Allen Dart: Executive Director, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center
Monday, April 1, 2024,
2:30pm – 3:30 pm,
ASA Koffler Great Room and Zoom
Ancient Indian pictographs (rock paintings) and petroglyphs (symbols carved or pecked on rocks) are claimed by some to be forms of writing for which meanings are known. But are such claims supported by archaeology or by Native Americans themselves?
In Part 1 of a two-part presentation, archaeologist Allen Dart introduces the U.S. Southwest as a “culture area” and the main Native American archaeological cultures that have inhabited the region for several thousand years. He then distinguishes two basic rock art styles – abstract and representational – and shows examples of the rock imagery styles of the pre-150 CE Archaic and Early Agricultural periods and of post-150 Mogollon and Ancestral Pueblo cultures.
In Part 2, to be presented on Wednesday, he will show and discuss rock art of the Hohokam and Patayan cultures, followed by an overall interpretation of what can be learned of ancient peoples from their rock art.
Registered Professional Archaeologist Allen Dart – who encourages us to call him “Al” – has worked since 1975 in Arizona and New Mexico for federal and state governments, private companies, and nonprofit organizations. He is now the executive director of Tucson’s nonprofit Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, which he founded in 1993 to provide educational and scientific programs in archaeology, history, and cultures. Al has received the Arizona Archaeological Society’s Professional Archaeologist of the Year Award, the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society’s Victor R. Stoner Award, the Arizona Governor’s Archaeology Advisory Commission Award in Public Archaeology, and other honors for his efforts to bring archaeology and history to the public.
Compiled and edited by Marilyn Skinner, Academy Village Volunteer
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