00:00.00 archpodnet There you go. 00:00.00 alan Thank you welcome out there in rock art podcast land archeology podcast land this is your host Dr Alan Garfinkel and we're revisiting a remarkable topic. That we've tried at various times to begin to scratch the surface per se and that's dealing with some of the largest and most remarkable prehistoric paintings in the world just to the south of us out of California in Baja california they sometimes call it the grand canyon of mexico on the peninsula in the sierra de san francisco and we're honored and blessed to have trudy ankel who has been saddling south and running tours and spending a remarkable. Amount of her lifetime intimately connecting with the land the landscape and its tremendous treasures trudy. Are you there. 01:03.51 Trudi I am here and thank you Alan and good to be back again. 01:07.89 alan Well god bless you um, it's it's so exciting to have you well I guess the California Rock art foundation is going to have a few tours with you Judy and this is going to be rather interesting I um I hadn't anticipated. Having the number or character of these tours but it sounds like they've been well received and certainly why don't you give us a little little word picture or some snapshots about some of the upcoming tours. 01:34.90 Trudi It's. 01:41.53 Trudi Okay, so so far a few people have traveled with us from California Rock Art Foundation over the years and the first was an adventure with Allen and our friend Eve Ewing down into these well we did a big long loop trip and and also a trip with the folks out from from England as well. But yeah. 02:08.63 alan Yeah, for the bradsha from the Bradshaw Foundation 1 of the most well known and prestigious rock art research platforms digital platforms in the world and god bless them that was exciting. 02:24.42 Trudi Yeah, so over our trajectory of working with Kraf and and combining different tours. It's been really fun. We've taken groups craft groups into a very remote area into paral canyon to see serente cave. And then down into the the Santa Tersa Rock art complex down in Santa Thesa Canyon in the heart of the sierra day San Fra Francisco and so this time of Ryan Gersner and also Christine Grimaldi the executive director of Kraf and some others who have been on some of our previous trips are all ready to ride into the small run cheia area of San Gregorio in early march so we have 4 trips kind of back to back and there was so much enthusiasm and has been so much enthusiasm and continues to be for. These trips and so we we just kept adding and adding until we have now 4 trips in the month of March and I am really looking forward to heading into the canyon for the very last trip of our craft season because Eric. Ritter is going to be joining us on that one and I've heard so many things from you and Eve Ewing and other people over the years and of course reading some of his rocket papers. 03:56.38 alan Well Dr. Eric Ritter was ah, got his ph d on studies archaeology and prehistory in rock art. Ah on baha and I was on one of his earliest you know forays out there when I volunteered as a as a youngster. Little baby archaeologist and and you know that was the first time I was in Mexico and first time I was in ba and I was smitten I was just taken aback by the remarkable nature of the adventure, the beauty and everything about it and so Eric has continued. Throughout his lifetime probably about 40 years or more of extensive research publications and continued studies on the ah the indigenous people the ethnography, the archaeology and certainly the rock art as well. Ah, he is probably considered one of the foremost researchers and scholars on baha in the world. So you've got ah a treasure an absolute treasure to ah at your fingertips and he's also a very nice guy. 05:10.45 Trudi Yeah, yeah, I've I've heard many things he and his wife are coming and also we have a few other spaces that are filled on that trip already. But that is one of the trips and it is from March Twenty Sixth as the arrival date in Loretto. Until April second as a departure date it from Loretto again and we'll be doing 4 4 days in scanon Santa Teresa with the Cueva La Pintada cueva de Las flechas and several other pretty well known. 05:39.80 alan M. 05:48.94 Trudi Rock art sites in that area that we'll be visiting and so the weather has been perfect to run tours. We had a little bit of rain on 1 trip last week but just enough a few hours to make the make the canyon look beautiful and. 05:54.22 alan Oh wonderful. 06:05.60 Trudi It's always gorgeous in that Canyon and so I'm looking forward to getting back down there. 06:10.17 alan It's one just at the widest time of year because of the because of the weather and because of the beauty of the Canyon right? yeah. 06:14.74 Trudi Yeah, yeah, so so I'm looking forward to being on that trip as well and there are other trips that right both Ryan Gersner will be leading and then or representing kraft on there. 06:28.81 alan E. 06:30.84 Trudi And then Christine Gramaldi and'll so we'll be doing 1 more trip out into the sierra to the northern part of the sierra into the sangregoio canyon which has some very interesting sites and then. 2 trips into the we have a space on one of the trips into the Santa Teresa Canyon on March Eighteen to 25. 06:58.15 alan Fantastic. 07:01.25 Trudi 18 to 25 or excuse me 12 to 12 to 19 We'll have a trip the twelfth to the nineteenth of March going into Santa Theresa Canyon another one the eighteenth to the twenty fifth of March going into the San Gregorio Canyon 07:05.76 alan Me. 07:20.40 Trudi To the north and then again the final trip of the season with Eric Ritter will be on the twenty sixth of March until April second and so people can contact me at tour loretto. That's T O U R L O R E T o 07:29.90 alan Fantastic. 07:40.11 Trudi At http://aol.com in order to see about signing up for these last few remaining spaces that are available on the craft trips this spring. 07:48.79 alan Fantastic. Well, that's rather remarkable. Um, you know we've we've we've talked a little bit about the great mural rock card. But I think on on this particular opportunity I'd like to talk about maybe a few things about what we know about. Paintings and the native people how we know a little bit about them and we can sort of banter back and forth. Um, one of the things that is very helpful in terms of knowledge of this particular piece of geography is that. The ah fathers were there rather early meaning these ah these missionaries and also there were they were interested in describing and characterizing the indigenous people in a rather objective way and there were ah. Linguistic studies that were done to the native people and one of the things we learned was that there is an unbroken line of related languages called Kachimi or kochimi and that exists in the central baha peninsula. Which is in fact, coterminous or correlated synchronous with this great mural rock art. Um, for that reason and because it appears to be of great time. Depth. We believe that the ancestors of the indigenous people. Known as the kochimi were in fact, the likely artisans of these remarkable paintings have you reflected and thought about that has that been something that you've understood over the years 09:33.39 Trudi Yes, that is. 09:40.66 Trudi Yeah that's one of the theories. Um, there are writings that discuss that it was that the kochi me themselves when the missionaries came into the area. They actually claimed that they did not do those paintings. And that there were other ancestors before them but surely the the traditions and the rituals of the kochimi that has been documented that that was documented very by Miguel Del Barco in the area of loreto and others. Um, have some of the same characteristics of the the kochimi rituals of the time. So the paintings of the half black and half red and human figures and these figures that are in the canyons and on these rock faces. Are just amazing. Um, if you can find you can likely not find very many places where there's such a high concentration of this animation in the rock art and. Human size fit greater than human size greater than the animal size figures running across the the walls of the cave and it's so stylized and it's completely stylized in the whole Sierra day San Francisco just very interesting concepts of who might have done that artwork particularly in this one concentrated area. 11:18.91 alan Yes, and you're exactly right in terms of looking at the stylization and the subject matter and how that all works one of the things I learned from e viewing who is one of my mentors when it comes to understanding the rock art of baha. Eve is a remarkable published author. She also did her own documentary film on the indigenous people and mainly about the about the people that were were the were the were the cowboys the cowboys and the. Other individuals who live down there and their lives. But what she has consistently talked about is the life of the paintings. The movement of the paintings and the intimate embrace of the natural world. And the landscape by the imagery. She's been down into this area. She's I think in the in the area of like 85 years of age. She said she's been going down into this sierra day San Francisco 50 years about twice a year. On on the moulahs with the burroughs in tether and consistently had a never ending or endlessly engaging sort of romance with these remarkable paintings. So and. Viewing is just a wonder what? a treasure right. 12:56.84 Trudi Yeah, she's she's amazing and her friendship with Ellenie Moore who was ah spent many many summers away from her. She teaches used to teach art in Southern California and one of the universities. One of the colleges. And her passion for laying on her back in a cave in months of hot hot summer just to capture on ah in her own artistic ways. The the scale of art that that's in these. These mountain ranges and she's done a great tribute to capturing some of the the movement and to scale just some great stuff and so I was introduced to ellenle via eve and those 2 women are are forces of nature for being. Ah, some people who just so appreciate what that what those hidden canyons have captured and held for us and so another woman who has been a ah great ah resource and who was the main person to be able to. Ah, put into existence the ability to to have the visitation of this art in the canyon and to have it be so protected and to have it become a world heritage site and that would be lucero gutierres who lives in Los Cabos and has made her life her life work has been to protect the rock art in these canyons and she's done an amazing job working with the local people. The vocaros the families to make it be a true world heritage existence of. Ah, place in the world that is so special that the patrimony of of this ranchero culture has benefited by. We use the local cowboys and their bouros and their mules to ride into the canyons. They take care of us on the trail they watch out for us. They take us to the sites and in some of the more remote areas which they have labeled as level 3 and that would be in sangregoio the sanorio visitation. We also have a. AhEna or department of history and anthropology custodian along with us just as a little extra protection there. There are no signage and no walkways to protect the the understory of the cave caves and so that. 15:47.34 Trudi That requires an extra level of attention from the department of history and anthropology. So there. There's the canyon which is Santa Teresa that has walkways and signage and the trails are kept up but let me tell you. And as you know Alan you've been on some of those trails they are rocky and slippery so we do want to make sure that people are aware of that ahead of time. It's a steep deep canyon and although there are some creature comforts where we camp in the bottom. Of the canyon and one of the camps and if we get to move down canyon to the wilderness camp it is rocky and so you are going to scramble and we to get up to some of the sites. But we always do have our va voquero guides along to help us and I just want to pull. 16:38.50 alan And the vote and the voccados helped me they drug me up I was the ah I was the one that needed personal attention and they were kind enough to get me up there to see those fabulous fabulous images. 16:40.88 Trudi Help. 16:57.81 alan Well, we just went through the the first the first segment and just rather remarkable and in this next segment I think we'll begin delving a little deeper into the subject matter and the characterization of of what we know about these remarkable paintings. 16:58.26 Trudi Um, yeah, we got you there. 17:17.43 alan And the Flip-flop gang.