The Journal of Anthropological Research is hosting a pair of discussions on rock art by Dr. Jean Clottes of the French Ministry of Culture. The lecture and following seminar, part of the JAR Distinguished Lecture series, will be held in conjunction with the National Park Service’s Conference entitled “Set in Stone: Binational Workshop on Petroglyph Management in the United States and Mexico.” The Petroglyph National Monument, along with UNM, JAR and Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, will present this workshop from Sept. 19-21.
Photo: Dr. Jean Clottes
“Dr. Clottes is the leading authority worldwide on rock art,” said Dr. Lawrence Straus, Ph.D., editor of the Journal of Anthropological Research. “He is a superb archaeologist and we are honored to have him as our speaker this year.”
He will discuss “Rock Art: An Endangered Heritage Worldwide” at the UNM Anthropology lecture hall, room 163, on Sept. 19 at 7:30 p.m. and give a seminar on “The Rock Art of Chauvet Cave, France” on Sept. 21 from noon-1 p.m. at the Hibben Center, rm. 105.
Dr. Clottes is the president of the International Federation of Rock Art Organizations, a group of 43 associations around the world. He is also a consultant to, and former president of, the UNESCO International Committee on Rock Art and President of the Commission on Rock Art of the UISPP (International Union of Pre- and Protohistoric Sciences). Among Dr. Clottes’ many awards is the Legion d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious honor.
Clottes has also excavated many major archaeological sites in his native French Pyrénées and served as the Director of Prehistoric Antiquities for the Midi-Pyrénées region for many years.
In 1998, he headed the research team that explored and studied the Chauvet cave – the famous Paleolithic cave in the Ardeche Valley of south-central France that contains rock art that, at over 30,000 years-old, are the oldest known works of European cave art.
In order to study the underwater cave of Cosquer, off the Mediterranean coast near Marseilles, Clottes learned to SCUBA dive in his 60’s. During exploration of these underwater cave, Clottes found rock art from two distinct periods, 27,000 and 18,000 years ago.
Until his official “retirement,” Dr. Clottes was also the Inspector General and Scientific Adviser on Rock Art for the French Ministry of Culture.
The Blue Tuareg people, who have lived for thousands of years on the Sahara desert between the Nile and Timbuktu, honored Clottes in April by bestowing the name Almawekil (translated to “our honored representative”) to him and making him an Honorary Tuareg.
Dr. Clottes taught at the University of Toulouse in the early 1990’s and was a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also the author of several influential books and articles on Upper Paleolithic art and archaeology.
The Distinguished Lectures are published in JAR, which has been published quarterly by UNM since 1945 and has about 1,100 subscribers worldwide – mostly academic institutions. Its Web site is: JAR Lectures.
For more information about the Journal of Anthropological Research and the Lecture Series, please call 277-4544.
Media Contact: Benson Hendrix, (505) 277-1816; e-mail: bhendrix@unm.edu