Programs and Projects

The Rock Art Archive has a long standing interest in education and public outreach. Beginning in 1979 with the photography exhibit Ancient Images on Stone, the Archive also sponsors a wide range of public programs. Recently, the Great Murals of Baja California were brought vividly back to life in a public symposium entitled Rock Art of Baja California: The Legacy of the Great Murals.

Most recently, the Archive sponsored a successful day long event at Little Lake for nearly 100 guests, volunteers, and rock art colleagues. This fundraiser provided us with the resources needed to include magnificent colored photographs in our forthcoming volume "Captured Visions."

    
   

 

Archive Collections Project

Gordon Hull, Director

The UCLA Rock Art Archive is a Research Unit of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. Our emphasis is on the ancient aesthetics of unique cultures with a focus on California, the Far West and the Pacific Islands. Our collections include 300,000 images in fifteen named collections; 6,000 unpublished manuscripts describing or analyzing 233 California sites and corresponding to site records and site reports; a specialized rock art library, and correspondence files outlining the history of modern rock art studies in the Far West. The Archive and its volunteer staff have received recognition from the State of California and the National Landmarks Commission for leadership and achievement in historic preservation.

 

Captured Visions: Rock Art Treasures of the Eastern Sierra

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Director
Gordon Hull, Analyst
John C. Bretney, Analyst

Captured Visions is an exceptional all-volunteer research project designed to document one of the largest, oldest, and most fascinating rock art sites in North America. This project received the California Governor’s Historic Preservation Award, 2001. The Little Little Lake Research Group is conducting extensive laboratory analysis, recover, and interpretation of its massive database, and exploring comparative iconographic research utilizing a growing museum collections database. The Group is also preparing their findings for publication. The materials produced are contained within the Little Lake records, one of the 15 named Rock Art Archive collections.

 

Collaboration with Trust For African Rock Art, Nairobi, Kenya, 2004

In a unique collaboration between the UCLA Rock Art Archive and the Trust for African Rock Art (TARA), Gordon Hull and Debra Isaac traveled to Kenya, implementing their computer and designs skills to help TARA staff establish a working digital image database. TARA’s mission is very similar to that of the UCLA Rock Art Archive: To create greater global awareness of the importance and endangered state of African Rock Art; to survey sites, monitor status and be an information resource and archive; and to promote and support rock art conservation measures. Read more about the project.

Rock Art of Baja California: the Legacy of the Great Murals

The program celebrated twenty years of rock art tradition at UCLA. A special highlight was the presentation of results of a comprehensive archaeological survey in the Sierra de San Francisco by Maria de la Luz Gutierrez. She and other archaeologists working under the auspices of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico (INAH) have documented more than 700 habitation, quarry and other sites.

    
   

They have also secured over 80 radiocarbon dates.This information, taken together with excavations in three Great Mural Sites, yields strong evidence for reconstruction of the Holocene cultural context that produced rock art. Presentation of the INAH archaeological report was central to understanding the Great Murals, and conference planners noted that this event was one the few times an archaeological report has been included as part of a program in rock art studies. It was strongly urged that future rock art programs include pertinent archaeological information.    
 

 

 

Easter Island Statue Project (EISP)

Jo Anne Van Tilburg, Director
Cristián Arévalo Pakarati, Co-director
Alice Hom, Database Manager

The Easter Island Statue Project (EISP) is an archaeological survey and inventory designed to locate and document every monolithic and portable stone sculpture in museum collections and in archaeological context on Easter Island (Rapa Nui). Fieldwork to data has yielded records on 887 monolithic statues on 4 of 10 known site types throughout the island and in museums. Research is focused upon the formal typological and stylistic analysis of statue attribute data, and upon the delineation and understanding of the social order within which the megalithic culture flourished. The project is an independent study and the materials produced are stored within the private JVT/EISP Archive.


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