Ginnie Artwork- Do you know Will?

[FW]

I moved all the Wiki posts to a new thread in the Fill Station.

[MichaelAngelo]

lowest base instincts? I doubt that. circular logic here. it's bad by our current standards in the "cave community" (and may very well be bad in other communities too) therefore is a low baser instinct. and Instinct? Turns out reflexive behavior defines all the stuff once consider candidates for "instincts."

Personally, I don't even think it's bad. Some people do it, nearly everyone does it at one time or another, most "grow up" and see the immature nature of the behavior, some take a bit longer than others. For my money WILLM is not from the USA, not cave trained in the USA, on a cave diving trip to Florida, is male, young, and this particular dive was his pinnacle cave dive to date.

skip

OK it's not base instinct, its a reflex. It has to be done by every member of a species to be instinct. However it's no big deal anyway cause we all have done it one time or another. It's all beside the point. To say a behavior that has been done by every aspect of human society for thousands of years, can't be done by a cave diver because we know better is absurd. If you don't believe that it's in every aspect of society to some degree look in any public park, viaduct, train stations or vacant building in America. It's all around us. It's even glorified as a voice of freedom in at least 5 Presidential Library. Particularly given the fact there has been documented cases of cave divers doing it. Can an open water diver make it 1100 feet thru a restriction and a jump sure, it possible, but more likely a cave diver. Either way neither group should be ruled out in any investigation if there is any investigation at all.

[Ken Hill]

OK it's not base instinct, its a reflex. It has to be done by every member of a species to be instinct. However it's no big deal anyway cause we all have done it one time or another. It's all beside the point. To say a behavior that has been done by every aspect of human society for thousands of years, can't be done by a cave diver because we know better is absurd. If you don't believe that it's in every aspect of society to some degree look in any public park, viaduct, train stations or vacant building in America. It's all around us. It's even glorified as a voice of freedom in at least 5 Presidential Library. Particularly given the fact there has been documented cases of cave divers doing it. Can an open water diver make it 1100 feet thru a restriction and a jump sure, it possible, but more likely a cave diver. Either way neither group should be ruled out in any investigation if there is any investigation at all.

Most likely a spontaneous action/reaction brought on by some form of elation, desire for recognition. Narcosis probably played a role! Unlike "DIC" that struck in different systems and on different media (mud, clay and limestone) this marking celebrates "WILL"'s celebration of his crowning achievement, a glory marker. The Florida Statue calls it VANDALISM and that's the one "WILL" - will face prosecution when caught. To call it artwork or graffiti is a mistake.

[sskasser]

Food for thought...where does one draw the line?


Researchers refine history of Pictograph Cave State Park

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/loca...#ixzz2ajWHhMNN

July 31, 2013 12:00 am • By Brett French
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Laser mapping Pictograph Cave State Park



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• Laser mapping Pictograph Cave State Park

A new chapter is being written in the history of Ghost Cave at Pictograph Cave State Park.
Tuesday, Jim Busse of Montana State University Billings said he believes he photographed a charcoal inscription on the cave’s wall dated 1812 – only six years after William Clark passed by on his way back from the Pacific Ocean.
“I’m very excited about it,” Busse said as he stood at the base of the cave wall looking up at the site.
Busse’s work is part of a cooperative project that is taking a more comprehensive and detailed look at the state park.
“We have a multi-pronged goal,” said Kelly Dixon, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Montana. “One is to help Montana State Parks better document the landscape, as well as help them document elements of the (Works Progress Administration) work here — an archaeology of the archaeologists.”
While the WPA workers excavated Ghost and Pictograph caves over four years, starting in 1937, they camped out in Ghost Cave, living there year-round. While camped in the cave, some of the 20 workers wrote on the cave walls — inscriptions that are now considered of historical value.
Busse was one of several people climbing up into Ghost Cave to photograph the inscriptions. He estimated he took about 1,000 shots while scrambling up the rock face. The reason Busse had to climb to photograph the writing is that the WPA workers removed about 40 feet of dirt from the cave during their excavation. The inscriptions Busse was photographing were 8 to 10 feet above what was once the floor of the cave.
“The one thing that’s really baffled me is that they didn’t document the pictographs here,” said Jarret Kostrba, park manager.
Instead, all of the documentation of cave drawings was done at the larger Pictograph Cave. That site, too, is getting a fresh look.
In the 1930s, WPA artists sketched the 102 rock art pictographs on butcher paper and assigned a number to each. Some of those pictographs have since faded and no one knew where on the cave wall they were located. But as MSUB professor Tim Urbaniak delved into the WPA’s historical documents, he found several sheets of graph paper that contained numbers and showed locations of the rock art.
Unfortunately, the numbers don’t correspond to the ones on the butcher paper drawings. So Gary Worthington and Megan McCrea were working to cross-reference the numbers and place them on the graph paper. When finished, Urbaniak will be able to place all of the artwork on a 3-D digital photographic scan he made of the cave showing their placement.
“We jokingly say they’re doing paper dolls,” Dixon said, as Worthington and McCrea placed tiny photocopies of each of the drawings on a photocopy of the original numbered graph paper.
“But Gary and Meagan are literally recreating Pictograph Cave as we cannot see it now,” Dixon said. “They are doing something integral to the longer-term interpretation of the site.”
Meanwhile, Urbaniak is using his 3-D digital camera to scan the entire Dry Gulch area where the caves are located, putting everything into a much larger perspective for future archaeologists.
“Over time things change, but we’re in the position to digitally reconstruct what we are doing here,” Urbaniak said.
“Should something happen here to harm the integrity of the site, this 3-D map will exist in perpetuity,” Dixon said.
She sees such work as the future of archaeology.
Compare that to the excavation that took place starting in the 1930s at what is now a state park. The excavation was the largest of its kind ever undertaken in Montana. The work resulted in the removal of about 30,000 artifacts, some of them quite unusual, like fragments of baskets similar to those made by the Fremont people in Utah and tools made from caribou antlers. Some of the artifacts dated back roughly 3,000 years.
“It was really a crossroads,” Kostrba said. “It shows how it was used by a number of different groups.”
Sara Scott, cultural resources coordinator for Montana State Parks, said that in Ghost Cave alone, 600 artifacts were removed in the first 7 feet of soil.
“The assemblage that came out of this cave was amazing,” she said, noting it was occupied later in time.
Even without recovering ancient spear points or basket fragments, Busse was still excited by what he and his fellow researchers had recorded.
“When you’re allowed to climb up there, it’s literally amazing,” he said. “The study of rock art and petroglyphs is so fascinating to me.”





Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/loca...#ixzz2ajWDlwVQ

[Greenwood_60]

I met three Mexican cave divers at Orange Grove one day (while DEMA was in town). Three very respectful, very polite men. We discussed the passage a bit, mainly depth and flow, as those were their main concerns coming from Mexico to Florida. They entered the water just minutes before we did. That was long enough for them to pick a large, soft limestone rock in the basin, and decorate it with a celebration of their country and ours. While I found it to be appalling, they apparently thought it was acceptable. I believe the tagging we see in caves is cultural, and not (in general) of malicious intent. I believe education is the key, and not prosecution.

[spelodiver]

I met three Mexican cave divers at Orange Grove one day (while DEMA was in town). Three very respectful, very polite men. We discussed the passage a bit, mainly depth and flow, as those were their main concerns coming from Mexico to Florida. They entered the water just minutes before we did. That was long enough for them to pick a large, soft limestone rock in the basin, and decorate it with a celebration of their country and ours. While I found it to be appalling, they apparently thought it was acceptable. I believe the tagging we see in caves is cultural, and not (in general) of malicious intent. I believe education is the key, and not prosecution.

Sometimes the only way to an education is aprosecution....most cave divers have been taught that they are not to defacethe caves deliberately. An errant hand or foot happens, to sign your name isdeliberate.

[MORGAN]

I believe the tagging we see in caves is cultural...

I agree that some of it likely is cultural. Some other cultures have very different ideas about things like graffiti, littering, etc.

An important part of cave training is (or should be) transmitting the values of the cave diving community regarding conservation. It can be hard to tell during a class whether or not the student really gets it, though.

Perhaps an orientation to Florida's cave vandalism law should be part of training, at least in Florida.

[hunabku]

Cultural? What Cultures???

Have any of you ever been in Jennings Cave?

It was a party cave for UF students for decades. There is hardly a square inch of cave wall that doesn't have something carved in it.

Who's cultural heritage to we have to blame for that?

[MORGAN]

The UF student party culture, of course. Not too different than the old Telford Spring party culture. Groups develop their own cultural norms, for good or bad. In some cases the norm is to vandalize and destroy things and make a mess, but it's acceptable or expected within that group. That doesn't mean the rest of us think it's OK.

I myself advocate stiff penalties for vandalizing public property or other peoples' property, especially caves. I grind my teeth every time I hear the term, "graffiti artist". If you're doing graffiti on your own property, OK, it might be art. If you're doing it on someone else's property without their permission, it is criminal vandalism, irrespective of its artistic merits.

Mike

[Greenwood_60]

I agree Mike. Although "public property" is a contradiction.