00:02.90 Alan Hello out there in archeology podcast land this is your host Dr Alan Garfinkel and we're blessed and honored to have Linda Hilkeba who is both the editor of La Pin Tora which is the ah newsletter for the American Rock art research association. And also a board member with the California Rock Guard Foundation as well. Linda are you with us. Great. Well, what's wonderful to have you I think you've been on just once before very very early in the show's evolution. Um, and you talked a bit about some of your research. 00:21.39 linda I sure am Alan I'm here. Thank you. 00:34.99 linda Right? I was on with Donna Gillette together 00:36.92 Alan Am I correct? Yes, yeah well Linda let's let's open it up this way I want to um, you know have some reflections to start off um in terms of what prompted you to get involved in the study of Rock Art Research Anthropology Archaeology and the study of native americans what? Um, what was the the source and the inspiration of that interest. 01:06.30 linda Well I think it depends on how far back you want me to go um, it actually started with my parents. Um who were um, avid history buffs. So my brother and I growing up my parents did a lot of camping. Ah, really remote camping like the kind of camping out in the middle of nowhere that you need a full-wheel drive pickup to get to very remote and they were also avid history buffs and we visited a lot of historical sites a lot of archeological sites. Lot of museums. So I had sort of this immersion very early California Nevada Idaho Washington pretty much all the western United States Arizona New Mexico 01:43.77 Alan Um, and what area what area of the country was this in was in California or somewhere else. 01:54.82 Alan Um, oh wow. 01:59.16 linda Predominantly in Nevada my mother loved Nevada especially Northern Nevada and we went to just about every ghost town. You could think of in Nevada and we looked at petroglyph sites as well and prehistoric sites. They just um. They just really loved history and archaeology they were avocationalists. 02:20.67 Alan Isn't that rare isn't that rare for a woman to have such a passion for an area that is so desolate such as Nevada. 02:28.12 linda I well I don't know I grew up with it so it didn't seem odd to me but my mother was very she was very independent from a very young age I mean when she was a teenager she took her model a I mean you know in the 40 s. 02:34.86 Alan Ah, well I I know I yeah please. Ah, oh my word really. 02:47.60 linda Ah crossed. Um Yosemite ah before the roads were paved. She went with a couple of girlfriends and she tooled around all over the place. So and then they my parents took their honeymoon. They drove up the alcan highway went up into Alaska. 02:51.95 Alan Wow. 03:03.51 linda And went salmon fishing and so they really loved that kind of stuff. 03:06.89 Alan Sounds like they were very outdoorsy and and loved adventure and loved history. What did they do for a living were they were they academics or were they just interested in history as an avocation. 03:23.13 linda So my father yeah my my father was um, an aerospace engineer He um, worked for a number of ah engineering firms over the decades. Um, he also he and his one of his college buddies. 03:26.62 Alan Wow. 03:39.14 linda Started a military vehicle testing company in Northern Nevada that company is still in business today. Um, and my mom actually was an antique dealer. 03:47.66 Alan Wow. 03:54.37 linda Up until her eighty s she was always self-employed. She was very independent. So ah, they were They were um, very independent in their own different ways. 04:06.54 Alan Sounds like it when did you see your first rock art site. Do you remember and what impressed you about them and what what caused you to to care about these particular interesting and esoteric features on the landscape. 04:22.63 linda You know I couldn't tell you how old I was when I saw my first rock art site I I just remember being ah just very young and hiking. You know we would camp out in you know, like the black rock desert or wherever we were. And you know we would just go on these daylong hikes and we would just look at whatever was out there whether it was the boroughs or the ghost towns or you know the rock art and it just was always very. You know, interesting to me and so when I got into college um I started out as a psychology major. And and then added ah anthropology as a second major so I actually double majored as an undergraduate and um, did my first field school I think in 86 it was in Santa Cruz 05:19.90 linda And with ah I'm trying to remember him the name of the professor now. But anyway I did my undergrad at San Jose state and got both my bachelor's degrees there and um. 05:32.72 Alan And so you had 2 ° ah both both in psychology and anthropology wow very impressive. But. 05:35.83 linda 2 bachelor's degrees one in anthropology and psychology and anthropology and um when I was deciding to go to grad school I went to cal state hayward for my they think they call it East Bay now but cal state hayward for my master's degree there I was looking for a job in the and the college want ads and I thought oh there's not going to be any archeology positions and lo and behold. There was one. There was a seasonal position with the forest service. 05:55.16 Alan Ah, her. 06:12.45 linda Down in sierra national forest and so I applied for it and and got it and so I worked for ah the summer I think it was 1988 in Sierra National Forest the north fork district 06:24.31 Alan Um. 06:27.14 Alan Who. 06:29.13 linda Um, and we recorded there wasn't really any rock art up there per se but we did record one very very large ethnographic site that was several acres in size and it was an ethnographic trading village from the for the mono and the yokuts it was a summer gathering site and it took us a long time to document the site because there were all of these different areas where the families were camping. 06:50.29 Alan It sounds impressive. It really does yeah huh where it was it an historic village site or was it prehistoric. 07:01.26 linda It did have an historic component and it was it was known to some of the local elders as a site that their ancestors would would go to So I think the site had some antiquity but it also was recent. Yeah. 07:09.25 Alan So it sounds yeah it did you connect with any of the elders while you were doing your research there. 07:20.78 linda Ah, we did. We hadn't we had several and um native peoples that we worked with I don't remember their names I'm sorry that was you early and after that I did a number of jobs with Crm firms. 07:26.20 Alan Sure But there with that that was early. Yeah. 07:37.31 linda But then I got hired as the ah district archeologist for the the bureau of land management down in Hollister and we also had a number of native american people that we worked worked with down there and that was where I kind of more really got into the rock art was during that period of time. 07:53.52 Alan Now Hollister is is that in the central valleys that's in the bay area. 07:59.73 linda So hollister is um, very very very Southern Bay area it's ah in San Benito County so it's 08:07.76 Alan Um, okay, and what sort and what what sort of rock art was in the Hollister area. 08:14.72 linda Mostly ah couples and bedrock Mortars They were almost always in association but there were a few other sites that had um Pc ends or the. 08:16.80 Alan Um, okay. 08:32.10 linda Pecked curvilinear nucleated of rock art types that Donna Gillette did for her thesis and dissertation there were there was a ah little bit of Pictograph Rock art not very much. Um. 08:40.51 Alan E. 08:48.50 Alan Aha. 08:49.70 linda And it was in very poor. What little there was was in very poor condition from weathering etc. But um when I was with the Blm um I it was kind of difficult for me to do assessments because we didn't really have a good. 08:54.98 Alan Um. 09:08.16 Alan E. 09:08.36 linda Management plan for the district and so I had just started grad school at that time and I proposed doing a site settlement study for my master's thesis but also would be used as a basis for the. Ah, cultural resources management plan for the Blm um, and so I was able to kind of marry the two and. 09:28.74 Alan Yeah, but well, that's so yeah, so it sounds like from from the get go you had ah you had ah a good position with a management agency and you were connecting you were connecting with. 09:42.10 linda Huh. 09:44.87 Alan With some of that rather unusual and distinctive yet enigmatic and mysterious rock art correct. Yeah. 09:54.72 linda Correct right? right? I did um I did a settlement study I I basically just took all of the sites that were recorded and noted um their geographic position whether they were on a. 10:10.29 Alan He ah. 10:10.71 linda Canyon Mouth or on a ridgetop or whatever and what kind of sites they were and just did this big matrix and ah happened to include um I don't remember offhand how many sites had rock art. But. Maybe a quarter of the sites had some component of rock art. Even if it was just cupules. 10:28.76 Alan Sure so I guess fast forward to your recent association with the California Rock Art Foundation but also with the American Rock art research association tell me how the yeah how you got connected with arera and what arera is and. What your role with them has been. 10:51.00 linda Okay, Aurora is the ah american rock art research association and I I believe we have members from countries around the world I don't know how many but I would say maybe 40 countries around the world I could be wrong, but um i. 11:04.25 Alan Wow. 11:08.17 linda I'm good friends with Donna Gillette and she of course is on the k craft board. But I'd I'd known Donna for probably thirty plus years and she kind of encouraged me to go to Aurora and so I went to ah you know some Aurora Conferences and and liked it I I don't describe myself as a rock art researcher. But I like it and I advocate for its protection and I enjoy it and I was at an aurorra conference I think in 182 and the current editor at the time was mentioning that she really needed to step down as editor and I sort of foolishly said oh that sounds like fun and she said good. You're it and so so I've been the editor now for. 11:55.69 Alan Um, yeah, oh my word So you so you step in for yeah yeah. 12:03.45 linda Yeah I stepped in it. Um, so I've been their editor now for about 3 years and we we put out 4 newsletters a year on Gary various. 12:08.87 Alan So how long my law how long has a erara been around and what do they do and what is the the newsletter like how long has the newsletter been around and how many issues it's you know a million questions. Please. 12:25.28 linda Oh boy. So um I will have to get back to you on how far how long aurora has been around. Um I could cheat and go to their website right now. Um, the ah newsletter has been around for many many years it used to be a printed publication. 12:31.76 Alan Um, yeah, yeah, sure. Okay, ah. 12:42.75 linda Ah, black and white printed publication and right after I came on board. Ah we switched over to a digital format. It's still 4 times a year but it's a digital format and we accept articles on. Basically. 12:47.85 Alan Okay. 13:00.51 linda Wherever people are doing rock art research. It doesn't just have to be the Americas it can be Australia or you know Africa or wherever it's predominantly predominantly american but not exclusively. 13:01.30 Alan Who. So anywhere in the world. Yeah, okay and do they have conferences outside of at meetings outside of America or no. 13:19.22 linda We ah I don't know if they have conferences outside of America I've I've maybe been to 5 or 6 of them and they're in various you know locations you know around the country the ones I've been to have always been on the sort of the western. 13:30.51 Alan Um, ah yeah. 13:36.81 linda Side of the United States I'm presuming because they have more rock art. Ah the upcoming one is going to be in Tucson and they always have great field trips. 13:39.30 Alan Sure, Yeah, okay and yes, that's what people go for is of course the field trips as well. Um. 13:56.20 Alan So you've been an editor for the a Erara Newsletter what's that like ah and what how many members are there in arera. 14:11.10 linda I think we have about 500 members um the yeah, the the the Aurora Newsletter is is really fun to do. It's always challenging to get content. So I end up begging a lot for content. 14:12.17 Alan Oh my word I had no idea. Wow. 14:20.28 Alan Um, sure sure and. 14:28.53 linda Um, I find that if I throw out a topic to people and I usually get more responses that way like women in archeology or something ah people will can relate to a theme and. 14:40.24 Alan Ah. 14:45.14 Alan Sure. 14:48.42 linda So I get articles that way we have native Americans of course on our in our in our group and they submit articles as well as you know, non-native scholars. 15:00.27 Alan Ah, and what's been some of the more interesting articles or contributions or research project. Yeah, no, just what? what? What? What? What do you? What do you feature? Yeah please. 15:06.16 linda Oh you're going to put me on the spot for that. Um, we have a number of scholars. Um, we've let's see well this last? um, ah episode or edition focus mainly on describing. 15:17.61 Alan Um, yeah. 15:24.20 linda Various rock art places in the Southern Arizona ah region because that's where our come upcoming conference is going to be and so we had um we had just have a number of fabulous. Um. Sites that are around. We have um, corucate I'm probably saying it wrong. Coco Rocki ranch um we have um, okay. 15:50.80 Alan Yeah, okay, ah ah, but let's let's hold that idea for the for the next the next segment and I want to hear all about the ah the rock art in in Arizona and what they're what you featured in the newsletter. 16:03.83 linda And. 16:07.46 Alan See in the flip flop gang. 16:08.90 linda Okay.