VVAA. Rock Art. Gci. 2006

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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


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


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.

Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21,Number32006| Feature


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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.

6 Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| Feature


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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.


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.

Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| Feature


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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.

Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21,Number32006|Feature


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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.

10 Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| Dialogue


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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


12/32

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



13/32

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



14/32

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.


There are all sorts

of things you can do

to increase public

awareness without

spending vastamounts of money.

Josephine Flood


15/32

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


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.


16/32

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.


17/32

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


18/32

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.

1 Conservation,TheGCINewsletter| Volume21 ,Number32006| NewsinConservation


19/32

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


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

Documents

VVAA. Rock Art. Gci. 2006