Great Basin Rock Art: Archaeological Perspectives

5. Grinding Stone and Pecking Rock: Rock Art of the High Basins, Spanish Springs, Nevada

Though western North American rock art has been a subject of sporadic archaeological interest since the nineteenth century (Mallery 893), research has resulted in only vague understandings of the properties of the imagery represented and its associated site contexts. For example, in Nevada approximately ,000 rock art sites have an official state record, but only 244 of these actually record the presence or absence of associated cultural materials (Woody 2000a:38–43). Most site records contain merely the word petroglyph or pictograph as a complete site description, or else note the presence of easily identifiable motif categories such as anthropomorphs or zoomorphs, ignoring the difficult-to-classify and formally variable abstract imagery that characterizes the Basin and Range Tradition (Woody 2000a:02, 84). Archaeological meanings are derived from a consideration of context (Hodder 986), making rock art interpretations that are based on inaccurate or incomplete characterizations of site properties potentially flawed. Further, rock art theory, perhaps because of the opaque character of its subject, has played a determining role in conchapter 5 Grinding Stone and Pecking Rock Rock Art of the High Basins, Spanish Springs, Nevada sign a w. pen degraf t 52 g r i n d i n g s t o n e a n d p e c k i n g r o c k 53 structions of site properties, rather than data and theory being locked in a reflexive relationship. This is apparent from the problems associated with the two most popular theories of rock art functions applied to the Great Basin (hunting magic and shamanism). In this chapter I discuss how the abundant site archaeology associated with rock art in the High Basins area of northwestern Nevada (see figure .) cannot be satisfactorily interpreted from the perspective of the two most popular rock art theories used in western North America. My research underscores the need for careful and thorough documentation of site properties and illustrates that ignoring the domestic debris associated with rock art results in impoverished or misleading interpretation. In particular , the role of women in making and using rock art is often marginalized by distancing rock art from its settlement context, either by temporal distanciation or by overlooking residential debris. Both milling equipment and rock art itself are increasingly recognized as types of archaeology that are often underreported or simply overlooked (Adams 993:6; Beck and Jones 997:82; Schneider 993:2; Cannon and Woody [chapter 4], this volume). As a result, women are written out of prehistory or relegated to reproductive tasks (economic and sexual), leaving “cultural” fields of society an exclusively male domain. hunting magic and shamanism in nevada’s rock art Although landmark studies by Mallery (893) and Steward (929) represent the first major attempts to characterize the properties of rock art in the Desert West, it was not until the work of Heizer and Baumhoff (962) that interpretation came to the fore in a synthetic study that reported sites from Nevada and eastern California sites. The theoretical importance of their work to Great Basin rock art studies is hard to overstate, for they introduced hunting magic to the region in a systematic way and sought to support it by reference to actual site characteristics (Quinlan and Woody 200:23). Heizer and Baumhoff explored the relationships between rock art and subsistence activities, regarding food procurement as the most important and time–consuming requirement for the survival of Great Basin peoples (962:8) (strangely neglecting that securing food is the primary source of survival for all humans!). Their study of rock art site contexts concluded 54 g r e a t b a s i n r o c k a r t that there was a strong relationship between rock art and hunting activities, as rock art seemed predominantly located on animal migratory routes, in association with stone circles interpreted as hunting blinds, or at ambush venues at watering sources (Heizer and Baumhoff 962:3–7). Drawing on ethnography, they noted that in certain cultural contexts male hunting shamans sought to ensure success in the hunt by enlisting the aid of supernatural agencies, and they theorized that this constituted rock art’s aboriginal cultural context (Heizer and Baumhoff 962:3, 5). Establishing site contexts of rock art locales plays an important role in determining the art’s potential audiences and the kinds of social routines in which it was embedded (Bradley 2000...