TY - JOUR
T1 - Protecting stone heritage in the painted desert
T2 - Employing the rock art stability index in the petrified forest national park, Arizona
AU - Groom, Kaelin M.
AU - Cerveny, Niccole Villa
AU - Allen, Casey D.
AU - Dorn, Ronald I.
AU - Theuer, Jason
N1 - Funding Information:
Collaborating with a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded applied education program by Mesa Community College, Arizona State University, and University of Colorado Denver, a Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit grant between the National Park Service (NPS) and University of Colorado Denver, and the Rocky Mountain Middle School Math and Science NSF grant (also at University of Colorado Denver, see acknowledgements), RASI fieldwork was conducted periodically from spring 2009 to 2012 covering the entire geographic area of the park, including new park territory acquired during the project period. Wherever possible, RASI data collected corresponded with existing NPS archaeological records and surveys mapping rock art panels and sites to prevent redundancies or replication of site documentation. Additionally, many rock art sites in PEFO have been documented over the years by volunteers such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC, a US government initiative in the 1930s), the American Rock Art Research Association (ARARA), and the Western Archaeological Conservation Center (WACC), and these data were occasionally used to aid in site and panel location efforts for this study. However, in some cases, new site surveys were collected in situ by an accompanying NPS staff member if none existed or records were deemed inadequate by NPS staff. To date, more than 300 sites and over 3500 individual petroglyph panels have been analyzed in PEFO using RASI over the project’s four-year duration.
Funding Information:
Funding: Funding for Mesa Community College and University of Colorado Denver student researchers came from two National Park Service Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit grants, as well as partial support from National Science Foundation grant No. 0412343. The National Science Foundation further supported this research under grant Nos. DUE-0837451, DUE-0837051, and DUE-0836812. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2019/9
Y1 - 2019/9
N2 - Located in northeastern Arizona (USA), Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) presents a unique story of both geologic and human history. Though perhaps most well-known for its abundant petrified wood and being part of the Painted Desert, visitors are often surprised when they discover PEFO hosts many ancient petroglyph sites. Over the years, many attempts have been made to record the petroglyph sites, but nothing has been done to assess their geomorphic stability. To address this shortcoming, we employed the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI) to assess geologic stability and (potential) deterioration of rock art sites in PEFO. Used for more than a decade as a triage for researchers assessing which rock art panels/sites are in the most danger of eroding, RASI uses a rank-based system to assess over three-dozen rock decay parameters, resulting in an overall condition analysis of a rock art panel. The findings can then be grouped together by site location to gain a clearer understanding of overall decay processes responsible for (potential) erosion. This study highlights RASI, its use as a low-cost, non-invasive, rapid field assessment technique, and assesses the geomorphic stability of five major petroglyph sites in the Petrified Forest National Park.
AB - Located in northeastern Arizona (USA), Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO) presents a unique story of both geologic and human history. Though perhaps most well-known for its abundant petrified wood and being part of the Painted Desert, visitors are often surprised when they discover PEFO hosts many ancient petroglyph sites. Over the years, many attempts have been made to record the petroglyph sites, but nothing has been done to assess their geomorphic stability. To address this shortcoming, we employed the Rock Art Stability Index (RASI) to assess geologic stability and (potential) deterioration of rock art sites in PEFO. Used for more than a decade as a triage for researchers assessing which rock art panels/sites are in the most danger of eroding, RASI uses a rank-based system to assess over three-dozen rock decay parameters, resulting in an overall condition analysis of a rock art panel. The findings can then be grouped together by site location to gain a clearer understanding of overall decay processes responsible for (potential) erosion. This study highlights RASI, its use as a low-cost, non-invasive, rapid field assessment technique, and assesses the geomorphic stability of five major petroglyph sites in the Petrified Forest National Park.
KW - Petrified Forest National Park
KW - Petroglyphs
KW - RASI
KW - Rock Art Stability Index
KW - Stone heritage
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U2 - 10.3390/heritage2030127
DO - 10.3390/heritage2030127
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097260425
SN - 2571-9408
VL - 2
SP - 2111
EP - 2123
JO - Heritage
JF - Heritage
IS - 3
ER -