The Great Rock-Art of Chaco Canyon, by rock-art specialist Jane Kolber

Описание: Hundreds of books and articles have been written about Chaco Canyon and its archaeological treasures. It is renowned throughout the world, yet until recently Chaco rock-art has been almost completely ignored. Chaco Canyon has Great Rock-Art panels as well as Great Houses and Great Roads. Have those other features overshadowed the rock-art? Have researchers pretended the rock-art doesn't exist?
A partial answer is that Chaco‘s rock-art has low visibility. Southwestern U.S. rock-art often is created on surfaces with a dark coating that emphasizes the images pecked or carved into the rocks. In contrast, very few of the canyon walls and boulders in Chaco Canyon have dark patinated surfaces, making the rock-art difficult to see, and many of the most impressive panels are located high on cliff faces where an observer rarely looks.
Beginning in 1996, teams led by Jane Kolber and Donna Yoder initiated the Chaco Reassessment Recording Project (CRARP) to upgrade Chaco Canyon’s rock-art records. They eventually accumulated a database of hundreds of ancient sites with thousands of rock panels exhibiting individual rock-art elements. Since then, their teams conducted two projects that added to the totals: the Chaco Navajo Rock Art Project, which focused completely on Diné images, and the Chaco Archaeological Inventory on Navajolands Project in areas surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park.
Chaco rock-art generally is unadorned and is dominated by spiral and animal motifs. Distinctive styles are strongly separated into the early Ancient Chacoan and the later Navajo. The purposes and meanings are held by their makers’ descendants. Since the recording projects began, several researchers have increasingly analyzed Chacoan rock-art to understand the social and political organization and ideology of the Chacoan era.
Among the significant findings that Jane and Donna have identified in their publications about the CRARP and subsequent projects are the ubiquitous spirals in Chaco Canyon rock-art and what they describe as the large, complex, not very visible “Great Panels” of Chaco Canyon. Those Great Panels inspired Jane’s title for this presentation. In it, she shows many examples of the rock-art in the Chaco Culture National Historical Park vicinity and will discuss its different styles of rock-art, how styles changed through time, and how certain ones may be associated with particular cultures and eras.
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