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The Frank Waters Foundation presents:Soothsayers, Omens & Guides: Owls in Fremont Rock Art
and Beyond with John Seebach
ABOUT SOOTHSAYERS, OMENS & GUIDES — The Fremont Peoples of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau (200 – 1300 CE) produced one of the most unique rock art traditions of the Southwestern United States. Though defined primarily by their captivating and colorful trapezoidal anthropomorphs, Fremont rock art is vivified by a bestiary of animal life ranging from insects to large mammals. One striking addition to the Fremont oeuvre, found at only a few sites in western Colorado and eastern Utah, is the owl. The presence of owls is anomalous. Why would the Fremont, surrounded as they were for hundreds of years by neighbors who feared owls as evil, have such a different cultural take on these raptors? Archaeological and indigenous perspectives on owls and rock art in general will be explored in an attempt to answer this question.
ABOUT JOHN SEEBACH — John Seebach is an Associate Professor of Archaeology at Colorado Mesa University. His primary research interest is in the Paleoindian era of the American Southwest (13,000 – 6,000 BCE), but as can be discerned from this lecture, he casts his net widely in his desire to learn more about Southwestern archaeology in all its forms. As a result, he has many irons in the academic fire, with upcoming reports on a 2,000 year-old site in Big Bend, Texas; a cache of stone tools from Whitewater, Colorado; and a think piece asking whether hunter-gatherer peoples can ever be considered “peripheral.” When he is not thinking about owls, stone tools, or the many tall stacks of assignments he should be grading, John Seebach is an avid horror film buff and cat lover.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
138 S Park Square #202 (Upstairs), Fruita, CO, United States, Colorado 81521
