of a us second iconography culture a ritual culture. But if if we go back to that reference once again, you see ah after. Ah, couple of decades some other linguists say that? no this is not the case they they bear upon their own body of evidence. 14:44.00 Alan They're thinking it. It moves in and in exactly the opposite direction. 14:50.24 Tirtha Yeah, it's exactly ah opposite and they they say that the the euterrasticans must have originated in in the northern frontiers of Missoamerica that that the currently the giilla river area. The Gillar River region in Arizona where you have the First. U address tech expressions and that is a maze growing culture dating to almost six thousand years before the present and so that predates ah the six thousand a year maze growing culture. Ah, cultural ah phenomenon predates hopkins or or Fowler's earlier thesis of a holocene around 4000 year before present. Ah time scale for the utos tech cultural expression in the southern fringes of the great basin. So the question revolved around this idea that the the us second cultures the great ah cultures of the north the so the soone the the bayutess the ah hopi and those of the south like the aztecs and the ritual that they may all have had their origin in Northern Mexico Arizona and they migrated northwards away and what seems a little bit ah vacuous in that argument is that the if the maze hypothesis the main is growing. Ah, cultural expansion is correct then it doesn't really explain why or how some of these not northern mexican expressions might have migrated towards California and the great basin and they lost their. Knowledge of maize and they became huntergatherers I mean that is where it runs up ah against this thesis that they were originally maze growing and they somehow had to accommodate to a hunter gatherer. Ah, style of life of living if we can. Okay, thank you. 17:19.63 Alan But let's let's stop that let's stop there Tertha and we'll pick it up on on the next segment see in the flip flop Gang. Thanks.