ABSTRACT, OR INSECT?

Back in the early 1990s I organized and supervised a rock art recording project with the Denver Chapter of the Colorado Archaeological Society. We were recording petroglyphs at Hicklin Springs (5BN7) in Bent County, Colorado. In the process of planning this recording project I looked at some of the other recording projects that had been published, at that time a limited number. In looking at those models, including the marvelous New Mexico Rock Art Recording Field School, I found that one common characteristic was the use of a trait list for the rock art recorders. I believe that the idea behind trait lists was the desire for accuracy, a way to standardize identifications of imagery. I was quite uncomfortable with the use of trait lists, as I found in many examples I actually disagreed with the identifications on the list myself. I still believe that as a future researcher of rock art if I were performing a computer search of images I would rather decide for myself what a particular symbol represented than to trust that identification to someone I do not know, with qualifications I do not know. Indeed, I found examples I personally disagreed with where petroglyphs of phallic male figures seen from the front were identified as “lizard men”.

Petroglyph panel at Hicklin Springs,

5BN7, Bent County, Colorado.

Photo: 1994, Peter Faris.

I did find, however, that in cases where a style had been described I had to adhere to the traits of that style in our rock art recording project. Our recording project at Hicklin Springs required deciding stylistic designation in many cases that conformed to descriptions that had been previously published for the area. Some of these were designations such as Purgatoire Petroglyph style, Rio Grand style and Plains Biographic style. One of the most frequently used descriptions was Abstract style petroglyphs. This had been proliferated to a point of silliness with terms like Curvilinear and Rectilinear Abstract styles trying to distinguish between groups of symbols that, in most cases, combined both curvilinear and rectilinear elements. One of the most egregious examples was the identification of “Great Basin Abstract Style” rock art in a location some 700 miles and at least two different cultural complexes away from the Great Basin. In order to simplify this I decided on simply using the term “Abstract Style” with any modifiers coming in the description farther down on the form. In attributing imagery to a specific style you have to show that the details of the image meet the descriptive criteria of that style.

Tarantula, Picketwire Canyonlands,

Las Animas County, Colorado.

Photo: 1993, Peter Faris.

One panel of images that we found at Hicklin Springs was obviously a group of “Abstract Style” figures with nothing about them that is in any way identifiable as representative, and when that panel was recorded it was duly noted as such (see illustration). Roughly contemporaneous with that recording project I was involved in a number of trips visiting rock art sites in Southeastern Colorado, especially in the Picketwire Canyonlands. On a couple of those trips I ran across the exceedingly large insects shown in my other two photos.

Tarantula, Picketwire Canyonlands,

Las Animas County, Colorado.

Photo: 1993, Peter Faris.

Centipede, Picketwire Canyonlands,

Las Animas County, Colorado.

Photo: 1994, Peter Faris.

To me these illustrate the potential problems of fitting images into style designations and trait lists. It struck me then that the panel of abstract images from 5BN7 looks as much or more like the large arthropods I saw just a few miles from that panel as they look like other petroglyphs that fit the designation of Abstract Style. So here is the dilemma for rock art recorders. To name or not to name – that is the question. In order to organize data we tend to prefer things named and classified, but how can we know that they were named correctly?