Towards Articulating Rock Art with Archaeology: Interior Chumash Landscapes and the Enculturating Environments Project

David W. Robinson, University of Central Lancashire, Fraser Sturt, University of Southampton & Julie Bernard, UCLA

The disarticulation of rock-art from the archaeological record remains the primary obstacle facing Californian rock-art research.  A schism, so to speak, exists between both the archaeological record and rock-art as well as 'dirt' archaeologists and rock-art specialists.  This is due largely to the fact that past rock-art research in California has not focussed intently on attempting to understand archaeological deposits found at rock-art sites.    Recent research suggests that many Californian rock-art sites were far more than places where pigment was applied or carvings etched: the archaeology found near rock-art sites shows that a suite of activities took place in view of the rock-art or the features it occupies, calling into question the view that they were places of shamanic exclusion.  Excavation, as the most powerful methodology available to archaeologists, enables the identification of associated practices that complements traditional analyses of the art itself as pictorial evidence.  This archaeological approach thus adds new perspectives to classic ethnographic and cognitive shamanic interpretations of the art.  In this talk, we discuss our ongoing investigations of a series of elaborate rock-art sites and their extended environs, all found on the Wind Wolves Preserve, in the San Emigdio Hills of interior South-Central California.

Pizza and Refreshments will be provided