Eastern States Rock Art Research Association

2011 Buffalo Rock (11Js49) Site Conservation

rsconsult — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 13:53:59 +0000

Mark J. Wagner and Mary R. McCorvie

The Buffalo Rock site is a historic period pictograph site in southern Illinois that contains the states’ only known bison painting as well as several smaller paintings of a crescent moon, star, and cross (Figures 1 and 2). These paintings are believed to have been created between ca. AD 1700-1800 by Native American peoples traveling along the Golconda-Kaskaskia Trace, which is a dirt trail linking the Ohio and Mississippi River whose origins may extend back into the prehistoric period (Wagner et al. 2010;89-106). The site is now owned by the federal government as part of the Shawnee National Forest of southern Illinois.

The bison painting is a well-known landmark throughout southern Illinois and the shelter containing the paintings is frequented by campers, hikers, and horse back riders. One such group of visitors defaced the site in 2010 by using charcoal, probably from a camp fire, to write the lyrics “we were meant to eat each other” and other phrases from a post-heavy metal band song across the bison and other paintings (Figure 3).

The Shawnee National Forest (SNF) archaeologists consulted with various rock art conservators who advised that the best way to remove the charcoal would be by using distilled water. As part of the ESRARA biennial meeting held at Giant City State Park in southern Illinois in March, 2011, ESRARA members traveled to the site to clean the charcoal from the rock face using this technique (Figures 4 and 5). ESRARA member Jim Duncan, who has had experience in cleaning soot and dirt from murals in the Missouri state capitol building, provided instruction on how to clean the charcoal from the paintings without touching the rock face (Figures 6 and 7). The distilled water was sprayed on the charcoal, causing it to dissolve, with the runoff caught on a sponge held below the sprayed area (Figures 8-10). By using this technique it was possible to clean the rock face without having to touch it with either cotton balls or a sponge and possibly smear the charcoal over the rock face.

The cleaning was successful and the site now once again appears as it did before the vandalism (Figure 11). Unfortunately, the vandalism at Buffalo Rock is not an isolated incident with several sites on both private and public land in southern Illinois having been vandalized by chalking, spray painting, or other methods in the past several years. Although the Forest Service protects rock art sites on the lands it manages by a combination of concealing their locations as well as yearly monitoring to check on their condition, the locations of many rock art sites in the region passed into public knowledge decades ago. As such, we anticipate that rock art conservation and restoration techniques will become an increasingly important aspect of the management and protection of rock art sites within Illinois.

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References

Wagner, Mark J., Mary R. McCorvie, and Charles A. Swedlund

2010 The Buffalo Rock Site (11Js49): A Historic Period Native American Rock Art Site in Johnson County, Illinois. In Pottery, Passages, Postholes and Porcelain: Essays in Honor of Charles H. Faulkner, edited by Timothy E. Baumann and Mark D. Groover, Report of Investigations No. 23, Department of Anthropology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Possible Historic Period Native American Petroglyph Site Discovered in Central Illinois

rsconsult — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:16:13 +0000

In May, 2011, Mark Wagner (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale) and Heather Carey (Shawnee National Forest) traveled to central Illinois to meet Hal Hassen (Illinois Department of Natural Resource) and Dawn Cobb (Illinois Historic Preservation Agency) to inspect a possible rock art site located on state land near, Pekin, Illinois. The site had been reported by several local men who stated that they had seen engraved designs on a glacial boulder located on a steep hillside.

Inspection of the boulder (Figure 1) revealed that it contained at least two finely engraved anthropomorphs, two bird-like images, and a number of engraved lines on the top and sides of the boulder that might represent additional images (Figures 2 and 3). Although the age of the images is unknown, they are dissimilar from prehistoric petroglyphs in the state which typically pecked or ground into the rock face, not engraved.

Several lines of evidence indicate that the images may be historic period (post AD 1673) Native American carvings. First, the images are so finely engraved that they appear to have been incised in the rock face using metal tools. Second, they are stylistically similar to engraved images seen on bone and metal artifacts dating to the proto-historic and historic period in Illinois. Third, the hill side containing the boulder is located adjacent to a river floodplain that reportedly contains a late eighteenth/early nineteenth century Potawatomi settlement. This does not indicate that the carvings are necessarily Potawatomi in origin, however, as these and other late eighteenth to early nineteenth century Native American peoples in central and northern Illinois often situated their villages on ones formerly occupied by the Illini prior to 1760.

IDNR and SIU archaeologists are tentatively planning to record the boulder in detail at some point this fall using a combination of mapping and side-light flash photography at night to illuminate the designs on the boulder. If the designs indeed do date to the post-1673 historic period, this will be only the third historic period Native American rock art site recorded in the state and the first petroglyph (as opposed to a pictograph) site dating to that period.

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ESRARA 2013 Biennial Meeting

rsconsult — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 13:19:21 +0000

2013 Biennial Meeting

The 2013 biennial ESRARA meeting is tentatively scheduled to be held at Natural Bridge State Park in southeastern Kentucky in April, 2013. This meeting will represent the 20^th anniversary of the Eastern States Rock Art Conference (ESRAC) meeting held at this same park in 1993 that led to the founding of ESRARA three years later n 1996.

Surrounded by the Daniel Boone National Forest, Natural Bridge State Park is located in Powell and Wolfe Counties along the Middle Fork of the Red River, adjacent to the Red River Geologic Area. The 2,300 acre park contains a number of geological formations including a 65 ft high by 78 ft long sandstone arch after which the park is named. Facilities in the park include a lodge, cabins, and a full service restaurant. Further information regarding the park can be found at http://parks.ky.gov/findparks/resortparks/nb/.

Scheduled events will include a tour of local rock art sites, the ESRARA business meeting, paper and poster presentations, and a banquet. A centerpiece of the meetings will be the ESRARA auction of rock art related and other items which are intended to raise money for the organization. As always, the auctioneer will be that well-known Missourian “Colonel” Jim Duncan assisted by (hopefully) Colonel Charlie Faulkner and various other “colonels” that Jim is able to dragoon our of the audience and press into service.

Additional information regarding the meetings including the actual dates, a call for paper titles and abstracts, and a schedule of events will be posted on this web site as they become available. We anticipate that people will be able to register for the conference, sign up for events, and pay for fees related to the conference through this web site but the details of that have yet to be worked out.