Ron Barber, creator of the Stone Calendar Project, has been studying rock art sites throughout the Southwest and Northern Mexico identifying glyphs that mark specific times of the year using unique light and shadow interactions.  He has some survey predictions for glyphs along the Gila Narrows and other southern sites and is looking for volunteers to help in further research.

Anyone who is interested in spending time in the field recording/filming calendar sun light interactions in the region, please contact Ron directly at [email protected] . Here's more of Ron's background:

Some avocational archaeologists have already learned of the fascinating technology of D-Stretch, aka decorrelation stretch, a digital imaging tool that was originally developed to enhance (i.e., "stretch") the color differences in aerial photographs. Today, this technology has become more widely used and user-friendly to boot. It is now an essential tool to analyze rock art images, especially ones too faint for the naked eye to see.

Join us Wednesday, February 17, 2021, at 7:00 PM on Zoom to hear our Featured Speaker, Lawrence (Larry) Loendorf of Sacred Sites Research, Inc. explain the relationships he and other anthropologists, archaeologists, and ethnobotanists have studied between "Medicinal Plants and Rock Art Sites in Southern New Mexico."

Larry was born and raised in Montana. His BA and MA degrees are in anthropology and archaeology from the University of Montana and his PhD is from the University of Missouri-Columbia. After receiving his PhD, he taught at the University of North Dakota for 22 years and then moved to undertake research and teaching at the University of Arizona and New Mexico State University. He currently manages Sacred Sites Research, Inc., a non-profit company that is dedicated to protecting ancient pictograph and petroglyph sites.

For those unfamiliar with Old Pueblo Archaeology Center [photo on right via OPAC], it is an organization headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, devoted to education and preservation of historic and archaeological sites and artifacts throughout the region of the US Southwest and Mexico Northwest. They serve as a clearinghouse for events, tours, educational programs, and volunteer opportunities for individuals including students of all ages, professionals, and interested nonprofessionals.

The summer months find the GCAS all over the place partaking of events aplenty. Our field trips are no exception; by the close of the first week of July we will have enjoyed a total of three field trips in five weeks.

On June 2, 2019, the GCAS's very own Marilyn Markel led our monthly field trip to two sites located near each other. Our first stop was to Spirit Canyon in the upper Mimbres Valley area. Spirit Canyon is a unique rock art site monitored under the New Mexico SiteWatch Program. About a half-mile walk up the canyon trail and carefully avoiding the lush growth of poison ivy, our group encountered a series of red ochre pictographs that reportedly depict either Apache Mountain Spirits, or the Apache ceremonial dancers who represented the Mountain Spirits. [Photo on left by M.Smith; photo on right by Greg Conlin.]

The Texas Archeological Society's two-day Rock Art Academy will be held in El Paso, Texas, on February 16-17, 2019. Registration will close at midnight on January 17, 2019.

The TAS Rock Art Academy "...explores regional rock art archeological sites, Mogollon archeological sites, and how investigators use this information to interpret the human and natural histories of an area. Classroom sessions for the Academy will be held at the El Paso Museum of Archaeology with field sessions at Hueco Tanks State Park..."

For registration and event details please go to this TAS page.

/s/ webmaster [Photos by Marianne Smith]

Registration is open and ongoing for the Texas Archeological Society's Rock Art Academy to be held in El Paso, Texas, on February 16-17, 2019.

The TAS describes the Rock Art Academy as "...a two-day Texas Archeology Academy that explores regional rock art archeological sites, Mogollon archeological sites, and how investigators use this information to interpret the human and natural histories of an area. Classroom sessions for the Academy will be held at the El Paso Museum of Archaeology with field sessions at Hueco Tanks State Park..."

The registration period for the 2019 Rock Art Academy continues through midnight on January 17, 2019. For details on this event, go to this TAS page.

/s/ webmaster [Photos by Marianne Smith]

The Texas Archeological Society has announced that registration will open on October 28, 2018, for their next Rock Art Academy to be held in El Paso, Texas, on February 16-17, 2019.

The TAS explains that the Rock Art Academy "...is a two-day Texas Archeology Academy that explores regional rock art archeological sites, Mogollon archeological sites, and how investigators use this information to interpret the human and natural histories of an area. Classroom sessions for the Academy will be held at the El Paso Museum of Archaeology with field sessions at Hueco Tanks State Park..."

The registration period for the 2019 Rock Art Academy runs from noon on October 28, 2018, through midnight on January 17, 2019. For details on this event, go to this TAS page.

/s/ webmaster [Photos by Marianne Smith]

May 2, 2018, the first day of our GCAS international field trip to archaeological and historic sites in Chihuahua, Mexico, was windy and action-packed. We hiked for about 1/3 mile from La Cueva de la Olla crossing a shallow stream and the valley floor, up a short, steep path to the cave and cliff dwellings of La Cueva de la Golondrina ("Cave of the Swallow"). Occupation of this site has been dated to roughly 1000-1050 CE; somewhat more recent and for a shorter duration than La Cueva de la Olla. (h/t Marcia Corl for far left image.)

One of the structures in La Cueva de la Golondrina (see photo over here on the right) was built in a unique cylindrical shape, yet it and the other more conventional, rectangular-shaped adobe rooms at this site used the same defensive techniques of small ventilation windows and narrow, low, T-shaped doorways that seem typical of cliff dwellings of this era throughout northwest Mexico and southwest US.

Facing the cave, the cliff dwellings on the far left appeared more intact than those at La Cueva de la Olla; their walls extended all the way to the cave's roof. Slim rows of latillas in the upper parts of small ventilation windows remained in place despite graffiti etched into the surrounding adobe. Steps carved into the sloping rock were still usable to climb up to the cave floor (see photo on far left). The fine sand of the cave floor itself appeared uniformly flat and smooth, even into the cave's furthermost recesses.

Facing the cave along its upper right side, a long panel of white-painted pictographs came into view.

The three-day GCAS international field trip to Paquimé, Chihuahua, Mexico, May 2-4, 2018, was a great success. A total of 16 hardy souls participated: four from El Paso; one from Las Cruces; one from Santa Fe; and ten from assorted locales around Grant County, New Mexico. Our tour guide, Luis Benavidez, and his associate, Oscar, took very good care of us while introducing us to points of interest all over the place. That's Luis, over there in that photo on the right.

May 2 found our group in two vans, checking in with Mexican Immigration in Palomas and then riding for about three hours from there to the greater Nuevo Casas Grandes area. Our first archaeological destination of the trip was among the windswept mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental near the town of Ignacio Zaragoza. We visited cliff dwellings in two separate cliff-side caves along the valley of the Rio Piedras Verdes. Luis explained to us that millennia ago this region was somewhat similar to the Mimbres River in New Mexico, in that archaeological sites of small groups of dwellings have been found every few miles along the river and its fertile valley. Human occupation in certain parts of this valley has been dated to 5500 BCE.