Pecked curvilinear nucleated (PCN), [1] in archaeology, is a form of prehistoric rock carving. The term was originally proposed by Teresa Miller and Reed Haslam in 1976 to describe a widespread type of rock carving in western North America. [2] The form is characterized by a circular or oval groove element, which results in a raised center area. [3] The form is quite prevalent in California and is applied to a number of Native American rock carving sites in this portion of the United States.
Occurrences of this type of rock carving can be found at Ring Mountain, Marin County, California, [4] and in Lakeport, California.
Soapstone is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock. It is composed largely of the magnesium rich mineral talc. It is produced by dynamothermal metamorphism and metasomatism, which occur in the zones where tectonic plates are subducted, changing rocks by heat and pressure, with influx of fluids, but without melting. It has been a medium for carving for thousands of years.
A giant is a being of human appearance, sometimes of prodigious size and strength, common in folklore.
A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs, estimated to be 20,000 years old are classified as protected monuments and have been added to the tentative list of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. Petroglyphs are found worldwide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek prefix petro-, from πέτρα petra meaning "stone", and γλύφω glýphō meaning "carve", and was originally coined in French as pétroglyphe.
Cup and ring marks or cup marks are a form of prehistoric art found in the Atlantic seaboard of Europe (Ireland, Wales, Northern England, Scotland, France, Portugal, and Spain – and in Mediterranean Europe – Italy, Azerbaijan and Greece, as well as in Scandinavia and in Switzerland.
In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also may be called cave art or parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many culturally diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout human history. In terms of technique, the four main groups are:
Robert McCormick Adams Jr. was an American anthropologist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1984–94). He worked in both the Near East and Mesoamerica. A long time professor of the University of Chicago, he was best known for his research in Iraq.
Mogollon culture is an archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the southern span of the Mogollon culture is known as Aridoamerica.
The Coso Range of eastern California is located immediately south of Owens Lake, east of the Sierra Nevada, and west of the Argus Range. The southern part of the range lies in the restricted Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and the northern part of the range is designated as the Coso Range Wilderness. The mountains include Coso Peak, at 8,160 feet (2,487 m) above sea level, as well as Silver Peak and Silver Mountain, both more than 7,400 ft (2,300 m) in height.
The Timbisha are a Native American tribe federally recognized as the Death Valley Timbisha Shoshone Band of California. They are known as the Timbisha Shoshone Tribe and are located in south central California, near the Nevada border. As of the 2010 Census the population of the Village was 124. The older members still speak the ancestral language, also called Timbisha.
The Sierra Ancha is a mountain range in Gila County, in central Arizona. It lies between Roosevelt Lake to the south, the Tonto Basin to the west, Cherry Creek to the east, and Pleasant Valley to the north. The range is one of several, including the Bradshaw Mountains, Mingus Mountain of the Black Hills, and the Mazatzal Mountains, which form a transitional zone between the lowland deserts of southern Arizona and the Colorado Plateau of northeastern Arizona. The highest point in the range is Aztec Peak, at an elevation of 2345 m (7694 ft).
Malcolm Jennings Rogers (1890–1960) was a pioneering archaeologist in southern California, Baja California, and Arizona.
D. L. True was an archaeologist who worked in California, particularly San Diego County, and in northern Chile.
The Tiburon Peninsula is a landform of the San Francisco Bay Area's Marin County and is home to the incorporated municipalities of Tiburon, Belvedere, and a portion of Corte Madera, California. Much of the peninsula is unincorporated, including portions of the north side and the communities of Paradise Cay and Strawberry. Richardson Bay separates the peninsula from the Marin County mainland. Angel Island lies app. 1 mile south of the peninsula's southern tip. Much of the land area of the Tiburon Peninsula was part of a Spanish land grant originally given to the early Californian John Reed. A prominent feature of the Tiburon Peninsula is Ring Mountain, Marin County, which forms the backbone of the peninsula and is the highest elevation of the peninsula. The Tiburon Peninsula is the location of a number of rare and endangered flora species, and is also the site of ancient Native American rock carvings. The mineral lawsonite was first described from an occurrence on the Tiburon Peninsula.
Coso Rock Art District is a rock art site containing over 100,000 Petroglyphs by Paleo-Indians and/or Native Americans. The district is located near the towns of China Lake and Ridgecrest, California. Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons were declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964. In 2001, they were incorporated into this larger National Historic Landmark District. There are several other distinct canyons in the Coso Rock Art District besides the Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons. Also known as Little Petroglyph Canyon and Sand Tanks, Renegade Canyon is but one of several major canyons in the Coso Range, each hosting thousands of petroglyphs. The majority of the Coso Range images fall into one of six categories: bighorn sheep, entopic images, anthropomorphic or human-like figures, other animals, weapons & tools, and "medicine bag" images. Scholars have proposed a few potential interpretations of this rock art. The most prevalent of these interpretations is that they could have been used for rituals associated with hunting.
Big and Little Petroglyph Canyons are two principal landforms within which are found major accumulations of Paleo-Indian and/or Native American Petroglyphs, or rock art, by the Coso People located in the Coso Range Mountains of the northern Mojave Desert, and now within the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, near the towns of China Lake and Ridgecrest, California. Little Petroglyph Canyon contains 20,000 documented images, which surpasses in number for most other collections. Additionally, the archeological resources are remarkably undisturbed.
The Sierra de San Francisco is a mountain range in Mulegé Municipality of the northern region of Baja California Sur state, in northwestern Mexico.
Judaculla Rock is a curvilinear-shaped outcrop of soapstone known for its ancient carvings and petroglyphs. The archaeological site is located on a 0.85-acre rectangular-shaped property, now owned by Jackson County. It is approximately 60 meters east of Caney Fork Creek, a major branch of the northwestward-trending Tuckasegee River in the mountains of Western North Carolina.
In the Neolithic and Bronze Age British Isles, rock art was produced across various parts of the islands. Petroglyphic in nature, the majority of such carvings are abstract in design, usually cup and ring marks, although examples of spirals or figurative depictions of weaponry are also known. Only one form of rock art in Europe, this late prehistoric tradition had connections with others along Atlantic Europe, particularly in Galicia.
The Ballochmyle cup and ring marks were first recorded at Ballochmyle, Mauchline, East Ayrshire, Scotland in 1986, very unusually carved on a vertical red sandstone cliff face, forming one of the most extensive areas of such carvings as yet found in Britain. They have been designated a scheduled monument.
Daniel Cotton Snyder, is an American sculptor, ceramicist, and educator. He lives in Berkeley, California.
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