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Dr Aaron Wright, Archaeology Southwest - Rock Art 137
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In this week’s episode Alan chats to Dr Aaron Wright, a leading archaeologist at Archaeology Southwest. With a Ph.D. in Anthropology, Aaron has spent years studying the Hohokam and Patayan traditions of the southwestern U.S., focusing on cultural landscapes and rock art. His groundbreaking work on the South Mountain Rock Art Project and his book Religion on the Rocks earned him the Don D. and Catherine S. Fowler Prize. Aaron is currently leading efforts to establish the Great Bend of the Gila National Monument, working to preserve and highlight the significance of this unique cultural landscape.
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- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/rockart/137
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:12
Speaker
You're listening to the Rock Art Podcast. Join us every week for fascinating tales of rock art, adventure and archaeology. Find our contact info in the show notes and send us your suggestions.
Episode Introduction with Dr. Alan Garfinkel
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back, everyone. This is Dr. Alan Garfinkel. We're recording our number 137th episode of your rock art podcast. And we're proud and blessed to have Dr. Aaron Wright, preservation archaeologist with Archaeology Southwest. And he's on board. Welcome.
00:00:51
Speaker
It's great to be with you, Alan. Yeah. I'm familiar a little bit with your work, but not much with you as a person or have much background about your current endeavors. The way I usually kick this off is I ask you to sort of give us a synoptic autobiographical portrait, perhaps, of how you got involved with this field and this endeavor and what created a passion for the subject matter of anthropology, archaeology, Native American studies, et cetera. Floor is yours, Aaron.
Dr. Aaron Wright's Background and Early Interest in Archaeology
00:01:24
Speaker
Absolutely. I'm happy to engage here. So I'm originally from Southern Ohio on the muddy banks of the Ohio River. And you know as a young person,
00:01:36
Speaker
I was enamored with the mounds. This is a Hopewell and Idina area. Mounds are all over my hometown. They're in people's parking lots, backyards, etc. and so We were really fascinated with the subject.
00:01:49
Speaker
But interestingly, there was a lot of mystery and mystique about it because there are no contemporary federally recognized tribes in the area. So it fosters these sort of narratives of disappearance and collapse and things like that. Had a lot of curiosity as a young person, went to college, didn't know you could do archaeology or anthropology as a profession. I went in as a philosophy major.
00:02:14
Speaker
Took about one quarter of classes in that and found out that was not for me. On my second quarter, I took an introduction to world prehistory class and my instructor was actually a graduate student whose background was in cultural resource management. And we learned about there is actually an industry for this line of work. And so I had a career reversal or maybe not a reversal, but a clarity of what I wanted to do with my life.
00:02:41
Speaker
And so I went through the undergraduate program, and about a year after that, I moved to New Mexico and took my first job in cultural resource management. ah Where were you employed? I worked for, I shovel-bunded, so I worked for a number of companies. The first one was Southwest Archaeological Consultants, I believe, out of Santa Fe, and then I worked for statistical research and Four Corners DRG research, mostly in New Mexico.
00:03:10
Speaker
I realized that I couldn't really advance my career beyond sort of a field crew chief position without a graduate degree. So I went to graduate school after five years of that and and got interested in rock imagery at a graduate school level.
Graduate Studies and Work on Petroglyphs
00:03:28
Speaker
Now you received a PhD from an academic university, didn't you, sir?
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah, I did. My master's degree was at Washington State University. I studied paleoclimatology and its impacts on human migration in the Southwest. wow And as I was kicking around a PhD topic at Washington State University, an opportunity came up in Phoenix a fellowship with the Center for Desert Archaeology to do a a dissertation project on the Petroglyphs of South Mountain Park in Phoenix, outside of Phoenix. ah a Follow up to Todd Boswick's popular book, Landscape of the Spirits.
00:04:07
Speaker
h So I applied for the fellowship and got it, and I got the approval of my academic committee. And so I spent four years inventorying, studying, writing about the Petroglyphs at South Mountain Park, the HOCOM Petroglyphs, and published a book through the University of Utah Press on my dissertation. And that came out in 2014. My dissertation was 2011.
00:04:32
Speaker
Fabulous. but What an interesting story and what a some the remarkable opportunities that were available
Mission of Archaeology Southwest
00:04:40
Speaker
to you. Yeah, it was a really good opportunity that the Center for Desert Archaeology provided, and that organization changed their name about a decade ago to Archaeology Southwest, and that's the place I'm still working.
00:04:55
Speaker
and so i've been able as i understand As I understand it, they're a nonprofit, are they? That's right. We're a 501c3 nonprofit. and Our mission is to explore and protect heritage places while honoring their diverse values. And we do that. Traditionally, we've done that through it like, we envision like a stool and we have three legs. One is research, of course, the other two are actual conservation and outreach.
00:05:20
Speaker
And a few years ago, we added a fourth leg to the stool and advocacy. And so we advocate strongly for tribal sovereignty in the realm of cultural resource heritage. But that's fabulous. That sounds like a very unique and wondrous ah organization. How do they fund themselves?
00:05:38
Speaker
We have a pretty diverse funding portfolio. A lot of grants, we have a foundation. We do very, very small contracts for most of our work. We do have some rather large arrangements with the Bureau of Indian Affairs for Archeological Resource Protection Act efforts. So it's a diverse portfolio, but it basically allows us to do what we want to do um for the right causes and build relationships with similar organizations and tribes.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah, very, very interesting. I've been involved with nonprofits for about the last 10 to 15 years here in California. And i I don't believe there's really anything parallel in California that has the mission or the particular but you know so funding base sir as your organization.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, we occupy a unique niche and I think it's that flexibility that has really allowed us to not just survive but thrive. Yes. yeah And I think you're your mission in terms of associating with Indigenous people, Native Americans, and as an advocacy organization and connecting with those entities that could assist you and vice versa is absolutely critical, especially given sort of the radically and changing political geography in terms of dealing with Native Americans, as you're probably well aware.
00:07:10
Speaker
Absolutely. It's just made us a stronger, better organization to accomplish our mission. and you know Obviously, it's the right thing to do. Now, you've done work in California as well as in the Great Base in the American Southwest. When I say you, I'm talking about, of course, your organization.
00:07:28
Speaker
but As far as I'm aware of, we've not done any work in the Great Basin or or any work in California proper. I've say i've done some writing and some ah overview work we related to the Viqua May National Monument, and which is Straddle's Great Basin, California deserts. Patayan culture history is an area of interest of mine and research and so I incorporate information literature from the Colorado Desert, Colorado River Valley, but I haven't actually not done any field work in California. Well, it's interesting you talk about the Pattayan because I've
00:08:11
Speaker
but The California Rock Art Foundation, which I was a part of for many years, but have recently relocated my expertise to another Native Run 501c3, we yeah received contracts with the National Park Service to do National Register nominations on several sites.
00:08:33
Speaker
that were in the ah extreme eastern Mojave Desert, that would be probably, yeah in part, the Colorado River tribes would have been associated with their creation, and including, you know, a Pattayan or you know, the Eastern Mojave Desert Traditions that you're aware of, both with being the groups that were associated with those kind of areas that were along the Colorado and also overlapped into Arizona and the American Southwest. Right. Yeah. Places like Bay Bay,
00:09:14
Speaker
Yeah, places like Grapevine Canyon, but also all the way into a place called Hole in the Wall, and ah another place called Mary's Cave. And these are archeoastronomical sites, as well as but places along the Mojave Trail that the Mojave Trader Travelers would have used as stops along their route to the coast and back.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah. So we did a rather extensive research and background on that. I'll have to share that with you offline sometime, but I think you'd find that of some interest. and Please continue. Yeah. So ah tell me about your latest work and the direction your career is taking you now.
Field Projects and Non-Invasive Archaeology
00:10:01
Speaker
Well, I'm managing ah a number of projects right now. I run a pretty intensive field program them because I have the i guess the still have the capacity to do it even though I'm pushing middle age. um So I run a robust field program during the seasons when it's possible. A lot of folks volunteer for me. I hire tribal members when I can. I obviously want to compensate them justly. are you it Are you able to still run those field programs on indigenous sites, things that we might call prehistoric archaeological sites, or is that not possible?
00:10:33
Speaker
No, that it's absolutely possible on federal lands, of course, private lands. ah Obviously, there's permitting, and ah there's permitting processes, and there's tribal authorization processes that agencies implement. So it's possible as long as you have the approval and authorization of the relevant parties. yeah So still able to do, this is these are all non-invasive projects, so we don't do excavation. It's oh it's antithetical to our mission.
00:11:03
Speaker
Sure. so you We value archaeological places because they exist, not because they're dug up. And so all of your work would be involved with mapping, documentation, other sorts of creative ways to gather information without being destructive. Yeah, it's so what most folks would call an archaeological survey, although it's quite intensive and it's beyond it good we go beyond the objective of just identifying archaeological sites.
00:11:33
Speaker
So there's an active research component. And we collect information that helps us address the questions we have and the questions that tribes and have as well. So I'm finishing up a multi-year project on the Lower Gila River, which is this interchange between Ho-Ho-Kam and Patayan archaeology and autumn and human ethnohistory.
00:11:58
Speaker
And that was a pretty intensive field project funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. I was able to hire seven tribal employees throughout the course of that. So I'm finishing up that project. and We'll probably be publishing on that the rest of my life.
00:12:12
Speaker
the ah that our first yeah so Sounds familiar, doctor. yeah Our first peer-reviewed piece from that just came out in a book I recently edited called Sacred Southwestern Landscapes. wow So it's a paper. Thank you. It's a paper. It's a chapter all about the but the concept of Pataean dreaming and its a relationship to the archaeological record.
00:12:37
Speaker
Fabulous. I'm involved in a project of inventorying indigenous trails yeah and across the Great Bend of the Gila. And what's really interesting about this project is we can't see the actual trails. What we're mapping are these very extensive linear artifact scatters. so that approximate the trail corridors through these mountain ranges. Well, let's stop there because it sounds like we're getting into something that's of great interest to our listenership and to me as well. Sure. Catch you on the flip-flop, gang.
00:13:16
Speaker
Well, welcome back, gang. We're here at the your Rock Art Podcast, episode 137. We're here with Dr. Aaron Wright, preservation archaeologist with Archaeology Southwest. And Aaron was just beginning to talk about some of his active research projects. Go ahead, Aaron, please.
00:13:36
Speaker
Sure. So the trails project that we're working on, we've been involved in it for about seven years intermittently, but intensively the last two years.
Mapping Indigenous Trails and Artifact Scatters
00:13:46
Speaker
And it was really sprung out of the roots of previous work by a colleague, Andrew Darling, who worked ah at the Gila River Indian community in the early 2000s. And he partnered with Barnaby Lewis, who was the tribal historic preservation officer at the time.
00:14:02
Speaker
And they began to try to tie autumn travel narratives, ah song cycles that describe traveling throughout the landscape to sacred places, etc. It's trying to align them with actual on-the-ground trail manifestations.
00:14:20
Speaker
They were able to map a few trail segments cutting across what we call the Great Bend of the Gila. It's where the Gila takes this pretty large turn to avoid some mountain ranges. And the indigenous communities would cut across that stretch of the bend to shorten their travel time along the river.
00:14:42
Speaker
And once you get into the interior of the mountains, you you can't see the trail alignments anymore. But what we found about seven years ago is that if you keep mapping the artifacts, you can extend these trails many, many miles beyond where the trail is no longer visible.
00:14:58
Speaker
And so for two years, we've been intensively mapping this elaborate trail network. We've got about 80 miles mapped. And it's just more and more fascinating the more we do it because these trails just grow, they branch.
00:15:13
Speaker
And they head into places that didn't seem obvious at first, but once you see where they're going, it makes absolute sense. And really what we're doing is we're providing on the ground, I guess, justification or verification of odds and oral histories about connections across broad landscapes, landscapes that reach far beyond their current reservation boundaries.
00:15:38
Speaker
And it's ah just another way the archaeological record reminds us, or can remind us, if we're willing to listen to it, that tribes are still here. The tribes occupied all of in continental North America. um The reservation boundaries today are gross um misjustifications for what were once tribal territories and should be considered tribal homelands today.
00:16:03
Speaker
So that project is, we have a few more months on that project. That's a project that you could spend the rest of your life working on because the trails just keep going. They just do not stop. Now, a question about those trails.
00:16:20
Speaker
yeah Could you share at least ah some of the significant places that those trails may have connected to, where that were recognized by Native people, ah spiritual places, holy places, or other significant locations that are found along those trails?
00:16:40
Speaker
I can share what I know. It's obviously not comprehensive because I don't have sure ah cultural knowledge. The trails essentially a move between settlements on the Gila River, if you take it to their extreme extents within the scope of where we're working. um Beyond that, they go to other important places. But between those settlements, as people go through the mountains,
00:17:06
Speaker
It's pretty obvious to me, and I hope to demonstrate at some point in the future through some publication that significant mountains are ah guiding forces, if you will. the trail When you're walking these trail alignments, you are clearly walking towards prominent mountain peaks. And as soon as the trail starts to veer into another direction towards where it's ultimately going, your and your vista is dominated by another important peak. And these peaks, but for contemporary people today, contemporary indigenous people, these peaks have
00:17:45
Speaker
importance, significance, names, et cetera. And what I've written in the past in that sacred landscapes volume, I have another chapter where I talk about basically Holocom attachments ah to sacred mountains. And so it it makes, it's no surprise to me at least that these mountains are not only visual anchoring points to guide people ah because the song cycles that we know of name landforms yeah that are in the sequence as one would travel the trails. But they're ah they're also guiding forces, if you will, because these are these are this is a dangerous terrain. There's no water.
00:18:29
Speaker
And it would have been a you know a pretty daunting experience to travel across the Great Bend of the Gila on foot with a canteen or two of water. And we find the broken canteens all the time. Those are the sherd alignments that we're following are basically all these broken water bottles that people deliberately accidentally dropped.
00:18:55
Speaker
and Then we find we encounter sacred points along these trails and they're in strategic locations. They're creating patterns that help us better interpret them and understand them when we find them in other contexts. but When you find these sacred places, what are the physical archaeological manifestations of those sacred places, if any? They generally seem to an an average observer, they would seem to be subtle.
00:19:21
Speaker
may be insignificant to the common person. But they essentially, they're rock features, but rock piles, rock rings, variations of that sort. In some places, ground figures, so rock alignment and ground figures, cleared circles, and of course, petroglyphs. and thats so Now, do you ever find, or if if there is available to them,
00:19:48
Speaker
um caches or scatters of white quartz? Yes and no. So I've not yet encountered caches of white quartz, but we find flaked white quartz all the time. Okay. White quartz outcrops in this environment naturally, but we're finding the cores and the flakes along these trail alignments.
00:20:16
Speaker
And lithics are a very small part of the trail assemblage. It's 99% ceramics, lithics mixed. But the lithics that we do find are they're odd, and they're hard to explain why they're on a trail alignment. These quartz cores are part of that sort of an question, I guess. Well, that would make perfect sense in my mind in terms of the supernatural or spirituality of those trails and because of the power associated with those quartz materials. And you're aware of that, right? Yes. Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Please continue.
Iconography and Cultural Links
00:20:57
Speaker
but the ah Well, as we also find petroglyphs along the trails. And what images are represented on the petroglyphs? Or if there are if they are any representational or even abstract? the in the Both on this project and previous projects I've worked on involving trails in southern Arizona, the iconography on trail alignments is not discernibly different from a statistical perspective from the iconography found in other contexts. But what is represented um or it would be the standard suite of ho-ho-com, or what people have called HeLa-style iconography, ah spirals, squiggly lines, circles, anthropomorphic forms, lizard-like forms.
00:21:52
Speaker
That is the predominant assemblage. that Every now and then, there'll be maybe a quadrupedal form, amorphous shapes, et cetera, but telltale, Gila-style iconography on these trail alignments. Farther west on the Gila, where I've worked previously, we're moving into Patean territory, and there are, of course, similarities there with Ho-ho-kom or Ho-ho-kom iconography, but it's unique in itself.
00:22:22
Speaker
And so what I'm getting at is that the, as far as I've been able to discern both subjectively and objectively through quantification is that the iconography is not different along the trails. Do you see connections with the, the tie-in or.
00:22:39
Speaker
Mojave and expressions in California and in Nevada being the H's or those encircled crosses, things along those lines. Oh yes, we find those all along the Lower Gila River once you get west of the Phoenix Basin.
00:22:59
Speaker
we find them throughout the deserts north of the Gila, so that the thinking of like the heat Eagle Tail Mountains and the Kofa Range in southern Arizona. And that's essentially the, if there you do a triangle between the Colorado River and the Gila River yeah yeah um and the Hypotenuse, it's basically that area in between.
00:23:19
Speaker
And that's there's indigenous trail corridors all through there that connected the Lower Colorado to the Lower Gila, and those that's all Pataean country. of course And basically, it's Pipash settlements on the Gila, Mojave and Quitsan settlements on the Colorado, and Hautjedom settlements on the Colorado. and so We find grapevine style iconography as far east as the eagletail mountains and that bigby style is you know pretty localized to the Mojave territory. So it's not surprising to know that Mojave people have you know the eagletail mountains and that area factors prominently into Mojave oral history.
00:24:01
Speaker
Perfect. Yeah, it makes sense. do you Do you find connections at all? Long-term connections or relationships that have been represented between the Great Basin, the American Southwest, Mesoamerica, anything along those lines in your research?
00:24:20
Speaker
The archaic iconography of the Southwest is so far we can distinguish it from anything in the Great Basin. So it's that yeah that broad, however you want to call it, I guess the Western archaic tradition. I suspect with some yeah robust investigation and concerted effort. We could possibly tease out sort of regional nuances, but so far it's basically the same as far as we can tell, which speaks to obviously broad systems of social interaction and relation across vast areas.
Insights from Rock Imagery and Social Interactions
00:24:56
Speaker
The Holocom iconography, interestingly,
00:25:01
Speaker
You know, it was really first observed in in ceramic iconography, but it extends with the rock imagery. The earliest Ho-O-Com iconography is consistent with Western archaic tradition iconography.
00:25:15
Speaker
And so it's we've used it as a line of evidence to support the indigeneity of HOGOM or HOCOM populations for a long time. And it's still commonly discussed. There was this interpretation that HOCOM was a Mesoamerican migrant community. Right.
00:25:35
Speaker
And that's contrary to indigenous bottom oral histories and ways of understanding and and archaeology has now shown that and the rock imagery is part of that has shown that that's a really a misconception or it's at least a lot more complex than that. Sure. Has there been genetics that has spoken or investigated that particular relationship or no?
00:26:00
Speaker
and No. I mean, there's obviously the ethical issues around that, but for for HOCOM or HOGOM archaeology, the predominant means of interment was cremation. And so we just don't really have the opportunity to, ability, I guess, to do those sorts of studies. Well, let's call it a wrap for the second segment, and we'll pick it up in the final.
00:26:24
Speaker
but that Thank you for a fascinating tale. See you on the flip-flop, gang. Welcome back, gang. It's segment three. We're here at the Archaeology Podcast with Aaron Wright, Professor Wright, Dr. Wright from Archaeology Southwest, and he's been sharing his journey in archaeology, anthropology, and working with Native people. And I think he wants to move along in that particular realm and talk a little bit about the collaborative efforts that they have done with Native people. Go ahead, Aaron. Absolutely.
Collaborating with Tribes in Archaeology
00:27:05
Speaker
So organizationally, Archaeology Southwest has moved into and really prioritized the concept of tribal collaboration. And what that means is we seek to partner with tribes and everything that we do. And each project looks a little bit different.
00:27:22
Speaker
tribes, if you work with tribal historic preservation officers, you probably understand that they're overworked, understaffed, and so there's a capacity issue involved. But tribal collaboration can look different ways and will and inherently look different ways because you'll be working with different tribes in different places on different projects for different reasons.
00:27:43
Speaker
But it organizationally, it really kicked off for us about a decade ago with the the Bears Ears National Monument effort, which we were tangentially involved in, and then our long-term effort for the Great Bend of the Gila National Monument, and where we actually partnered with tribes on ah trying to promote legislation to establish the National Monument.
00:28:07
Speaker
And that's where my work with tribes really, really began and has grown since. And I personally, I try to prioritize tribal involvement throughout every phase of my research from conception through publication. And it's sometimes that's having co-authors on my papers who are you know representatives from the written, acknowledged representatives from their tribes.
00:28:36
Speaker
Obviously, there's a lot of meetings, there's a lot of backdoor discussions. um It's about developing relationships with people. And it goes beyond transactions. And it's been quite rewarding and in many regards. And with rock imagery, it's incredibly relevant to work with tribal people. And I think I often think back on Julian Stewart, folks may be aware of him and his work. And 1929, he published a pretty
Critique of Julian Stewart's Views on Rock Imagery
00:29:09
Speaker
seminal piece on what the Petroglyphs of California and adjoining states. and I believe he was still a a graduate student at the time. and It was a really exciting endeavor and investigation, looking at broad comparisons and ideas. and what Seven years later, in a report to the Smithsonian Institution, he basically wrote that
00:29:34
Speaker
studying rock imagery was a dead end because nobody knew what it meant. Even the native people didn't know what it meant. And if they told you what they meant, they were just making it up. And so that I found that incredibly discouraging. I feel still find it discouraging. And I think Stewart was wrong. I also think he was incredibly misplaced by assuming that tribal communities would tell him what the symbols meant.
00:30:02
Speaker
I believe Stewart was misplaced in his perspective that the only type of research we could do was try to interpret the imagery. The type of research I do with rock imagery, I don't even attempt to do that. I defer to my indigenous colleagues to do that because that's their domain. That's their area of specialty. I don't have the authority or the privilege to try to tell anybody what a symbol means.
00:30:27
Speaker
But I have a capacity as an archaeologist and anthropologist to study them in a different way, to study them as patterns and distributions and things like that. And we've been able to learn a lot about rock imagery if we divert our attention from trying to interpret the imagery to trying to understand it in cultural contexts and the landscape contexts. And so so I think Stuart was Really just not. And it was obviously a long time ago and archaeology has come a long way, but I think he was pretty narrow minded in that. But then also, when we model the and number of petroglyphs on landscapes relative to the population levels of those landscapes once supported,
00:31:12
Speaker
It's apparent that very few people ever made petroglyphs. For the South Mountains, for instance, our model came out to three to seven glyphs per year. Not per person, but per year, really.
00:31:28
Speaker
and so
00:31:31
Speaker
That's pretty eye-opening and that could help explain a why some people don't know what the symbols are or can't speak to that. But then also, this is sacred knowledge behind this iconography and to assume that native peoples are just going to divulge that information to anyone, let alone an anthropologist, it's presumptuous. And so, I'm digressing perhaps from the question here, but I think if we can really make progress if we really respect the basically sovereignty, tribal sovereignty over certain dimensions of what we do and what we study and also what we say and how we say it. They have to be involved in this research if our research is going to have any sort of substance or impact or meaning
00:32:23
Speaker
And you know the rock imagery is so really tailored for tribal collaboration. In my line of work, it's one of the few dimensions of the archaeological record where people get excited, both tribal both tribal and non-tribal people. It's such an and engaging subject. And in the indigenous communities that I work with,
00:32:49
Speaker
Really enjoy the rock imagery sites and seeing the rock imagery sites and talking about the rock imagery sites So it's just a really a great portal into developing those relationships fostering those relationships generating respect Developing trust all those things that are important And what we do Absolutely. I have to concur.
Value of Rock Imagery in Archaeology
00:33:15
Speaker
I think that rock art in some ways is some of the most interesting and compelling data sets that archaeologists have to work with. And, you know, talks to us at so many different levels simultaneously in terms of research questions, issues of relationships and territoriality and subsistence and settlement and cosmology, all are
00:33:43
Speaker
ah you know, sort of kind of concatenated in these pictures that are are preserved on rock. And I think archaeologists have had a hard time, at least it's been an uphill fight in California. I don't know if that's the same way in the Southwest.
00:34:04
Speaker
trying to gain respect from our colleagues in terms of doing research in the area of rock art and ah demonstrating its value as a research tool, as a data set. Have you found that's a bit different in your neck of the woods? I think we have a whole episode there, Alan, that we could go into.
00:34:30
Speaker
um what i Sorry to open up a can of worms, but it just kind of came to me. I have a lot of thoughts and opinions on this specific subject, and be having gone through a graduate program with a oh yes dissertation. Sure.
00:34:46
Speaker
I can only speak for my experience. i'll get told I've been I will going through graduate school and sharing some of my the feelings I was having on this exact subject. yes I was advised by my mentors um that it's much easier now than it was and you can probably relate or it's it's a more accepted a branch of the discipline than it once was. So I i appreciate that, but we still have miles to go. Yes, I agree.
00:35:15
Speaker
i I chalk it down primarily to institutional bias and these cycles of universities producing progeny of their of the faculty who go on to be faculty members. And so we get this regurgitation of research interest and in this case I would call it retrip bias against rock imagery. And so folks that actually go and do good quality rock imagery research
Importance of Respect and Collaboration with Tribes
00:35:45
Speaker
they're not really provided opportunities to work in the academy because they're winging it essentially because they don't have faculty that support them. And then, you know, the faculty they do have aren't necessarily going to promote them to the to the next faculty position available. There are some young folks that I know of who have recently gotten faculty positions at university. They've broken through the barrier.
00:36:13
Speaker
didn't beginning Yeah, I didn't mean to bring in in terms of that negativity. But as a closing statement, what would you want our listenership to know about working with native people and working with the kinds of data sets that you've been able to garner and doing preservation archaeology? Well, it really gets back to what something you just mentioned that, you know, rock imagery is really multivalent. We can use it As a researcher, we can use it and in a multitude of ways to address a whole range of questions, as long as we're open-minded. Those opportunities and even become more diverse when we integrate tribal perspectives and opinions into what we do. and It just creates they create better
00:37:04
Speaker
historical research, anthropological research, and that's equitable as well. My horizons have been opened you know, much more broadly than they would have otherwise by working with tribes. And the way I study rock imagery now is quite different than I did 10 years ago and quite different than I did 20 years ago. In large part because I've worked with tribes and there have been some, as with any relationships, there's need to grow and learn, but it's a rewarding
00:37:39
Speaker
endeavor if people's hearts are in the right place. Yeah, it's a journey and mutual respect and listening is always the one of the roots to listening, caring and respect are some of the key attributes.
00:37:54
Speaker
Dr. Wright, it's been a pleasure. God bless you for participating. I yeah really, really, really enjoyed this repartee. Thank you, Dr. Garfinkel. God bless you all out there in rock art podcast land. See you on the flip flop.
00:38:18
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Rock Art Podcast with Dr. Alan Garfinkel and Chris Webster. Find show notes and contact information at www.arcpodnet dot.com forward slash rock art. Thanks for listening and thanks for sharing this podcast with your family and friends.
00:38:50
Speaker
The Archaeology Podcast Network is 10 years old this year. Our executive producer is Ashley Airy, our social media coordinator is Matilda Sebrecht, and our chief editor is Rachel Rodin. The Archaeology Podcast Network was co-founded by Chris Webster and Tristan Boyle in 2014 and is part of CulturoMedia and DigTech LLC. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.