Rock Painting, Thompson
River indians, British Columbia,
James Teit's drawing, 1896.
I
really appreciate examples of enthusiasm expressed about rock art, the problem
is when enthusiasm for something is allowed to run rampant without critical
oversight. In this case the example consists of two rock art panels that look
totally different (one painted and the other pecked), from two totally
different cultures, probably created centuries apart, and over 1,000 miles
apart, yet being touted as identical sky charts. They were published in 2015 in
ancientworldblog.blogspot.com, by Andis Kaulins, and while I appreciate Andis's
enthusiasm I totally disagree with his conclusions and analysis.
Andis Kaulin's Sky Map
interpretation of James
Teit's drawing, 2015.
The
first example was recorded by a James Teit, a pictograph panel from a boulder
near Skaitok, near Spence's Bridge, British Columbia, in the territory of the
Thompson River First Nation, in 1896. Teit's drawing of this panel has 28
numbered elements, each of which was explained for him by a tribal member named
Waxtko, "an old woman at Spence's
Bridge. In giving her explanations she stated that she had made paintings of
the same character when undergoing the ceremonies of purification at the time
when she reached maturity, and that she was perfectly familiar with the
meanings of all the designs." (Teit 1896:227) Teit went on to get
Waxtko to identify each element in the panel and published them (pages 228-30).
In spite of this, Kaulins is able to overlook this first-hand account and
propose his own analysis which completely contradicts Teit and Waxtko.
Anasazi Ridge panel,
near Ivins, Utah.
Internet photo, Public Domain.
Andis Kaulin's Sky Map
interpretation of Anasazi
Ridge panel, 2015.
The
second example is from Southwestern Utah near Ivins. Listed as being in a
location known as Anasazi Ridge, it appears to be a petroglyph panel done in a
style resembling Great Basin Rock Art (Sucec 2020: personal communication). As
you can see, there is absolutely no commonality between the two panels, yet
Kaulins interprets them as identical sky maps (without giving any convincing
motive I might add).
To
me these panels represent confirmations of the old truism "to a hammer every problem looks like a nail."
These might be seen as examples of the Availability
Heuristic or perhaps the Representativeness
Heuristic. Every interpretation being skewed toward your personal bias. If
you truly believe that ancient peoples were busy littering the landscape with
sky charts, then every rock art panel you see will seem to you to be
interpretable as a sky chart. You will have to make your final decision for
yourselves, but as for me, I see this whole thesis as bogus. We need to take
every panel on its own, as an individual example influenced not only by the
individual who created it, but the culture, and the age of its provenance.
These so-called sky maps were shoehorned into identical interpretations by
someone who wanted them to be exactly that, so that is what he saw. I do not.
NOTE:
Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for
public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public
domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner
will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should
read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCES:
Kaulins,
Andis
2015 From John
J. Ensminger's Dog Law Reporter to the Skaitok Boulder, Spence's Bridge, British
Columbia: Rock Art as a Sky Map of the Stars Similar to Pictographs of the
Anasazi in Utah, August 27, 2015, https://ancientworldblog.blogspot.com
Sucec,
David
2020
Personal Communication, http://www.bcsproject.org/
Teit,
James Alexander
1896 A Rock
Painting of the Thompson River Indians, British Columbia, edited from notes
of the collector by Franz Boas, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. VIII,
article XII, p. 227-229
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