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Conservat ion
The Getty Conservation Institute
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The GettyConservationInstituteNewsletter
Volume 21, Number 3, 2006
The J. Paul Getty Trust
Deborah Marrow InterimPresidentandChieExecutiveOYcer
The Getty Conservation Institute
Timothy P. Whalen D ir ec to r
Jeanne Marie Teutonico AssociateDirector,Programs
Kathleen Gaines AssistantDirector,Administration
Kristin Kelly AssistantDirector,DisseminationandResearchResources
Giacomo Chiari ChieScientist
Franois LeBlanc HeadoFieldProjects
Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter
Jerey Levin Editor
Angela Escobar AssistantEditor
Joe Molloy GraphicDesigner
Color West Lithography Inc. Lithography
TheGettyConservationInstitute(GCI)worksinternationallytoadvance
thefeldoconservationthroughscientifcresearch,feldprojects,
educationandtraining,andthedisseminationoinormationin
variousmedia.Initsprograms,theGCIocusesonthecreationand
deliveryoknowledgethatwillbenefttheproessionalsandorganiza-
tionsresponsibleortheconservationothevisualarts.
TheGCIisaprogramotheJ.PaulGettyTrust,aninternationalcultural
andphilanthropicinstitutiondevotedtothevisualartsthatalso
includestheJ.PaulGettyMuseum,theGettyResearchInstitute,and
theGettyFoundation.
Conservation, The Getty Conservation Institute Newsletter,
isdistributedreeochargethreetimesperyear,toproessionals
inconservationandrelatedfeldsandtomembersothepublic
concernedaboutconservation.Backissuesothenewsletter,
aswellasadditionalinormationregardingtheactivitiesotheGCI,
canbeoundintheConservationsectionotheGettysWebsite.
www.getty.edu
The Getty Conservation Institute
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 700
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1684 USATel 310 440 7325
Fax 310 440 7702
2006 J. Paul Getty Trust
Front cover:Enhanced detail o rock artin Tigui Cocoina cave in the Tassili dEmi Koussiregion o Chad. Photo: David Coulson.
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C
o
nt
ents
Feature 4 Rock Art Today
ByJeanClottes
Rock art is a major part o our cultural heritage. It is certainly the most ancient and
perhaps the most vulnerable. How can we best preserve the millions o images on rocks
throughout the world, which constitute a kind o gigantic museum collection exposed
to the depredations o nature and human activity?
Dialogue 10 Preserving a Worldwide Heritage A Discussion about Rock Art
Conservation
J. Claire Dean, an archaeological conservator in private practice; Josephine Flood, ormer
director o the Aboriginal Environment section o the Australian Heritage Commission;
and Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director o the Rock Art Archive at uclas Cotsen Institute o
Archaeology, talk with Neville Agnew and JeVrey Levin o the Getty Conservation Institute.
News in 16 U.S. Rock Art in the Twenty-frst Century: Problems and Prospects
Conservation ByDavidS.Whitley
The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the status o North American rock
art, expressed in the United States by numerous research advances and a greater concern
or conservation and site management. While these improvements are cause or optimism,
serious problems persist, including the lack o trained rock art conservators and limited
resources or site documentation and management.
20 Building Capacity to Conserve Southern Arican Rock Art
ByJanetteDeaconandNevilleAgnew
Over the years, the gci has acilitated conservation and training programs to improve the
management o rock art sites, particularly in the Americas and Australia. The lessons
learned rom these programs have been valuable in structuring the Institutes most recent
involvement in rock art conservationthe Southern Arican Rock Art Project.
GCI News 24 Projects, Events, and Publications
Updates on Getty Conservation Institute projects, events, publications, and staV.
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Rock ArtTodayByJeanClottes
A view o one o the Sierra de San Franciscopainted shelters in the deep canyons oBaja Caliornia, Mexico. Visitors to theshelters must have a permit to view thesites and are accompanied by trained local
guides. Photo:Jean Clottes.
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RRock art is the most widespread form of art and the oldest.
Ancient humans must have practiced dances and music, storytelling,
body decoration, and other orms o art, but these, o course,
were not preserved. Paintings, engravings, and carvings on rocks,
however, have endured throughout the world. These extremely
valuable artiacts testiy not only to the aesthetic sense o their
makers but, above all, to their belies, traditions, modes o thinking,
and way o lie. In act, the concepts o art and artist did not
even exist in the languages o many culturesor example, in
Australia the images were said to belong to the mythical time called
the Dreaming.
When prehistoric rock art is mentioned, most people think
o the painted caves o the Ice Age, such as those at Lascaux and
Chauvet in France or Altamira in Spain. Yet Europe is not the conti-
nent with the most sites, and more than 99 percent o world rock art
belongs to post-glacial times. This does not, o course, detract in any
way rom its interest and value; a painting by van Gogh is hardly less
valuable or being just one and a hal centuries old.Precise dating o rock art is diYcult. The chronology o a
majority o images remains tentative because we can only radio-
carbon-date those made with organic material, such as charcoal or
beeswax. The othersengravings, as well as paintings made with
minerals, such as iron oxides or the redswhich are more numer-
ous by ar, can be assigned dates rom the subjects represented (the
shapes o known weapons, or example), rom comparisons with
well-dated rock art, or rom archaeological remains ound at the oot
o rock art panels.
No one knows exactly how many rock art sites still existprobably more than our hundred thousand. In Europe, the amed
Paleolithic art numbers no more than three hundred ty sites, rom
the southern tip o the Iberian Peninsula to the Urals in Russia.
Perhaps teen thousand more sites belong to ve later traditions:
the Levante art in shelters across the east o Spain; schematic art
along the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts in Spain, and the
British Isles; the Fontainebleau Forest art near Paris; the Alpine art
in France and Italy; and the thousands o engraved rocks in Scandi-
navian countries.
Arica is the continent with the most sites, estimated at over
two hundred thousand. Sites are particularly numerous in two huge
areas: the Sahara and adjacent regions, and southern Arica. Rock
art exists in a number o places in the center o the continent, but in
lesser quantity. In Asia, one can distinguish ve main areas with rock
art: the Middle East, Central Asia, India, China, and Indonesia.
On that vast continent there may be more than ty thousand sites.
In the Americas, rock art research has intensied in recent
decades. Tens o thousands o sites probably exist rom Canada
to Patagonia, including more than teen thousand in Central and
South America alone. They vary rom the gigantic ghostly gureso the Barrier Canyon style in the American Southwest to vivid
scenes with minute humans in the Serra da Capivara in Brazil.
Paintings and petroglyphs (engravings) are all over Oceania,
with hundreds o sites in Hawaii and on Easter Island. The most
important country in the world or rock art, however, is Australia,
or three reasons. First, its painted or engraved sites number one
hundred thousand or more (the Cape York Peninsula, Arnhem
Land, the Kimberleys, and the Pilbara are regions with innumerable
and oten spectacular paintings and petroglyphs). Second, it is the
place with the longest uninterrupted rock art tradition, dating backperhaps ty thousand years. Finally, unlike elsewhere, in many
The semisubmerged Panel o theHorses in Cosquer Cave, Marseilles,France. Located below sea level andaccessible only through an under-water tunnel, the cave containsseveral dozen painted and engravedworks completed between twenty-seven thousand and nineteenthousand years ago. On this panel,ocean water is leaching the remain-ing image rom the rock. Photo:Jean Clottes.
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o what ancient peoples created. This is obvious rom the absenceo paintings on exposed rockswhere only engravings and carvings
have survivedwhile painted images are still present in caves and
rock shelters. Nature took its toll even on those works in protected
places. For example, the end o the Ice Age ten thousand years ago
brought fooding to vast areas. Thus, our-ths o the wall suraces
in Cosquer Cave in France were destroyed by the Mediterranean;
art survived only in those chambers that remained above sea level.
I the sea keeps rising, some o the most important paintings in the
cave will be gone within a century.
Over the millennia, natural catastrophes such as hurricanesand earthquakes, and even the slow evolution o the rocks them-
selves, have caused engraved rocks to split apart or painted cliVaces
to collapse. In these instances, nothing much can be done. On the
other hand, damage is oten due to causes that can be controlled
or instance, when water seeping rom cracks runs onto the walls,
or when termites or wasps nests threaten the exposed suraces.
The greatest threats to the conservation o rock art, however,
are human in origin. In most o the world, gradually or catastrophi-
cally (on several continents ater contact with the rst Europeans),
traditional belies waned, and the art was no longer considered
places in Australia, the indigenous belies and stories about the arthave passed down to modern times.
Rock art is a major part o our cultural heritage. It is certainly
the most ancient. It is also the most vulnerable. The millions o
images on rocks constitute a kind o gigantic museum with its works
helplessly exposed to the depredations o nature and human activity.
Preservation Problems and Threats
It is doubtul that the creators o rock art gave any thought to what
the art would become in time. They chose places or their worksin accordance with their belies and customs and or all sorts o
purposes, such as materializing tribal myths, asserting their pres-
ence, or getting in touch with the supernatural and beneting rom
its power. Sites with rock art oten became sacred, and the images
were believed to be the work o the spirits. Sometimes, as in the
Kimberleys in Australia, when the paintings eventually aded, peo-
ple believed that they were losing their potency, and they repainted
them to restore their power.
With the passage o time, the works suVered rom weathering
and other natural phenomena, so that today we have but a tiny part
Rock art depictions o Wandjinas, spirits associated with rain, in theKimberleys region o western Australia. Believing that peeling and adedimages were losing their potency, people repainted these images to restoretheir power. These examples have probably been repainted numerous times.Photo:Jean Clottes.
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Portuguese government, under public pressure, abandoned the
project and turned the whole site into a protected area.
Current Preservation Eorts
A major ght or the preservation o a huge rock art region is cur-
rently under way in the remote Burrup Peninsula o northwestern
Australia, where a mammoth industrial plant is planning to expand
ater investing billions o dollars. Up to ten thousand Burrup
engravings have already been destroyed or moved to another area as
a result o industrial activity. Not so long ago, there would have been
little discussion: industry would easily have won over art. What is
new is that a powerul movement to protect the heritage and relocate
the industry, not the petroglyphs, is gaining strength.
On all continents, associations o people interested in rock art
ght or its preservation and recognition, initiating or supporting
conservation actions, as in the Burrup case. Most o them are
grouped in the International Federation o Rock Art Organizations.Preservation eVorts diVer, according to the nature o the sites
involved. Painted caves are easy to deal with. Nearly all are closed,
and their access is restricted. In Europe (mostly in France and
Spain), thirty-ve caves are open to the public to allow people to
satisy their interest in rock art. Ater decades o limitless visits to
the most amous (Altamira and Lascaux) and the damage that
resulted, those caves were closed, and strict regulations were set or
the ones that remained accessible; their climate is monitored and the
number o visitors is strictly limited.
To preserve some o the better known and vulnerable rock artsites, aithul substitutes have been made. Over the past thirty years,
more than two hundred thousand people a year have visited the rep-
lica o Lascaux, called Lascaux ii. In Spain, the replica o Altamira
enjoys even more success. The excellent Prehistoric Art Park o
Tarascon-sur-Arige in the French Pyrenees, with replicas and pho-
tos o rock art ound in the area, opened in 1995. Other projects are
under way, including one in the Ardche in southeastern France,
ocused on Chauvet Cave. An ambitious museum and documenta-
tion center at Teverga, near Oviedo, Spain, which will eature Euro-
pean Upper Paleolithic rock art, is to open in 2007.When rock art sites number in the hundreds in an extensive
area, it is sometimes possible to protect the whole area rather than
individual sites. Five examplesall on the World Heritage List o
unescocome to mind because o the excellence o the art and the
eYciency o its preservation.
In northeastern Brazil, the Serra da Capivara National Park
includes our hundred ty painted shelters. The park is entirely
enced, and guards monitor its entrances. The environment
fora and auna includedis as well preserved as the art itsel.
Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21,Number32006| Feature
sacred or even valuable. This development had two consequences.
The rst was the loss o the storieswhat the images meant or
their makers and their culture, and what ceremonies took place
around them. When all this went, the art lost its lie and depth.
The images may be beautiul and strike a chord in modern behold-
ers, but the complexity o their meanings has vanished. Whenever
the stories have come down to us rom parts o Australia, Arica,
and the Americas, we are amazed at what they reveal about the spiri-
tual lie o their creators.
The second consequence o the disappearance o traditional
belies is that the art, no longer respected and valued, becomes more
vulnerable to modern development. Innumerable examples exist
o rock art sites fooded by dams, cut across by roads, or destroyed
by buildings or by the extension o agriculture. When huge
economic and social interests are at stake, especially, but not only,
in developing countriesand in the absence o strong religious or
cultural opposition to the projectsthe perceived value o rock art
becomes negligible.Even when the art itsel escapes outright destruction, pres-
sure can be strong to develop the surrounding area and thus change
the context o the art drastically. Rock art is part o the landscape,
which oten plays a major role in its meaning. Even modern tourists
sense this when they experience the art in its natural environment.
Extracting an engraved rock and putting it into a museum is like
cutting oVa gargoyle rom a cathedral and exhibiting it singly.
Would we consider that due respect is shown to a medieval cathedral
or to the Taj Mahal i we did not destroy them but nevertheless
allowed them to be surrounded by actories or commercial malls?In the past twenty years, more and more people have become
aware o the existence o rock art. This awareness could serve to
enhance its value and acilitate its protection. At the same time, the
explosion o tourism has created new threats. Too many sites remain
unprotected and vulnerable to the ever-increasing foods o visitors.
Under such circumstances, protecting rock art and its environment
is challenging. How can one prevent irresponsible tourists or locals
rom making graYti, enhancing gures or photographs, removing
artiacts, and sometimes even stealing engraved rocks to collect or
sell, oten ater damaging them and their surroundings, as is cur-rently occurring, or instance, in parts o North Arica?
In most countries, adequate laws exist to protect the rock art
and other archaeological remains. Unortunately, in the absence o
public pressure, they are oten not enorced, and nothing happens
when destruction occurs. In other instances, the laws are superseded
by economic and political interests, as in the construction o the
gigantic Three Gorges Dam in China. The example o the proposed
Foz Ca dam project in Portugal is unique; in 1995, ater the discov-
ery o thousands o petroglyphs along the banks o the river, the
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Some o the better-
protected rock art sites
include (but are by no
means limited to):
Tassili nAjjer,Algeria
The Drakensberg, South Africa
Twyfelfontein, Namibia
Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
Range Creek, Utah, USA
Helan Shan, Ningxia, China
Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, India
Naquane and Luine parks,Valcamonica, Italy
Mercantour Park,Alpes-Maritimes,France
Rio Martn Park,Aragon, Spain
Laura area, Cape York, Australia
A detail o the large panel atNourlangie Rock, in Kakadu NationalPark, Australia. Rangers monitorsome o the most signicant rock artsites in the park. Photo:Jean Clottes.
An enhanced engraving o a man withbears at the site o Alta, Norway. At
one time, a number o engravings onexposed rocks in Scandinavia wererepainted with biodegradable paint,in order to make the images morevisible to visitors. Photo:Jean Clottes.
A wasps nest covering a hand stencilat Anvil Creek in the Selwyn Rangein Australia. This is an example o thekind o natural damage to rock artsuraces that can be controlled, asopposed to the slow evolution o therocks themselves, about which littlecan be done. Photo:Jean Clottes.
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In Mexicos Baja Caliornia, accompanied by local guides, one can
visit the rock art sites o the Sierra de San Francisco with a special
permit rom the Instituto Nacional de Antropologa e Historia.
In northern Australia, Kakadu National Park occupies an extensive
part o Arnhem Land, and some o its best sites are monitored by
rangers. Foz Ca in Portugal is guarded and can be visited only
by appointment, with guides provided by the sites documentation
center. The thousands o petroglyphs o Alta in northern Norway
are within the bounds o a specially built museum. Visitors can eas-
ily see and photograph them along wooden passageways that do not
detract rom the natural surroundings. Other examples o eYcient
protection o art exist in Arica, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and
Oceania (see sidebar).
The environmental, geographical, and cultural conditions o
rock art are so varied that no xed, intangible rules are applicable to
all. For example, in Scandinavia, the art is scattered over thousands
o accessible sites, only a small percentage o which are marked and
provided with inormation panels. Since weather is overcast or longperiods in this region, many visitors cannot photograph or even see
the petroglyphs. To avoid visitor rustration and destruction rom
visitors rubbing the images with a stone or with chalk to enhance the
art, curators used to paint the most visited petroglyphs in bright
colors, using biodegradable painta method that seems shocking
because it runs counter to the principle o not touching the art.
Ater being criticized, curators in several areas abandoned this
approach. Unortunately, this choice led to new damage to the art.
All rock art sites open to visitors are in danger o vandalism.
When the art cannot be physically protected, as are the painted caves,or watched over by guards, one must appeal to visitors sense o
responsibility and take whatever measures may diminish risks.
Stone pathways, or even inexpensive symbolic protections like ropes
between poles, are used in many places to contain visitors to prevent
them rom getting dangerously close to the art, and rom trampling
ragile archaeological suraces.
Steps or the Future
Despite all the good work, huge losses to our rock art heritage areoreseeable. As a consequence, we must apply our eVorts in two
directions: rst, to better protect the art and eliminate or at least sig-
nicantly diminish the impact o natural and human destructions;
and second, to saeguard knowledge o the art in case the worst
should come to pass.
Education and knowledge are essential, including relentless
educational eVorts directed at the general public, along with pres-
sure on governments and decision makers to provide and above all
enorce legislation or the protection o the art. These are the aims.
As or promoting recognition o the immense cultural value
o rock art worldwide, one way is to propose major rock art sites or
the World Heritage List ounesco, thus bringing the sites into the
international limelight. To get on the list, a site must not only be
exceptional but also well preserved and well managed. The burden
is on the governments o the states where the art is located i they
wish to gain the coveted honor and reap the economic benets.
With the increase o rock art tourism, special eVorts should
be made to partner with tour operators and guides, as well as with
local populations, who are better able than anyone to preserve the
art and become custodians o the site. The cultural value o the sites
is reinorced by linking preservation o the sites to a communitys
economic prosperity. A good example o this is the management
o visits to the rock art o Baja Caliornia, which are handled by
paid local guides. Workshops or those directly engaged in rock art
management and conservation are another practical step to be
encouraged.
Last but not least is the problem o data collection and thepreservation o knowledge. unescos World Heritage Centre and
icomos (the International Council on Monuments and Sites) have
started work on assessing rock art in Central and South America,
beore doing so in other continents. The situation o databanks is
extremely disparate, rom countries where hardly any inormation
on the art is recorded, to others where the art is systematically
registered by oYcial or semi-oYcial departments. As to the ethnol-
ogy o the art, when any exists, it is rarely recorded in the same way
as the images.
Also lacking is a world rock art museum. Such a museumwould serve several purposes. First, it would constitute a growing
archive or the uture. Second, it would act as a ount o inormation
on how to collect and store dataadapted to the economic condi-
tions o the various countries, rom the most sophisticated methods
(e.g., laser recording in 3-d) to the most economical (e.g., tracing
by nondestructive methods). Third, it could be a center or training
researchers, managers, rangers, and guides. Fourth, a rock art
museum could make rock art panels rom around the world available
or public viewing; current replication techniques (e.g., holograms,
3-d, laser, and photogrammetry) oVer the possibility to create lie-size replicas o tremendous quality, such as the ones at Lascaux,
Altamira, Niaux, and Teverga.
Taken collectively, the above measures could advance preser-
vation o rock art while raising the awareness o one o the most
spectacular cultural achievements o humankind.
Jean Clottes, a leading expert on rock art, has authored or edited twenty-three books
and more than three hundred fty articles on prehistory and prehistoric art.
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Preserving a Worldwide Heritage
ADiscussionaboutRock Art Conservation
Rock art can be ound throughout the
world, in great varietyand oten in
great risk. What are the most serious
threats to this ubiquitous orm o
human creativity? In what ways are
these threats being addressed? How
important are legislation and educa-
tion in protecting this heritage? Three
proessionals with backgrounds in
both archaeology and rock art dis-
cussed these questions and others with
Conservation.
J. Claire Dean, an archaeological
conservator in private practice, is a
member o the Society or American
Archaeologys rock art special interest
group, and has served on the board o
the American Rock Art Research
Association.
Josephine Floodis the ormer director
o the Aboriginal Environment sec-
tion o the Australian Heritage Com-
mission and the author o a number
o books dealing with Australian rock
art and prehistoric Australia.
Jo Anne Van Tilburgis director o the
Rock Art Archive at UCLAs Cotsen
Institute o Archaeology. She is also
the director o the Cotsen Institutes
Easter Island Statue Project.
They spoke with Neville Agnew,prin-
cipal project specialist with GCI
Field Projects and head o the Insti-
tutes Southern Arica Rock Art Proj-
ect, and withJeVrey Levin, editor o
Conservation, The GCI Newsletter.
Jerey Levin: I think it would be useul to start by defning rock art.
Jo Anne Van Tilburg: Rock art is basically symbols placed on geological
elements within the natural landscapesymbols that are agreed to
contain evolved or traditional cultural and/or religious meanings.
J. Claire Dean: There are common names or rock imagery, including
petroglyphs andpictographs. I also include in this what some have
calledgeoglyphs orground fgures, such as we see in Caliornias
Mojave Desert area and elsewhere in the world.
Josephine Flood: I have had to write short denitions or glossaries,
and my shortest is symbolic markings on rock suraces. A slightly
longer one is symbolic pictures or marks made on a rock surace.
One would have to include things like abraded grooves and cupules,
which are small, cup-shaped depressions made in a rock surace.
These are nonutilitarian. Theyre oten on the walls or ceilings o
rock shelters and are the by-products o ritual. In Australia, we do
know some o the rituals involved, which might be rainmaking in
the case o abraded grooves, or, with cupules, rituals to bring out the
lie essence rom a sacred rock, which arises rom the rock as rockdust when the rock is hammered with another rock.
Levin: We fnd rock art on just about all the continents o the world.
Is there another orm o art that has the same universality?
Flood: I think its unique.
Dean: I think, in general, it is.
Neville Agnew: I think the uniqueness o rock art, as a maniesta-
tion o human expression, is its deep antiquity and its geographi-
cal universality. Its the essence o human expression in various
orms and ways over the entire span o human existence and in
every part o the world. I do think that the wordart is sometimes
misleading. Rock art, although oten beautiul, is actually more
art as in the wordartiact.
Dean: The use o the word artis something I have a particular bee
about, and this comes directly rom the olks that I work with.
The tribal elders in the region where I live in the Pacic Northwest
asked me not to use that term, because they nd it oVensive. That is
the case elsewhere, although dislike o the term is not universal.
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Personally, I am uncomortable with the word artor this type
o work and use the term imagery instead, partly in deerence to
my elders but also because my work has taught me that there is
something else here.
Levin: How much o what we would call rock art exists today in
places where it still has meaning or unction or native peoples?
Dean: It all has meaning and unction to somebody. We underesti-
mate how much o it is still in use. I work mostly in North America,
and I would say that the bulk o it is actually o importance and
o use to some native peoples somewhere. The imagery may not
have been made by their cultural groupit may have been made
by a group no longer therebut they consider it to be important
and sacred.
Flood: In Australia what we would call rock art is still being made,
which is quite exciting. The last rock painters have diedhowever,
when people visit a site that has meaning or them, they tend to leave
what you might call a visiting card in the orm o either a hand
stencil or, in sot rock, o abrasion and rubbing o a groove. That isthe mark that they have been to the site. I really preer the word
markings to rock artbecause it encompasses the whole eld. Art is an
alien concept to Aboriginal Australians. There is no word or art in
any o their two hundred ty languages. There are words or paint-
ings and engravings but not or art or markings in general.
Van Tilburg: I wish in a way we had never coined this term rock art.
Art, in my denition anyway, is subjective sel-expression. I dont
believe that most o what we see in rock art is subjective sel-expres-
sion. Its more o a shared expression o that which binds people to
a community and to a place, and as such it becomes or encompasses
the larger, collective symbology.
Levin: Well, or the purposes o this conversation, Ill stick with
rock art, since thats the term most commonly used. Id like to
address the nature o the major threats to rock art around the
world. Obviously these can diVer rom place to place, but are the
major threats primarily natural or human?
Van Tilburg: At Little Lake, a very large site that weve been working
on or some time in the Owens Valley in Caliornia, the land itsel is
Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21,Number32006| Dialogue 11
protected, and thereore, human intervention, in a destructive way,
is sharply limited. There are, o course, natural threats to the con-
tinued integrity or existence o the rock art.
Dean: Unortunately, dealing with vandalism and human impact
takes up most o what I do. Sites worldwide are, o course, subject to
natural deterioration, unless theyve been removed rom the out-
door environment and brought inside. Even i we put a structure
over a site to protect it, were not completely sealing it in. The natu-
ral environment is ever present. Folks orget that oten the very
places that images are located ina rock shelter or a cave or a cliV
were ormed by and were subject to natural deterioration beore the
images were created. That natural deterioration is continuing.
There are limited things we can do to mitigate it. Its oten inappro-
priate and rankly pointless to try to stave oVnatural deterioration.
Agnew: It is indeed utile in the long term to try to stave oVdete-
rioration, but its still incumbent on us to fnd ways to slow rates
o deterioration, which can vary enormously. One o the things
not adequately studied is the rate o deterioration o rock art.
Dean: Yes, there are ways to attempt to mitigate natural deteriora-
tionand they are called orbut overall it is going to continue
despite eVorts to stop it. The human threat is the biggest and grow-
ing one, particularly vandalism. But theres other deterioration that
takes place at sites, such as simple wear and tear as people visit.
Its not intentionalits what comes with the territory when olks
visit sites in large numbers. And theres the growth o things such as
ecotourism. Weve got cases o visitors being brought to sites where
there have not been good management plans.
Flood: Our Australian sites suVer badly rom natural causes. As or
human activity, we have extremely good legislation in Australia,
on a state-by-state basis, which provides blanket protection or all
rock art sites. We also have developed education programs, which
weve done through lm and written materials in schools and else-
where, to teach people the value o it. There has been almost no
Its been
demonstrated
in many places that
local involvement
makes an enormousdifference.
J. Claire Dean
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graYti in Australia since the 1960s or 1970s. But the problem weve
got now is that because o education and the legislation with heavy
penalties, people have gone back and tried to rub out their names
written on a site. Weve had some damage there. But human activity
mostly is not a problem in Australia. Ive been shocked as to how
poor your legislation is in North America.
Dean: We have legislation in the United States, but part o our
problem is enorcing it: having enough rangers to patrol places and
having judges and district attorneys willing to back cases and pros-
ecute them. In some areas we can get cases brought to court airly
regularly. In others, its near impossible. We need a lot more educa-
tion or the general public. In areas where education has been done
locally, it makes a diVerence.
Van Tilburg: I we approach the problem o conservation rom a
preventative point o view rather than rom a reactive point o view,
then we might think about rock art as i it were a collection in an
outdoor museum. I we took the approach that we have a body owork worth protecting, and were the curators o itwe would then
need to do a kind o risk management assessment. We would have to
look at what this collection consists o and evaluate the threats it
aces, then create an action plan. To do that, we have to quantiy and
prioritize risks, and then we have to allocate scarce public resources
to the protection o this collection. In order to do that, we have to
have the public on our side. The public has to be educated as to the
value o this collection.
Agnew: Id like to go back to Josephines observation that educa-
tion has been eVective in Australia. Is this a ocus in the schools?
Or through media? And who unds this type o education?
Flood: I worked or the Australian Heritage Commission, and this
is one o the things we tried to do. Our Aboriginal studies included
educational modules written on conservation, heritage protection,
and rock art. We got those into the schools, but also out at the sites
themselves, because there are always people whom the message
hasnt reached. Many o our sites are not in national parks and are
very open to damage. What we do is to put a lengthy sign on site,
which describes the sites signicance and says rmly, Please DoNot Touch. In many cases we put a little rope barrier in ront o the
siteanyone could step over it, but visitors tend to police one
another. There are all sorts o things you can do to increase public
awareness without spending vast amounts o money. O course,
things like heritage programs on television are really important.
Agnew: Were those unded by the Australian Heritage
Commission?
Flood: Some, yes, but educational authoritiesand we have an
authority in each state that is responsible or the preservation o
these siteshave done a lot, as well. Producing kits or schools has
been one o the most eVective things.
Van Tilburg: When it comes to the allocation o scarce public
resources, the American public, at least, isnt happy having their
resources allocated to sites theyre not allowed to visit. The publics
capacity to participate in the educational eVort o preservation may
be limited in part by some o the legislation that has been enacted.
Dean: I dont think its the legislation. I think its agencies not having
enough resources to do education and to provide the necessary pro-
tection. The other way to protect a sitemake it out o bounds
doesnt always work. I travel all over the country so Ive seen things
happening in diVerent places in diVerent ways. What works in some
cases can be tried elsewhere, and it wont work at all. Why that is the
case is never very clear.
Levin: Is involving local communities one o the approaches thats
more universally eVective in protecting a site?
Dean: Its been demonstrated in many places that local involvement
makes an enormous diVerence. A number o states in the U.S. have a
site-stewards program. I think the rst one was set up by Peter Pillis
in Arizona [Arizona Site Steward Program], and its made a huge
diVerence to the condition o Arizona sites. And most o the people
who are doing site stewardship work are not culturally connected to
the sites that theyre looking ater. They invest time in a place, they
eel they have a stake in it, and the idea o protecting it becomes cen-
tral. O course there are places where putting in a site-steward pro-
gram is extremely diYcult because many o these sites are out in theboonies, and you cant nd volunteers who can check a site. Its not
that easy because o distances and access issues. In North America,
too, this business o access runs smack into some concerns o native
communities who have some strong opinions about who should take
care o sites, how they should be cared or, and whether there should
be access at all.
Levin:Josephine, is public access an issue in Australia, where so
many sites have continued signifcance or native peoples?
Flood: I sites are on Aboriginal land, you have to get special permis-sion, so access is controlled by the traditional owners or custodians.
Some sacred sites are closed to visitors but Aboriginal owners are
proud o their rock art and keen to have some sites open to visitors
with their own people employed as guides and rangers. In each
region in Australia we have certain sites that are open to the public,
especially in large national parks and in small regional parks. They
are well set up or visitors with signs and the National Truststyle
step-over barriers. You cant have rangers at every site, so we use
education o the public and also inormative signs at the site, which
tell you what to do and what not to do. People tend to educate one
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We need to enlarge
the strategies
we have for asking
the public to invest
in site preservation.
Jo Anne
Van Tilburg
another, particularly i you get to the youngsters and teach them in
school to look ater their cultural heritage.
Van Tilburg: I think the diVerence between the U.S. and Australia,
perhaps, is that a lot o rock art, in Caliornia at least, is on land not
open to the public or any reason. So we dont have many opportuni-
ties in Caliornia to oVer the public organized, educational, and
holistic presentations o what individual sites are about and their
value to the community. For example, the Caliornia Department
o Transportation plans to set up a public display area in San Diego
County describing historical attractions available to visitors. Among
those attractions are rock art sites. They would like to have images
rom the ucla Rock Art Archive that describe sites located on public
land, protected, and available to visit. We started doing some
research, and do you know how many o those sites there are?
Hardly any. So I think we need to produce more and more accessible
inormation. We need to enlarge the strategies we have or asking
the public to invest in site preservation. We all have to understand
that i were going to use public unding to protect rock art sites,
we have to provide limited but reasonable public access.
Dean: As I understand it, the original mandate or both the U.S.
Forest Service and the Bureau o Land Management did not really
include recreation. It was economic. The use o the land has
changed since those agencies were ormed, and so weve perhaps got
a situation where we have agencies trying to educate themselves
because their traditional mandate has been to manage the land or
reasons diVerent rom the ones theyre being asked to consider at
this point. The U.S. National Park Service is a little diVerent,
because Park Service land has had public access.
Van Tilburg: I agree. The National Park Service has good models or
how to do the sort o thing that we want to see doneopen some
sites or educational purposes, provide site stewards, and involve the
local community, including a native community with ethnographic
connections to the site. We have to think in terms o adapting mod-
els rom other types o archaeological sites to rock art sites.
Dean: Certainly the tribal groups that I work with would have grave
concerns about increasing access to sites on ederal or state land that
are culturally associated with their groups. I know no one is suggest-
ing that people be excluded, but I think its an area where there
would be a lot o resistance or many reasons, both cultural and his-
torical. Its something that we have to seriously consider.
Levin: Weve talked about some o the strategies that have been
eVective: local community involvement, general education, and
installation o modest barriers at sites. Are there other strategies
that have been eVective?
Flood: As Ive said, public education has been incredibly important
in Australia. We have good legislation in each state, but what really
prevents people at remote sites rom cutting out rock art and selling
it or taking it away or themselves are the programs on television and
the education in schools about how this is illegal and wrong, and
that there are heavy penalties. When cases do come up, which ortu-
nately are rare, the media give them a lot o publicity. The media areon our side on this one.
Dean: In North America, looted rock art is a problem. I you talk to
law enorcement agents who work these cases, theyll tell you there
is a black market or rock imagery, and there have been prosecutions
and apprehensions or the sale. It is completely illegal when it is
taken oVederal land and state land. There is also, I believe, some
legislation that protects Native American religious sites [Protection
and Preservation o Traditional Religions o Native Americans].
One o the problems that we have in prosecuting cases is that
sometimes were asked to come up with a market value or the
stolen materials, which is diYcult to do when the market is illegal
to start with.
Agnew: Do we have any idea what people are paying or
looted items?
Dean: I get asked that question, but I have absolutely no idea. Its
probably something that I ought to know, but I nd it so abhorrent,
I have not chased it down. There are a couple o agents within the
ederal service who deal with that question, and I usually reer peo-
ple to them.
Van Tilburg: One protection or archaeological sites in general, and
rock art sites in particular, is designation as a National Historic
Landmark. From there, interested property owners or community
groups may be eligible or Save Americas Treasures or other
unding. At least one o the largest petroglyph sites in Caliornia
is on the National Historic Landmarks list. However, it is
time-consuming and expensive to put together the background
inormation required to have a site named a national landmark.
It takes a lot o energy to make it happen. But the various regional
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There has never been a time when weve had more graduate
students in archaeology programs wanting to do rock image studies
o one orm or another. Interest has increased, thanks to the work
o many people.
Van Tilburg: At ucla, there are ew students interested in rock art.
But recently, in addition to improved eld methods o recording,
there are more theoretical bridges between anthropology and
archaeology and rock artmore ways in which scholars are using
the tools o anthropology and the scientic method to understand
rock art.
Levin: How well have we documented the rock art that is out there?
Flood: We have a national archive, which is the Australian Institute
o Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra. I was
very involved in this when I worked or the Australian Heritage
Commission, and we produced orms or recording sites that
required detailed inormation. The institute also has wonderul
photo archives, and it keeps the original photos and lms in
controlled conditions. The Institute was very keen that people use
top-quality cameras and lms. These archives are now being digi-
tized, but because permission rom Aboriginal elders is required
beore their use, they are not easily available even to bona de
researchers. On the topic o archives, I would like to suggest that
perhaps the Getty Conservation Institute could establish an inter-
national repository or rock art photographic collections that could
rise above state and national politics in countries like Australia.
Van Tilburg: A signicant thing about digital resources is that you
dont need an international repository, per se. Each institution, no
matter where it is located, just needs to have a server once its les
are digitized. Access can be given in kiosks anywhere in the world.
Someone can, with the proper id, access the les and use them or
research or conservation. So the repository doesnt need to be a
physical place. The ucla Rock Art Archive, which was the rst
such archive at the university level in the Western Hemisphere
oYces o the Park Service are very open to working with community
groups and individuals to raise archaeological or rock art sites to the
status o a national landmark.
Dean: Thats a great idea, Jo Anne, but I think that Josephine has
nailed itits general education that is needed.
Van Tilburg: Educating the public in the United States has been a
topic o conversation among rock art researchers since I became
involved in the eld in the 1970s. We continue to request this kind
o thing rom agencies, educators, and other organizations. We con-
tinue to provide inormation to the public schools. But its not on
the radar o most educators, and or good reason. Most o them are
in urban areas and are dealing with issues they eel are more press-
ing. So it behooves people working in rock art to nd a way to make
it relevant to the contemporary world. One way to do that is to take
it out o the realm o secret inormation, in terms o site locations,
and bring it into the ull light o day. Rock art speaks to the universal.
It is the one artiact that can be visible to the public and speak to thepublic. Dirt archaeologists learned in the 1960s that in order or
archaeology to thrive, the public needed to be brought into the loop.
Archaeology, in general, has beneted rom that. Rock art has always
been an avocational eld, a place where people who had a peripheral
interest in archaeology became experts in rock art. Now rock art is
being brought back into the realm o archaeologyand also into art
and art history.
Agnew: Im pleased to hear you say that rock art is being brought
back into the realm o archaeology. I actually think that archae-
ologists have ignored it, despite the act that rock art is o the
archaeological record. Archaeology enjoys much public cachet but
rock art doesnt, and yet rock art has its own visual glory, oten
capable o speaking directly to the human experience.
Dean: I was a dirt archaeologist beore I became a conservator,
and I think one reason that archaeologists ignored rock art is that
you werent able to analyze it in a physical way like the materials that
archaeologists traditionally ndyou couldnt date it and you
couldnt weigh it. Rock imagery is something we just didnt do, and
so it became art history. O course, the pure art historians took onelook at it and said, No, thank you.
Flood: In Australia, rock art is studied as part o archaeology.
I started as a dirt archaeologist, but when I began working on
Aboriginal sites, the two things were regarded as closely linked.
The integrated approach works best. Rock art studies being taught
in universities are closely linked with archaeology, which means that
archaeologists get interested in the preservation o rock art sites.
Dean: Ive been working in the U.S. or twenty years, and its de-
nitely better now in terms o the involvement o archaeologists.
1 Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| Dialogue
There are all sorts
of things you can do
to increase public
awareness without
spending vastamounts of money.
Josephine Flood
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i I believe what I was taught as a studenthas in its les images
and paper les dating back roughly to the early 1920s in Caliornia,
and other, more limited les rom several other states. Weve digi-
tized a large portion o that. Recently, when I was at the National
Museum o the American Indian in Washington DC, we talked
about how that museum might work with ucla and the archive to
allow this kind o kiosk establishment to be set up there, and
whether the Smithsonian would be a proper server or that sort o
thing. It takes leadership, and obviously the rst step is to digitize
the les. The technology we use at the archive to digitize les is
primarily to preserve them, because they were previously stored in
nonarchival conditions. I we were to do it today, we would use diV-
erent and better technology. Youre constantly trying to catch up.
In my opinion, the best solution is to have this material on a server,
internationally available to researchers. This is what must be done
or this material to be useul.
Dean: One problem is that we have no standards or recording.
You basically pick and choose, and this can make it diYcult to use
the data and do any comparison work. Were also shortchanging our
resource because we dont have standardization. In one project that
Im in the middle o writing up right now, the same site has been
recorded three times by three diVerent groups o people. Youd
think it was three diVerent sites. You wouldnt realize its the same
darn place until you pull a photograph out.
Van Tilburg: Right, but think back a hundred years or more, to when
the Smithsonian Institution sent an army o ethnographers into the
eld to record the language and customs o indigenous Americanpeoples. There were standards. But you can go into the Smithsonian
Institution archives and youll nd that some kept to those stan-
dards, recording everything careully, and others piled everything in
a shoebox. Standards are important, but they wont be adhered to by
all people, and that cant be the rationale or accepting or rejecting
data into an archive. I that were the case, we wouldnt accept any-
thing at the ucla Rock Art Archive.
Dean: I agree it cant be the rationale, but we should still make
some eVort to improve the standards or good documentation,
and to try to produce some kind o guidelines that eliminate a lot
o the problems.
Agnew: Weve been talking mainly about North America and
Australia but not Europe, where the rock art is in pretty good
shape. In Arica, it is not. Arica is one o the great repositories
o rock art in the worldin the Sahara, and southern Arica,
and in places like Ethiopia, where there is wonderul rock art that
is hardly recorded and, I am sure, disappearing as we speak.
I would appeal or better cooperation between archives and
Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21,Number32006| Dialogue 1
research institutes to address the global issues o rock art
preservation.
Van Tilburg: I like the idea o a neutral place that might be able to call
a meeting and explore options that challenge us in the eld to rise
above territoriality and provincial concerns or the greater good,
which is worldwide preservation o this precious heritage.
Dean: That kind o international cooperation could increase generalawareness and aid in areas o the world that we havent talked much
about, Arica being one o them. I was recently in Yemen, and there
are some extraordinary sites in Arabia. But how many o us have
even seen photographs o them? Increasing general awareness and
education is necessary to provide protection or this resource.
Van Tilburg: I would note that the Trust or Arican Rock Art [tara]
is doing something to help in Arica. As or documentation, it is
clearly the key to good site conservation. Preservation comes with
good inormation about the nature o the site and an assessment
o the risks that it aces.
Levin: One thing we havent talked about is training in rock art
conservation.
Van Tilburg: Maybe Claire can speak to this, but conservation-
methods training in rock art is a key issue, I think.
Dean: I couldnt agree with you morebecause one day Id actually
like to retire. Our conservation students have to do internships in
their training, and I get inquiries rom students every year wanting
to do internships with me. Sometimes thats possible, but requentlyit isnt, because they have to do a yearlong internship, and some-
times I dont have enough work to eed me, so hiring someone else
is a little tough. But theyre interested. We have to build on that
interest, and thats going to take a certain involvement rom our con-
servation training programs. Im delighted that the ucla program
[the ucla/Getty Masters Program on the Conservation o Ethno-
graphic and Archaeological Materials] is getting oVthe ground, but
we need more than that. We need the programs back east, which are
primarily ne-art based, to take more o an interest. Over the last
ew years, they have improved the archaeological and ethnographic
components o their training, but they need to do more.
Van Tilburg: The ucla program is in the oreront o introducing the
idea o conservation to people who have archaeological backgrounds,
and that kind o interdisciplinary cross-pollination is very useul.
Once we all have the same vocabulary, we can be on the same page
and eVectively address these important issues.
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U.S. Rock
Art in the
Twenty-frst
Century:Problems
and
Prospects
ByDavidS.Whitley
The ethnography also points to other signicant acts,
especially or site management. Although the origin and meaning
o the art vary regionally, it apparently resulted everywhere rom
ritual practicesit was a product o shamanistic religions in the
hunter-gatherer Far West, or example, and was intended to depict
visionary experiences. Depending upon tribe and context, it was
made by puberty initiates during group or individual ceremonies,
by shamans on solitary vision quests, and/or by nonshaman adults
during lie crises. In contrast, the pueblo-dwelling Hopi armers o
Arizona engraved personal clan symbols during ritual pilgrimages,
illustrating the act that priestly religions, most commonly ound
among settled armers, made rock art unrelated to vision questing.
Regardless o specic origin, contemporary Native Americans
have long-standing cultural connections to and interests in these
sites. Work at U.S. rock art sites requires juggling contrasting
research, management, and conservation agendas, and an accommo-dation o Native American religious and heritage concerns.
Recent Research Advances
The good news about U.S. rock art research is the numerous recent
advances in the eld. Since 2000, there have been about a dozen
regional and topical summaries, most o which emphasize ethno-
graphic interpretationthe use o anthropological texts and
consultations with contemporary tribesin order to give a Native
American voice to the interpretation o the art. Rock art research
16 Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| NewsinConservation
Rock paintings at Horsethie Canyon,Utah. These pictographs, which date
to the Archaic period (ve thousandto teen hundred years ago), arecharacteristic o the shamanisticrock art that was commonly madeby North American hunter-gatherercultures. Photo:David S. Whitley.
T
The last two decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the
status o North American rock art, expressed in the United States
by numerous research advances and a greater concern or conserva-
tion and site management. While these improvements are cause or
optimism, serious problems persist. Any overview o the current
status o U.S. rock art necessarily must consider the tension
between newound success and ongoing challenges.
The United States has a particularly rich record o rock art.
For example, there are about teen hundred registered sites in
Caliornia alone, with equivalent or greater numbers in other west-
ern states. In part, the wealth o sites results rom relatively recent
Euro-American colonization, which only occurred in the late nine-
teenth century in much o the West. In part this abundance also
refects the act that rock art was an important tradition among most
Native American tribes.
The result is a wide distribution o sites across the entirecountry, with art dating over a substantial time span. Chronometric
dating and other orms o evidence suggest that some o this art was
created as early as the Terminal Pleistocene (about ten thousand
years ago). The ethnographic record and occasional historical sub-
jects (e.g., European-introduced horses) indicate that its creation
continued, in many locations, into the late nineteenth century.
There is also diversity in site type and unction. Rock art in
the United States includes polychrome and monochrome rock
paintings; engravings, incisings, and geoglyphs, in the orm o
intaglios; and rock alignments.
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has also been marked by the development o a series o direct dating
techniques. Marvin Rowe at Texas A&M University has led
research on the dating o paintings, combining an innovative (and
potentially nondestructive) plasma carbon-extraction system with
accelerator mass spectrometry (ams) 14c dating (which accommo-
dates the dating o very small organic samples). His system can
potentially date any color pigment containing an organic binder,
moving ams pictograph dating beyond charcoal-based black
pigments, to which it was previously restricted.
Ronald Dorn at Arizona State University, Tempe, and
Tanzhou Liu at Columbia University have sparked the revolution
or the dating o engravings, in the process developing a hal dozen
independent techniques useul in desert environments. Lius most
signicant recent advance involves varnish microlamination (vml)
dating. This method is based on the act that natural rock varnish
coatings (the product o hard-xed airborne dust particles) develop
over time in microstratigraphic layers that are themselves infu-
enced by major changes in climate. These layers can be identied inthin section, and once the microstratigraphic sequence or a region
is dened and calibrated, it is possible to relate the established
sequence to thin sections rom archaeological specimens (in a
method similar to tree ring dating), in order to bracket the age o the
samples. The most recent vml dating breakthrough resulted rom
Lius extension o his calibration rom the Late Pleistocene and
Terminal Pleistocene (beore ten thousand years ago) into the Holo-
cene (ten thousand years ago to the present), making it particularly
useul or the majority o the North American archaeological record.
Conservation and Site Management
Circumstances have also improved or site conservation and
management, despite continuing population growth and urban
and suburban expansion. One reason or this positive development
is a changing site management paradigm. Until the mid-1990s,
site management involved a one-size-ts-all approach predicated
on secrecy: i site locations were kept secret, site saety could be
ensured. This approach was a ailure or a number o reasons,
not least o which is that while visitor pressure certainly can be
deleterious to rock art, it is not the only important actor in site
preservation.
Since the mid-1990s, a substantially more proactive manage-
ment approach has developed among those responsible or rock art
conservation. This approach emphasizes in part the importance
o controlled visitation to specic managed sites. An outstanding
example is the program created by Peter Pilles or the Coconino
National Forest in Arizona. Pilles developed a cooperative agree-
ment with a or-prot tourist concern that includes rock art sites
as part o its attractions, requiring that the business und site con-
servation and management. Heritage tourism in this case not only
promotes site preservation but also emphasizes the importance
o rock art to local residents through its signicant economic impact
on local economies.
A series o recent and ongoing large-scale rock art documenta-
tion projects, undertaken in part to preserve the archaeological
Petroglyphs rom Willow Springs innorthern Arizona. These engravings,made by Hopi Indians during ritualpilgrimages, depict the individual clansymbols o the pilgrims. Not all NorthAmerican rock art is shamanistic inorigin. This is especially true o rockart made by arming tribes like theHopi. Photo:David S. Whitley.
Aerial view o intaglios. These earthgures, or geoglyphs, located nearBlythe, Caliornia, were created tocommemorate mythic events and
actors. Believed to be less than twothousand years old, they were placedat the locations o these mythicevents along a ritual pilgrimage routeused by Yuman-speaking tribes.Photo:David S. Whitley.
Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| NewsinConservation 1
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specialist on its aculty. In comparison, thirty years ago the various
campuses o the University o Caliornia employed ve archaeolo-
gists with American rock art research interests. With the exception
o dating research (conducted by scientists in geography and
chemistry departments), U.S. rock art research and management are
now the almost-exclusive purview o cultural resource management(crm) archaeologists working outside o the academic system.
The diYculty here is that crm archaeologists are not in a position to
train the next generation o U.S. rock art researchers. There is no
guaranteeindeed, there is limited likelihoodthat there will be a
next generation o U.S. rock art researchers to build upon recent
advances, given this circumstance.
The nal issue concerns conservation, per se, and here there is
more cause or optimism, despite the act that not all o our conser-
vation-related problems are solved. First, we have less than a hand-
ul o American rock art conservators. Second, we have tens o
thousands o rock art sites, but very limited resources or their doc-
umentation and management, let alone conservation. Third,
because o the vast site inventory, we have no real idea where the
most signicant conservation and management problems lie. The
result is that most conservation projects are ater-the-act eVorts
reactive rather than proactive. They represent the least eVective use
o resources, which would be better spent on preventing problems
rom developing in the rst place.
Fortunately, a partial solution to the last two problems should
be implemented soon. Ronald Dorn at Arizona State University
inormation contained at the sites, represents a second positive site
management and conservation trend. By ar the most successul o
these is the volunteer eVort o the Oregon Archaeological Society
(oas) under the direction o James Keyser, ormer Pacic Northwest
regional archaeologist or the U.S. Forest Service, with the active
participation o a number o local Native American tribes. Thisproject has involved the documentation o sites rom Alaska to
Montana, but the main emphasis has been on The Dalles region in
the Columbia River Gorge, which contains one o the largest and
most signicant (but previously overlooked) concentrations o
paintings and engravings on the continent. The work has included
the active participation o a rock art conservator, Johannes Loubser,
and has explicitly addressed site management and conservation
concerns. It has also been conducted ollowing a well-conceived
research program that has guided the documentation eVort.
Although largely staVed by amateur archaeologists, the project has
yielded an important series o proessional monographs and papers.
Structural Problems and Solutions
Two nal issues are important in any assessment o U.S. rock art.
The rst is the place o rock art in university curricula, because
o the implications this has or uture research and management.
Despite recent advances, North American rock art is eVectively no
longer taught at American universities. As o2006, no archaeology
PhD program in the United States has a North American rock art
Bighorn sheep petroglyphs rom theCoso Range in eastern Caliornia. TheCoso Range contains roughly onehundred thousand petroglyphs madebetween ten thousand years ago andthe early twentieth century, over halo which depict bighorn sheepaspecial spirit helper o rain shamans.These examples are thought to be lessthan two thousand years old. Photo:David S. Whitley.
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and Niccole Cerveny at Mesa Community College, Mesa, Arizona,
have created an evaluative system that rapidly determines the rela-
tive condition o rock art sites using quickly trained eld crews, and
integrates the results into a geographic inormation system (gis)
database. Once implemented, the outcome will be a listing and map-
ping o sites, ranked in terms o relative degree o peril, primarilyrom natural processes.
As geomorphologists, Dorn and Cerveny are interested in rock
weathering and its implications or rock art preservation. Their
point o departure is the act that diVerent rock types weather in
diVerent but characteristic ways, and this infuences site and panel
stability and thus the saety o the sites. Their system is accordingly
called a Rock Art Stability Index (rasi), and, while it emphasizes the
weathering and mechanical stability o rock panels, it can accommo-
date documentation o other actors, such as vandalism. A trial
training and eld test, using undergraduate eld crews, has demon-
strated the practical utility o the index and the replicability o the
results. The next goal o these researchers is to integrate rasi into
community college curricula, as a response to an increasing demand
or interdisciplinary science courses and service-oriented science
eld projects. The ultimate outcome o these eVorts should be the
identication o some o our more pressing rock art conservation
and management problems, providing us with a better understand-
ing o the sustainability o this portion o our cultural heritage and,
rom this rst result, enhancing our capabilities or managing and
conserving sites.
Two decades ago, North American rock art was something
o an intellectual unknown. All we had then was a rudimentary
understanding o its age and a limited knowledge o its origin and
meaning. Although there is still much basic research to be com-
pleted, the situation has changed dramatically because o the cur-
rent and very active generation o rock art researchers. We actually
know more about the rock art o some regions today than we do
about the remainder o the archaeological record. Documentation
and site management have also improved signicantly in recent
years. Model projects, such as the oas eVorts in The Dalles region,
have an important message: successul documentation is a collabora-
tive eVort requiring the contributions o research archaeologists,
knowledgeable volunteers, conservators, and Native Americans.
Our goals, in this sense, should be to preserve, protect, understand,
and respect the sites. These aims require an interdisciplinary team
eVort and approach.
It remains to be seen whether we can successully tackle the
many conservation and management problems that still conrontusi only resulting rom the very large number o registered sites.
rasi, as a practical approach, certainly will not solve all o the prob-
lems that conront U.S. rock art. But it is an important initial step,
partly because it will provide our rst real measure o what some
o those problems actually are. This development alone is cause or
optimism, although, as suggested, some steps orward have been
matched by partial steps back. We can only hope that the orward
progress made in the last two decades will give us momentum to
continue to improve the status o rock art into the uture.
David S. Whitley has spent over twenty-fve years in the feld o rock art, working
in western North America, southern Arica, and Europe; his most recent books are
Introduction to Rock Art Research andDiscovering North American Rock Art.
Enhanced image o a petroglyphdepicting an extinct Ice Age NorthAmerican llama, rom the RodmanMountains, near Barstow, Caliornia.Three independent chronometrictechniques date this engravingto approximately eleven thousandyears ago, suggesting that themaking o rock art extends backto early human occupation o theAmericas. Photo:David S. Whitley.
Microscopic thin section o the rockvarnish that naturally coats rocksuraces in deserts, eventuallycovering the engraved portions o
petroglyphs. The alternating layersare the result o major changes inprehistoric climate. The layeringsequence or a given region isconstant and can be calibrated usingrock-varnish-coated geologicalsuraces o known age. Recentcalibration or the last ten thousandyears in Caliornias Mojave Desertgreatly enhances archaeologistsabilities to date petroglyphs usingvarnish microlamination dating.Photo:Courtesy o VML Dating Lab.
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Building
Capacity
to Conserve
SouthernArican
Rock Art
ByJanetteDeacon
andNevilleAgnew
One of the greatest challenges or heritage conservation pro-
essionals is to develop strategies that nd a balance between polar
opposites. In the case o ancient rock art conservation (conservation
o paintings and engravings on natural rock suraces), we try to
retain the signicance o sites by protecting the original abric on
the one hand, while promoting controlled public access, on theother. This approach is undertaken with the knowledge that public
access invariably places the rock art at greater risk rom damage, but
we are motivated by the act that people will only care about the con-
servation o heritage places i they are aware o them.
In many countries the preerred option or protecting rock art
is to avoid publicizing it, so that only those most interested will take
the trouble to see it. While this reduces the risk o human-caused
damage, the down side to this approach is that the general public is
less likely to support public unding o rock art conservation i it
remains unaware o the arts signicance. Furthermore, in times o
economic pressure, this option comes under strain as uninormed
tourism operators, communities, property owners, and managers
are tempted to consider ways o encouraging even the uninterested
to visit the paintings or engravings, without rst putting in place
measures to protect the art.
Some important sites have been completely closed to the pub-
lic, such as Cosquer, Chauvet, and Lascaux caves in France, but
unless government unding is available to protect a site in perpetuity,
this option is unsustainablethe cost o protection becomes too
onerous, and tourism or neglect seem the only alternatives.
In places where it is common practice to generate income rom
visitors to cover the costs o site protection,sustainable tourism and
capacity building have become accepted strategies in the current rock
art conservation paradigm. Sustainability is more than economics,
however. It includes social dynamics that involve all o the relevant
people in decision making, as well as the development o appropri-ate conservation methods.
The rugged landscape o the Cederberg Wilderness Area has many rockshelters and overhangs, which were used by the San hunter-gatherers orcreating rock art. Photo:Neville Agnew.
Paintings in the Zimri rock shelter in the Cederberg, illustrating theexperience o shamans in altered states o consciousness. In this example,elongated human gures have wildebeest (gnu) heads. Photo:Neville Agnew.
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Over the past two decades, the Getty Conservation Institute
has acilitated conservation and training programs to improve the
management o rock art sites, particularly in the Americas and in
Australia. The lessons learned rom these programs have been valu-
able in structuring the Institutes most recent involvement in rock
art conservationthe Southern Arican Rock Art Project. The
objective o this project is to establish a long-term program that will
create momentum or best practices in rock art preservation, con-
servation, accessibility, and management in the southern Arican
region, rom Tanzania in the north to South Arica in the south.
The projects strategy is to invest in people rather than in inrastruc-
ture, with the expectation that i enough people are aware o the
ragility, meaning, and heritage values o the art, and are trained in
the management and interpretation o rock art sites, it will be easier
to ensure that best practice methods are implemented.
Building on a Regional Network
In 2003 the gci commissioned a easibility study to identiy one or
more nationally or provincially managed rock art sites in South
Arica that could be developed or sustainable tourism and could
serve as a model or similar sites in the region.
The gcis work builds on the network already established by
the Southern Arican Rock Art Project (sarap), a regional coopera-
tive that assisted countries in becoming signatories to the World
Heritage Convention and in identiying at least one rock art site in
their country or nomination to the World Heritage List. sarap held
a series o workshops on the nomination process, as well as courseson rock art site management plans and surveys in South Arica,
Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Zambia, Botswana, and Namibia. Since
saraps inception in 1998, rock art sites in South Arica, Botswana,
Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Tanzania have been inscribed on unescos
World Heritage List, and another site has been nominated to the list
by Namibia. Further workshops and courses will be arranged, as
required, to make use o the expertise developed.
The intent o the gcis easibility study was to explore ways
whereby the Institutes participation could strengthen and consoli-
date the sarap network, and to study the possibility o establishingregular training opportunities to build capacity at one or more
places where rock art (a) was already managed by national or provin-
cial government structures; (b) was open to the public and signi-
cant enough to be a World Heritage, national, or provincial heritage
site; and (c) could accommodate at least twenty trainees or courses
and workshops.
At the completion o the study, two World Heritage Sites were
selected: the Mapungubwe National Park on the southern bank
o the Limpopo River, which orms the northern border o South
Arica with Botswana and Zimbabwe; and the Cederberg Wilderness
Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| NewsinConservation 21
Area in the southwest o South Arica, about two hundred kilome-
ters north o Cape Town. These sites were selected because they
best t the criteria o the easibility study. They both:
have several paintings or engravings that oVer high-quality
rock art in reasonable quantity;
are situated in a local, provincial, or national park with stable
management;
have an enthusiastic management structure that is prepared to
oVer quality assistance and commitment on a partnership basis;
include some conservation problems that oVer challenges or
research and development;
are reasonably easy to incorporate into existing educational
and/or tourism structures in the region; and
have enough challenges to warrant inviting rock art site man-
agers rom other southern Arican countries to participate in the
development program. They would actively participate, establish
mutual contacts, and see the evolution o a viable project rsthand.
Defning Social and Conservation Responsibilities
In August 2004 a meeting o relevant stakeholders in the Southern
Arican Rock Art Projectincluding representatives o South Ari-
can National Parks (SANParks); the Western Cape Department o
Nature Conservation (CapeNature); the Clanwilliam Living Land-
scape Project based at the University o Cape Town; the Rock Art
Research Institute at the University o the Witwatersrand, Johan-
nesburg; and the Tanzanian Department o Antiquitieswas held
at the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles to establishshort- and long-term objectives or the project. Participants rom
Elongated human gures and antelope painted in red ocher in a rock shelterin Mapungubwe National Park. Photo:Neville Agnew.
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In conjunction with the Clanwilliam project, the University
o Cape Town installed a dormitory, kitchen, crat shop, and lecture
room, which are used to train local people in various skills, including
crats, catering, and tour guiding. These acilities were used or the
nineteen tour guide course participants rom the Cederberg area
and surrounding districts. Most o the participants were actively
involved in tourism, and several were representatives o the San
community in South Arica; three were rom neighboring Namibia,
Zimbabwe, and Tanzania. The participants learned basic inorma-
tion about the past inhabitants o the Cederberg, how the rock art
tradition t into the bigger picture o Stone Age lie, and how to
identiy themes in the rock paintings o the region. They also
learned to identiy major plant amilies, animals and their tracks,
and geological ormations, and they learned to talk about the history,
knowledge, and memories o indigenous people o the area. Their
knowledge level was assessed by the Cape Peninsula University o
Technology through regular quizzes, a written examination, practi-
cal demonstrations in the eld, and evaluation o communicationskills. Seventeen participants received certicates o accreditation,
and twelve are presently earning an income directly rom rock art or
related tourism. O the remaining, our are employed as eld rang-
ers or site managers by CapeNature, and one is employed part-time
as a translator at the South Arican San Institute.
The second activity was a two-week workshop on rock art site
management plans, held AugustSeptember 2005 at Mapungubwe
National Park. The twenty participants were drawn mainly rom
Mapungubwe and other national parks, and rom provincial nature
conservation and heritage organizations in South Arica, with ourrom Namibia, Botswana, Tanzania, and Zambia. They were
divided into our groups, each group being responsible or drawing
up a conservation management plan or a rock art site. An instruc-
tion manual was provided to allow participants to ollow the process
developed or heritage site management plans in Australia. At the
end o the workshop, our complete drat management plans and
our drat inormation leafets were presented to the manager o the
park or implementation.
The Mapungubwe workshop was aimed at a diVerent manage-
ment level than the tour guide course, and all the participants workeither or a national or a provincial park with rock art sites. In their
evaluation, participants were especially appreciative o the knowl-
edge they gained about rock art and about the process or manage-
ment planning. Their meeting with local stakeholders, such as
property owners, academics, and community representatives, was
also cited as a highlight because it helped them to identiy the major
issues regarding rock art tourism in the region.
In 2006 the venues or the two activities were reversedthe
tour guide course took place at Mapungubwe, while the manage-
ment-planning workshop took place in Clanwilliam. Judging rom
southern Arican countries, other than South Arica, attended the
meeting with travel assistance rom the World Heritage Fund.
As economic responsibilities at Mapungubwe and the Ceder-
berg are handled by SANParks and CapeNature respectively, train-
ing, conservation, and stakeholder relationships were identied as
the key issues that needed to be addressed at these sites.
At this meeting the ollowing objectives were identied:
create momentum to network and enhance the preservation,
appreciation, and accessibility o rock art in a sustainable way;
strengthen contacts between proessionals in the southern
Arican subcontinent; and
oVer opportunities or capacity building through workshops
and courses.
The agreed-upon strategy at both sites is to arrange annual
workshops and training courses to build capacity among staVin
national parks and provincial nature reserves in all southern Arican
countries and to also involve other stakeholders responsible or rock
art promotion and management. The activities will be evaluated
with input rom the participants, in order to ensure that project
objectives are met.
To achieve this, collaborative links were established between
the gci, the South Arican Heritage Resources Agency, SANParks,
CapeNature, the Rock Art Research Institute at the University othe Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and the Clanwilliam Living
Landscape Project, in the Cederberg Wilderness Area.
Training Courses
The rst initiative was a three-week accredited course in rock art
tour guiding in August 2005, based at the Clanwilliam Living
Landscape Project. The project was initiated by Proessor John
Parkington to inorm local schools and the public about the archaeo-
logical signicance o the Cederberg.
Trainees rom the 2006 tour guide course at Mapungubwe National Park withinstructor Janette Deacon. Photo:Trinidad Rico.
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Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21,Number32006| NewsinConservation 23
the enthusiastic response o participants, a network o well-
inormed rock art site managers and tour guides will soon be operat-
ing in the southern Arican region in national and provincial parks
that have rock art sites open to the public.
Addressing the Issues
The rock art o the southern Arican subcontinent has been securely
dated as ar back as twenty-seven thousand ve hundred years
beore the present. It comprises a vast body o heritage sites, most
o which date to between our thousan
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