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KNOWLEDGE OF SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE
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We are in possession of and are intimately familiar with Cressman's seminal work in the field of Oregon rock art and Loring's monograph. We obtained several of Cressman’s other works and have read and digested the information there in. In our personal libraries we have dozens of books and papers concerning rock art and the cultures that created it throughout the world. While in Idaho in 2006, I visited the state's historical library and obtained copies of the Idaho equivalent of Lorings’ work for Idaho and a very comprehensive paper on rock art sites along the upper Columbia River drainage. We are in possession of Dr. Mary Rick's thesis on rock art in Lake County. Also Myrtle Shock's thesis on Owyhee uplands rock art sites. We located and accessed a number of reference books in 2009, among them B. K. Swartz, Jr.'s
Klamath Basin Petroglyphs and H. Thomas Cain's
Petroglyphs of Central Washington.
During my visit to the Loring Archives at UCLA in 2006 I made copies of most of their original field notes. These documents have been an invaluable aid in locating many of the more difficult to find sites the Lorings visited. In 2007 while at the archives I made over a thousand digital copies of Lorings' black and white photographs. LeeAnn is incorporating many of these in her albums adding to the condition tracking records of the glyphs. And I have added these to
www.oregonrockart.com.
Since we were in email contact with Janet Coleman, Lorings’ daughter before she died in 2008, we had hoped to track down the location of materials that she turned over to the state of Oregon after her parents' deaths; and if those materials were located, to access them. In 2007 this lead us to become acquainted with the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office and to make some contacts there. We have analyzed the two thousand page bibliographic database there to determine what useful information it contains. This was accomplished in 2008 and I determined there are about three hundred documents that would be of interest. We hope to hire a professional archaeologist to obtain the relevant information. As of 2009 we still have no funds to hire a professional and there seems no other way of accessing this information. Janet’s son contacted us in 2008 letting us know that he has come into possession of several of the artifacts the Lorings collected, including several rubbings and some of their recording tools. I have requested that he send us photographs of the rubbings and tools so that we may add those to our research. His silence on the matter seems to indicate that he is unwilling to do that.
We will continue to mine the World Wide Web for sites relevant to rock art and all its various facets. In the process, we have spent time at several dozens of the sites, most of which have contributed to our understanding of the art itself and the influences that lead to its creation, as well as various theories of scholars and amateuras to why it was created. We have Google alerts coming to us on a daily basis notifying us of new rock art information as it becomes available. A friend and OAS member who works at a library has tracked down and digitally made available over a dozen rock art thesis and other printed materials on the subject, which has considerably expanded our general knowledge. We will continue these efforts in 2011.
My interest in the diffusionist approach to American archaeology and petroiconography continues to expand. I am fortunate to be in custody of a friend's one hundred plus volume library of diffusionist volumes, including a complete collection of the
Occasional Papers of the Epigraphic Society, where in are many interesting analysis of rock art sites. Our website has elicited several responses reporting new finds that may be relevant to this line of inquiry.
