Spring/Summer 1997
Stressing that presentation of the INAH report was central to discussion of the Great Murals, conference planners also noted that it was one of the few times an archaeological report has been included as part of a program on rock art studies and urged that future rock art programs include pertinent archaeological information.	Legacy of the Great Murals CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE AUTHOR AND HISTORIAN HARRY W. CROSBY, who named the pictographs "The Great Murals," followed with "In the Light of Their Past: Antigua California and the Great Murals." He described his own visits to the sites in the early 1970s and also described the visits in the early 1960s of Erle Stanley Gardner (the mystery writer who created the memorable attorney-detective Perry Mason) and Clement W. Meighan. Crosby also provided a stylistic analysis of the pictographs. Both zoomorphs and anthropomorphs are done, he noted, primarily in red and/or black, with the figures outlined and then filled in with nonrepresentational details. Ears, tails, and claws are often included but painted in a flat style, as though swung out from the body. Paintings close to the bottom of caves and walls are generally small; those high up are often larger than life size. The next speaker, Billy Clewlow of Ancient Enterprises, Inc., stepped in for Meighan, who was ill. Clewlow also spoke on the importance of making rock art even better known, not only in academic circles but also to the general public. First known outside the local community through the writings of Jesuit priests, the murals today are becoming more accessible to the public as the result of programs funded by the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH) and the Getty Conservation Institute. In his remarks, "The Great Murals: Preserving Mexican Patrimony and World Heritage," Alejandro Martínez Muriel, National Coordinator for Archaeology, INAH, recalled that in 1993 UNESCO declared the Great Murals to be a World Heritage Site. He traced the history of Mexican government support for the study of the area, including the establishment of the Vizcaino Biosphere Reserve in 1988. Results of the recent archaeological study conducted in the Sierra de San Francisco area were the basis for Maria de la Luz Gutiérrez's talk, "New Light on the Great Mural Sites of Sierra de San Francisco: INAH's Special Archaeology Project." Gutiérrez conducted a surface study that located more than seven hundred archaeological sites, showing considerable evidence of commerce, habitation, and quarry usage as well as travel in an east-west rather than a north-south direction. Eighty radiocarbon dates reveal Holocene occupations and activities on the peninsula. Available linguistic evidence shows that Yuman and Cochimi speakers lived in the area in prolonged and stable residence. After excavating three Great Mural sites, Gutiérrez suggested that the Great Mural tradition represents "an indigenous peninsular development, quite probably affiliated with proto-Cochimi groups." Noting that a substantial investment of time and materials was required in the construction of scaffolding needed for the painting of many of the murals, she remarked that the "production of imagery took place as part of the ceremonies conducted by shamans." Gutiérrez concluded that "excavation has revealed intensive habitation with the presence of archaeological materials that reflect a great variety of activities," including the making of rock art. Speaking on "Conserving the Paintings: A Pilot Project at Cueva de El Raton," Nicholas Stanley Price, an independent cultural consultant, described conservation measures to keep visitors away from direct contact with the murals. A system to control the number of visitors and restrict access has been implemented, as well as a guide-training program. Enrique Hambleton, in speaking on "Baja California, Its Ecosystem and the Future," emphasized that such a World Heritage Site should not exist in the midst of poverty. He urged that every effort be made to ensure that the site is preserved and that pride in the past is used as a springboard to ensure the economic future of the local community. Chris Chippindale of the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology presented a photographic survey of world rock art. He summed up the day's experience concerning "Baja California in the Wide World of Rock Art" by evoking the image of people everywhere depicting the experiences of the world as they saw it and by noting our need today to understand what made their world. Stressing that presentation of the INAH report was central to discussion of the Great Murals, conference planners also noted that it was one of the few times an archaeological report has been included as part of a program on rock art studies and urged that future rock art programs include pertinent archaeological information. Capping this successful-both in the quality of the scholarship and of the conviviality-event was another cause for celebration: Crosby announced he will donate his collection of rock art materials to the Rock Art Archive, a gift perfectly timed for the Archive's twentieth anniversary. Audrey Kopp is a volunteer in the Rock Art Archive. Volunteers from the Rock Art Archive who helped with the execution of the day's activities also included Anne and Hal Adelson, Harold Christensen, Gordon Hull, Debra Isaac, and George Spangler.
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