PCAS Activities: General Meetings
Monthly lecture meetings feature noted archaeologists and anthropologists who provide insight into a variety of topics. Lecture meetings are held at the Irvine Ranch Water District 15600 Sand Canyon Avenue (between the I-5 and I-405, next to the Post Office) in Irvine, on the second Thursday of each month, at 7:30 pm. See site map of the Irvine Ranch Water District and general vicinity map. For additional directions, please call Scott Findlay, 714-342-2534.
You are invited to join the speaker and PCAS members for dinner before the general meeting. It's an informal opportunity to visit with an acknowledged expert. We meet at 6:00 pm at Knowlwood Restaurant, 14952 Sand Canyon Avenue, Irvine; 949-857-8927.
Schedule and Speakers
Please note that last minute changes may occur.
February 11, 2010
Alexander (Sandy) Rogers
Dating the Coso Petroglyphs
The Coso Rock Art National Historical Landmark in southern Inyo County, California, contains an extensive variety of petroglyph motifs, with representational images predominating. Assigning dates to petroglyph images is notoriously difficult, and there is no guarantee that all motifs have the same age; in fact, it is likely that they do not. This lecture will describe an innovative application of multiple data sources to the problem of dating petroglyphs, using the cation-ratio, X-ray fluorescence, and obsidian hydration techniques. Six motifs are dated: “Classic Coso” Sheep, Other Sheep, Patterned-body Anthropomorph (PBA), Archer, Atlatl, and Abstract. The Other Sheep and Abstract are found to be oldest, dating to the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition, prior to 10,000 years ago; PBA and Atlatl images first appear in the Pinto/Little Lake Period, some 5000 – 7000 years ago. Classic Coso sheep are of early Newberry Period age, circa 2000 – 4000 years ago, and the appearance of Archer scenes is consistent with introduction of the bow and arrow around 1800 – 1400 years ago. None of the images date conclusively to the Marana Period, post 650 years ago. The results obtained are consistent with archaeological insights.
Alexander (Sandy) Rogers is Archaeology Curator at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, California, close to the Coso petroglyphs. He had a 37 year career with the Navy at China Lake as a physicist and executive, retiring in 2002. In retirement he returned to graduate school in archaeological anthropology, earning an MA in 2004. His research interests are Great Basin hunter-gatherers, rock art, and obsidian hydration dating, and he has published in all three areas. His paper on dating of the Coso rock art will appear in Vol. 37 of American Indian Rock Art , published by the American Rock Art Research Association. He is also co-author of Land, People, and Rock Art of the Coso Range , a popular overview of the Coso petroglyphs, published in 2009 by the Maturango Museum.
March 11, 2010
Dr. Gary Stickel
Ice Age Man in Malibu? The Clovis Culture Discovery at Farpoint