Society for California Archaeology 2010 Annual Meeting

56 Society for California Archaeology Annual Meeting 2010
Rock Art at CA-RIV-981: Chronology, Imagery and Function
• General Session 3 (Arlington); Friday, 8:30 AM
A limited corpus of rock art, consisting of seven small petroglyph boulders with 11 separate
panels, at CA-RIV-981 (the Gus Lederer site), in eastern Riverside County, is discussed for its
potential chronological implications, the content of its imagery, and its functional role in the
local prehistoric landscape. Close inspection of the petroglyphs suggests a relative chronology
of potentially considerable duration. The entoptic images on multiple panels appear to represent
trance-induced behavior. The petroglyphs and the associated stone circles, aboriginal trail, and
trail shrine suggest the site functioned as a ritual locus within the local prehistoric landscape.
CODDING, Brian F.
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
JONES, Terry L.
Department of Social Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
Evidence of Extinction or Appeal to Ignorance?
• Symposium 1 (La Sierra); Thursday, 1:48 PM
The logical fallacy known as the argument from ignorance states that a premise is true because
there is no evidence which proves it false (or vice versa). In archaeology, this frequently takes
the form of stating that a particular time period lacks some specific phenomenon because there is
no evidence for it. This fallacy becomes particularly troublesome when examining extinction
events. Using the known timing of the well documented extinction event of the flightless duck
(or scoter, Chendytes lawi), we test the effectiveness of various statistical approaches to
determine when the absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence.
CODDING, Brian F.
Department of Anthropology, Stanford University
Quantifying Local Extinction Events in Prehistoric California: When Does the Absence of
Evidence Signify Evidence of Absence?
• Organized Poster Session (Ben H. Lewis North) Thursday, 2:30 - 4:45 PM
Archaeologists frequently use the absence of evidence for some material phenomena as evidence
of that phenomena’s absence. This is particularly problematic for quantifying extinction events
as the absence of a particular species during a particular time period does not necessarily mean
that the species became locally extinct. Following Lyman (1995, Journal of Archaeological
Method and Theory 2:369-424), and drawing on the known extinction event of the flightless
duck (or scoter, Chendytes lawi) from prehistoric California (Jones et al. 2008 PNAS 105:4105-
4108), I examine the effectiveness of several statistical approaches to determine when rare
zooarchaeological elements can be considered absent.
CONTRERAS JR., Raymond
Cal Poly Pomona
see WEBB, Brittany
COWIE, Laura C.
California State University, Fullerton
See ALLEN, Mark W.