COLORADO ROCK ART ASSOCIATION ARCHIVES MOVED:

View of Special Collections department, Pueblo City-County

Regional Library, Pueblo, Colorado. Photograph: Tammi Moe,

Librarian-Archivist, June, 2015.

On Monday and Tuesday, June 1 and 2, 2015, the Colorado Rock Art Association (CRAA) archives were moved from the Anthropology Department of Colorado State University (CSU), in Fort Collins, Colorado, to the Special Collections Department of the Pueblo City-County Library District, in Pueblo, Colorado.

 The CRAA Archives were established at the Laboratory of Public Archaeology in the Anthropology Department at Colorado State University, in Fort Collins, Colorado, in May 2006. Dr. Jason LaBelle was the academic representative of the Anthropology Department involved in the agreement and he assisted with oversight and provided facilities until the materials were picked up on June 1, 2015. Jason, thank you for all your help and encouragement. It would not have been possible without you.

The original donation to the CRAA Archives consisted of all of the rock art related material from the estate of Dr. William (Bill) Buckles, of Colorado State University, Pueblo. Changing conditions at CSU, including the need to reclaim space led CRAA and CSU to agree on relocating the archives and members of the CRAA Board of Directors began to search for an alternative location. 

View of Special Collections department, Pueblo City-County

Regional Library, Pueblo, Colorado. Photograph: Tammi Moe,

Librarian-Archivist, June, 2015.

The Special Collections and Museum Services Department of the Pueblo City-County Library District, in Pueblo, Colorado, stepped up and offered to provide space and to assume management of the collections, and the material was delivered to them on June 2, 2015. There are some reasons why this is a better solution for housing the material in the collection. First, as a public library, it offers considerably better access to the collections than a university department did. Second, with professionally trained archive personnel they can take better care of materials and do a better job of accessioning and cataloging. Third, the archive is much nearer the concentration of rock art in southern Colorado and so, will be more relevant, and; fourth, the Pueblo City-County Library already housed the rest of the written material and correspondence from the estate of Dr. Bill Buckles, so his material will now be reunited.

View of Special Collections department, Pueblo City-County

Regional Library, Pueblo, Colorado. Photograph: Tammi Moe,

Librarian-Archivist, June, 2015.

The loading, transportation, and unloading of the archives material was done by many people including Dr. Jason LaBelle, Robert Rushforth (CRAA President), Bev Goering, Teresa Weedin, Betsy Weitkamp, Robert and Cecilia Tipton, Peter Faris, and Kathryn Adams and a couple of volunteers from the Pueblo Archaeological and Historical Society, John Norton and Carla Hendrickson. Thank you to all of the people who were involved in this effort. I also wish to express my gratitude to Maria Tucker, Manager of Special Collections and Museum Services of the Pueblo City-County Library District, and Tammi Moe, Librarian-archivist, who will be assuming responsibility for oversight of the archive collections.

View of Special Collections department, Pueblo City-County

Regional Library, Pueblo, Colorado. Photograph: Tammi Moe,

Librarian-Archivist, June, 2015.

The material will not be available for a period of time while they sort and catalog their new acquisitions, but then will be housed under better conditions and will be much more valuable to students and the public for study and research.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?

Near Craig, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.

You know how sometimes you see a rock art panel, or image, or something that you do not understand, but just cannot get out of your mind? One of mine is this boulder from northwestern Colorado, visited on one of the field trips after the 2007 Colorado Rock Art Association Rock Art Symposium and Annual Meeting in Craig, Colorado.

Near Craig, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.

Our guide led us to a site that looked down on this large boulder with a series of apparently perfect holes abraded or drilled into it in roughly two concentric circles. To the best of my memory there were 28 holes, roughly a lunar cycle. Additionally, many of the holes had round stones placed in them although obviously that could have been done at any time. To the best of our ability to judge the holes had smooth walls and showed no overt sign of pecking so they appeared drilled or abraded, and they were a number of inches deep.

Near Craig, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.

The obvious suggestion was the connection to the lunar cycle; a stone could be moved from hole to hole each day to keep track of the cycle. There are a number of problems with that beginning with you do not have to move stones in holes to track the lunar cycle, you only have to look up at the moon. Another problem with that theory is the large scale of the panel, it would be very difficult to reach the holes at the top without a scaffold or a ladder, a smaller scale panel would have worked much better.

Near Craig, Colorado (quarter for scale).

Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.

Thinking about the total amount of rock removed from all the holes I am tempted to think that modern machinery had to be involved in its creation, but for what reason? All in all I am mystified about this panel – any suggestions? 

COLORADO ROCK ART ASSOCIATION 2011 CALL FOR PAPERS:

The Colorado Rock Art Association is seeking speakers for its annual meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado, on April 29 – May 1, 2011 (papers to be presented on Saturday, April 30). Paper length may be around 20 to 30 minutes and should focus on rock art of Colorado or surrounding areas, or related aspects of rock art study in general, ethnoarchaeology, educational programs, or conservation efforts. Particular attention is requested for integration of rock art into other aspects of culture such as regional or site interpretations in which rock art is a part.

Please submit abstracts of 150 words or less by April 9, 2010, to Peter Faris, archeofaris@yahoo.com. See http://www.coloradorockart.org for more information.