| Pages:
1
2
3 |
BajaVida
Senior Nomad
Posts: 541
Registered: 9-1-2003
Location: Motown, Califas
Member Is Offline
Mood: muy cool
|
|
Age of Catavina cave paintings?
anyone have an idea about how old they are?
my first photo post--hope it works
No se apure y dure.
Don\'t hurry and you\'ll last longer.
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 65165
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
BajaVida, until you get your photos to show... use mine taken last July by my daughter while I had a siesta below in my truck! http://vivabaja.com/703/page5.html
|
|
|
academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
Registered: 9-7-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Age of Petroglyphs
I am not an expert on petroglyphs, but I will hazard a guess. I have previously posted photos of petros from the Big Bend region of Texas that are
that old if not older, and they are much simpler than the ones at Catavina. On the other hand, they are very similar to the Chumash petroglyphs from
California, which are protohistoric.
|
|
|
David K
Honored Nomad
Posts: 65165
Registered: 8-30-2002
Location: San Diego County
Member Is Offline
Mood: Have Baja Fever
|
|
Robert, for the non-academics among us, what/when is protohistoric?
|
|
|
Natalie Ann
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 2819
Registered: 8-22-2003
Location: Berkeley
Member Is Offline
|
|
In Moon Handbooks "Baja",
Joe Cummings says that though no one is certain who painted the geometric patterns and humanoid figures on the rock face, "the Cochimi have been
suggested due to the presence of Equestrian images". Perhaps AA can tell us what dates that might be.
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
.....Oscar Wilde
|
|
|
Taco de Baja
Super Nomad
Posts: 1913
Registered: 4-14-2004
Location: Behind the Orange Curtain, CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Dreamin' of Baja
|
|
protohistoric
Protohistoric is the time period just before the beginning of recorded history of a particular people/culture . This of course will vary
depending on what people/culture you are studying.
As for the age of Catavina pictographs, I would guess not too old. The crumblyness of the granite would suggest that after less then 1,000
years they would have all fallen off.
|
|
|
bajalera
Super Nomad
Posts: 1875
Registered: 10-15-2003
Location: Santa Maria CA
Member Is Offline
|
|
Rock art
As yet, here really isn't a valid method of assigning dates to rock art. An estimate can be made based on artifacts found at a site, but how do you
know the artifacts were used by the people who made the art? Precise dates are much more likely to be applied to pictographs and petroglyphs by
amateur enthusiasts than by archaeologists, most of whom are very cautious about slapping dates on them.
That Huell Howser PBS presentation, incidentally, was by far the most annoying Baja crap I've ever forced myself to sit through. The "native experts"
who supplied the 4,000 date for the rock art also told him the church at San Ignacio was built by Jesuits in 1725. Don't have my books with me during
a brief stay up here in Gringolandia, but I think that's the date the mission--meaning the overall effort to convert the Indians of the area--was
founded. The mission church, begun by a Jesuit much later, was completed by Dominicans.
Howser, who made this video without doing any homework at all, was totally amazed at stands of cardon and cholla and ocotillo growing in the same
location. At date palms and oranges and carrots and garlic and lettuce growing "out here in the middle of the Baja desert." At motorcyclists who had
come all the way from--gulp!--KANSAS. Apparently convinced that San Ignacio is way off the beaten path, he wondered how they had found their way
there.
Just imagine: within a block of that ancient mission church (which he somehow assumed tourists never enter) there's a place where a row of young
people were playing video games. Will wonders never cease!!! And somehow he got the impression that the townsfolk come to the plaza to take their
siesta naps.
It was about Baja, though, so I watched it all the way through. And managed not to barf, although this wasn't easy.
bajalera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
|
|
|
JESSE
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 3370
Registered: 11-5-2002
Member Is Offline
|
|
A.D. 1352 and 1512 according to the Baja State University.
But.
The paintings where usually painted on top of others, so they are probably older than that.
[Edited on 5-17-2004 by JESSE]
|
|
|
KurtG
Super Nomad
Posts: 1211
Registered: 1-27-2004
Location: California Central Coast
Member Is Offline
Mood: Press On Regardless!!
|
|
| Quote: | Originally posted by bajalera
As yet, here really isn't a valid method of assigning dates to rock art. An estimate can be made based on artifacts found at a site, but how do you
know the artifacts were used by the people who made the art? Precise dates are much more likely to be applied to pictographs and petroglyphs by
amateur enthusiasts than by archaeologists, most of whom are very cautious about slapping dates on them.
bajalera |
I wonder what the researchers from The Australian National University, Canberra and The National Geographic Society would have to say about that " no
valid method of assigning dates to rock art" statement. They were pretty firm in their statements last year about dating murals in the Sierra
Guadalupe at 5-7500 yeas old. For info see: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/07/0717_030717_...
|
|
|
academicanarchist
Senior Nomad
Posts: 978
Registered: 9-7-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Petroglyphs and San Ignacio
That was a pretty good trick by the Jesuits to build the church at San Ignacio in 1725, and establish the mission three years later in 1728. FIgure
that. Actually, the Dominicans completed the church, using native labor of course, in 1786. Protohistoric has already been defined as the period
immediately prior to written records. In this case it would be the mid-18th century for the Central Desert region. The comparison with the Chumash
petros is useful. It is believed that many of the Chumash petros were drawn by shaman and shaman in training while on vision quests stimulated by
datura. The similar types of designs at Catavina suggest a similar origin. If datura was associated with the petros, then they would date to the
spread of datura use in the region.
|
|
|
Natalie Ann
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 2819
Registered: 8-22-2003
Location: Berkeley
Member Is Offline
|
|
And so, AA - what approximately would be the dates of the spread of the use of datura in the Catavina area... and also of the Cochimi, thank you.
Bajalera - Always try to avoid any production in which Huell Howser plays a part. You can bet the family farm on the "facts" being fiction and on old
Huell making no sense. The only PBS program Steve has banned in our house.
Also, sorry I missed you recently. Yes, you did miss/are missing some of LP's most beautiful weather. Hope you and Steve are doing well and enjoying
life.
Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.
.....Oscar Wilde
|
|
|
bajalera
Super Nomad
Posts: 1875
Registered: 10-15-2003
Location: Santa Maria CA
Member Is Offline
|
|
KurtG - Okay, maybe I'm being too picky. But I just find it difficult to consider "5000-7500 years old" to be a precise date. And while I don't know
zip about the qualifications of the Australian researchers, I do know something about the National Geographic Society: this is not a scholarly journal
but a commercial magazine that's focused on acquiring a wide circulation, and it has published some pretty scuzzy material on Baja California in the
past.
As a member of the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society, I rely on its Quarterly for info on the peninsula--and also on the reports of Eric Ritter and
Mexican archaeologists Fermin Reygadas Dahl and Guillermo Velazquez Ramirez. For assessments of current dating methodologies, I look to American
Antiquity and the American Anthropologist.
Natalie Ann - hope to catch you next time!
bajalera
\"Very few things happen at the right time, and the rest never happen at all. The conscientious historian will correct these defects.\" -
Mark Twain
|
|
|
Barry A.
Select Nomad
Posts: 10007
Registered: 11-30-2003
Location: Redding, Northern CA
Member Is Offline
Mood: optimistic
|
|
Dr. Eric Ritter
Bajalera----Doc Ritter lives a few blocks away from me, but he is out to lunch right now. I will call him about 1 PM and find out what he thinks
about the Catavina Petro/Picto glyths/graphs. More later. Barry A.
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
Cave Carvings
While on the subject, this cave was encountered on my last trip down. Local lore has it that when their TVs would go out and no "Real TV" shows were
to be viewed, they got so bored they marked up the walls. Circa- many many years before the nonsense.
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
|
|
|
jrbaja
Ultra Nomad
Posts: 4863
Registered: 2-2-2003
Member Is Offline
|
|
|
|
|
| Pages:
1
2
3 |
![[*]](images/xmbforum/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
