For rock art enthusiasts the Nevada Test Site is nearly a blank area. While good recording has been done, the sites are not available for visitation and few have had the opportunity to see the variety there and compare it to the rock art they have seen through other areas of Southern Nevada and the Great Basin.
Sue Ann Monteleone’s presentation will help fill in those blanks. Images from visits to the mile of abstract petroglyphs in Fortymile Canyon and pictograph sites in the Eleana Range will demonstrate the range of rock art on the NTS. The petroglyphs include pecked meanders and elaborate scratched patterns. Pictographs range from finger dabs and zigzags to patterned handprints. The geographic and archaeological context of the rock art will be discussed as well as some comparison to art in other areas of Nevada and the Great Basin.
Sue Ann has been involved with rock art since 1974. After a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from San Diego State she worked on archaeological projects throughout Southern California and helped record rock art sites in San Diego County and Northern Baja California. Later, while working at the Desert Research Institute North she was able to visit the Fortymile Canyon petroglyphs and pictograph sites throughout the Nevada Test Site in the late 1980s. She then pursued a master’s degree at the University of Nevada Reno, finally completed in 1994. Realizing that the mile of petroglyphs in Fortymile Canyon was too much, her master’s thesis focused on the pictographs of the Eleana Range on the Nevada Test Site. Since 1990, Sue Ann has worked for the Nevada State Museum in Carson City.
