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by Chuck Williams

The Friends Cultural Resource Team received the prestigious ‘Making a Di erence on

Public Lands’ Award from the Bureau of Land Management in recognition of their
ongoing e orts to document and preserve the cultural and historical
treasures at Red Rock Canyon. The team was presented with the only group

award with nominations received from across the country.

Since the committee was reformed in 2001, the thirty one members of the
Friends Cultural Resources Team have volunteered over 7,900 hours and

completed documentation of 18 sites. Their work includes monitoring
and recording pre-historic archaeological sites, including Native
American roasting pits, rock shelters and rock art locations and
historic archaeological sites, such as the Old Spanish Trail.

The recording process begins with mapping the area to be
documented. These areas are identi ed by a unique
Smithsonian Institute site number. For example, the red
hand-prints at Willow Spring have a site number of

26Ck486. Committee members then measure each panel,
providing GPS location, artifact location (boulder, cli face,
etc.), slope of the work surface, type of rock (sandstone,

limestone, etc.), Petroglyph (chipped into the rock
surface) or Pictograph (painted), panel orientation,
destructive agents and other details. As a
prelude to the time spent in the eld, the team has
completed extensive training o ered by the Nevada

Rock Art Foundation.
The eld work is just a portion of the
documentation process. When the location has

been documented and veri ed on-site, the
photos and the drawn-to-scale eld pages
are turned over to the Inking Committee
headed by Martha Burk. The inking team,
working with archival papers, inks and

light boxes, begin the labor
intensive process of transferring the eld
(continued on page 10)
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