CRAF News - California Rock Art Foundation

Support CRAF

CRAF Update

4/25/2017

Summer is just around the corner. Here is what CRAF will be working on over the summer:

CRAF is still in need of a Treasurer. Please contact us if you are interested.

The deadline to register for spring trips has passed. I will be working on scheduling trips for the fall. Check our web site events page in late August and early September for more info.

Over the summer, we are planning to host a couple gatherings with guest speakers.
Contact us if you would like to help plan a gathering near you. Additional info will be coming soon.

We are hoping to arrange a Rock Art 101 Session to take place in the fall. This is a two-day event with a symposium the first day and a rock art tour the second. We already have a few location ideas, but please let us know if you have access to a great place to host such an event.

Lastly, CRAF is currently in the talking stages with an agency that shall remain nameless for now about recording a rock art site. We are excited by this potential opportunity and if it becomes reality, we will be looking for volunteers to help. We will inform our members of the latest news as things progress.

CRAF will be at the SCA Annual Conference

2/22/2017

CRAF will have a vendor booth at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Society for California Archaeology, Thursday, March 9th – Sunday, March 12th,
Tenaya Lodge, 1122 CA-41, Fish Camp, CA 93623.

CRAF Welcomes Colin Rambo to Our Board

1/10/2017

We are happy to welcome Colin Rambo to the CRAF Board.

Please visit our About Us page to learn more about Colin and our other Board Members.

The CRAF Quarterly Newsletter Has Arrived

12/20/2016

Click here to open the newsletter: http://conta.cc/2gNlCvU

CRAF Welcomes New Board Members

12/14/2016

CRAF is pleased to announce that we recently elected three new members to our Board. Please help us give a warm welcome to William D. Hyder, Betsy A. Lindsay, and Paul Goldsmith. We look forward to working with them.

Click here to view information on our Board Members.

Best Wishes and Good Luck to Mary Gorden

12/12/2016

We bid best wishes to Mary Gorden who has decided to retire from the CRAF Board in order to devote more time to other areas of her life. Mary is one of the few original founders of CRAF and was instrumental in making CRAF's launch a success. We are extremely thankful for her countless contributions to CRAF and to the field of rock art studies. We are sad to have her leave our Board, but we hope we'll see her around.
We wish Mary good luck in all her endeavors.

2017 CRAF Memberships - A Great Gift!

12/3/2016

Happy Holidays from CRAF!

It is time to renew your CRAF membership for 2017.
CRAF memberships and donations also make a great gift.

And don't forget you can shop through the links on our store page and a percentage of your purchases will benefit CRAF.

Just click a merchant link to be redirected to that online store and make your purchases as you normally would. The indicated percentage of the purchase price will be forwarded to CRAF. It doesn't cost you anything extra, and every little bit helps! Participating merchants include Amazon, Kohls, Nordstrom, Starbucks, Target, Fandango, and several more
http://www.carockart.org/store.html

Thank you for your continued support!

CRAF Logo

9/19/2016

A HUGE THANK YOU to Chris Gralapp
for our exquisite logo.

Rock Art 101 Postponed - Oct. 23 Field Trip Still On

9/4/2016

The Rock Art 101 Seminar scheduled for October 22 has been postponed until the spring. However, the field trip to Little Petroglyph Canyon on Sunday, October 23 is still being offered. To attend this trip, a base access form must be submitted in advance. The deadline to submit the form is September 12. If you would like to attend this field trip, please visit our event page to register, or email Christine at christine.craf@gmail.com.

CRAF Newsletter Sent to Members

8/16/2016

To View CRAF's Newsletter: http://conta.cc/2b84ccx

Upcoming Lecture by Dr. Alan Garfinkel Gold

Myth, Ritual and Rock Art: Decorated Animal People
and Animal Masters of the Coso Range

One of the more spectacular expressions of prehistoric rock art in all of North America is the petroglyph concentration in the Coso Range of eastern California. These glyphs have played a prominent role in attempts to understand forager religious iconography. Four decades ago, Heizer and Baumhoff (1962) concluded that Great Basin petroglyphs were associated with hunting large game and were intended to supernaturally increase success in the hunt. Similarly, in their seminal work Grant et al. (1968) concluded that the mountain sheep drawings of the Coso region bolstered the hunting magic hypothesis. However, this hypothesis has become increasingly marginalized by a prevailing view that considers most rock art as an expression of individual shamanistic endeavor (cf. Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1988; Whitley, 1994; Whitley and Loendorf, 1994). This presentation explores comparative ethnologic and archaeological evidence supporting (in a fashion) the hunting magic hypothesis. Garfinkel places this explanatory framework in a larger context based on a contemporary understanding of comparative religion and the complexity of forager symbolism.

Garfinkel concludes that Great Basin rock art drawings may simultaneously represent both the source of supernatural power and the dream and trance world that gave access to it: the Master of the Game Animals. He attempts to develop a multilayered structure of interpretation tailored to the representations of what a shaman (ritualist, trancer) experiences and describes and what he or she has been socialised to expect, in terms of Native cosmology and one that models; mythology, ritual and religious tenets providing the material for understanding the altered state experience and the rock drawing pictures.

Friday, November 4, 7:00 p.m.
Madelyn Helling Library Community Room, County Governmental Center
Highway 49, Nevada City, CA.
For more information, contact Jane York at 530-575-2230

Upcoming CRAF Events

Rock Art 101
October 22-23, 2016

Field Trip to Little Petroglyph Canyon
November 12, 2016

Click on our events page for more info or to register.

African Rock Art Management and the Case of Birnin Kudu Rock Art Center Jigawa, Nigeria
by Salisu Aminu Musa,
Senior Antiquity Protection Officer
Click here for article.

PROJECTILE POINT PETROGLYPHS
OF THE COSO RANGE: CHRONOLOGY
AND FUNCTION
by Alan P. Garfinkel and J. Kenneth Pringle
Click here for article.

Forthcoming Rock Art Publications

Garfinkel, Alan P., Donald Austin, Paul Goldsmith, Adella Schroth and Ernest Siva
2016 Newberry Cave: Ritual, Ceremony and Symbolism of the Mojave Desert Bighorn Hunters. Rock Art Research, in press.

Schwed, Alex and Alan P. Garfinkel
2016 Berlin’s Ethnological Museum: The California Indian Collection. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, in press.

Mukhopadhyay, Tirtha Prasad, Alan P. Garfinkel
2016 Patterned Body Anthropomorphs of the Cosos: How Might Concentric Circle Psychograms Function in Ethnographic Schemes? Expression Number 13. Quarterly e-journal of Atelier in cooperation with UISPP-CISNEP, international scientific commission on the intellectual and spiritual expressions of non-literate people.

Keynote Speaking Engagement

Myth, Ritual and Rock Art: Decorated Animal People
and Animal Masters of the Coso Range
by Dr. Alan Garfinkel Gold

Sunday, October 2, 8:10 a.m.

Utah Rock Art Research Association, Annual Symposium
Delta, Utah
Civic Center, 305 W Main St
September 30 - October 3, 2016

Recent News

Mono County doctor pleads guilty to looting Native American artifacts from public lands.
Click here for article.

CRAF is Looking for Board Members

CRAF is seeking new Board members for positions as Treasurer and for someone who specializes in grants.

We are developing a business plan for our department on Cultural Resource Management of rock art and Traditional Cultural Properties. Open to new members with Alta or Baja California rock art interests. We are especially interested in developing stronger ties to Baja California studies.

Contact Christine Grimaldi Clarkson or Dr. Alan Garfinkel Gold if you would like to help with these or other CRAF efforts.