Dr. Alan Garfinkel talks with archaeologist Robert Yohe about their long collaboration and new insights from Yohe’s work at the Rose Spring site. Yohe describes using many radiocarbon dates from a deep, stratified deposit to refine local chronology and estimate the bow-and-arrow’s introduction around 1,600 years ago, along with a rare ritual feature involving a bighorn sheep skull. They also discuss challenges and progress in dating rock art, including AMS radiocarbon dating of a South Fork Kern River painting to about 1,000 years old, and Yohe previews a major upcoming Rose Spring monograph that revises earlier views on subsistence, settlement, and stone tool reuse.

In this episode of the Great Plains Archaeology Podcast, Carlton is joined by John M. Lambert and Thomas J. Loebel to discuss their recent article with Dr. David Easterla, “Addressing a Gap in the Late Pleistocene Record of the Midwest: Fluted Points in Northwest Missouri and Southwest Iowa.” The conversation explores why this region has long been underrepresented in Paleoindian research and how the documentation of 235 fluted projectile points, including dozens of previously unreported specimens, helps illuminate the lives of some of North America's earliest inhabitants. Lambert and Loebel discuss the challenges and value of integrating museum collections, private collections, and published records, as well as what Clovis and Folsom projectile points reveal about technology, mobility, and land use across the Midcontinent and Great Plains. The episode highlights how overlooked collections and regional documentation projects continue to reshape our understanding of Paleoindian settlement, movement, and adaptation during the late Pleistocene.

In this episode, Alan speaks with Jens Notroff about the groundbreaking discoveries at Göbekli Tepe, one of the world's oldest monumental archaeological sites. They explore what its remarkable stone architecture, animal imagery, and material culture reveal about the social organization, ritual practices, and symbolic lives of hunter-gatherers more than 12,000 years ago. The conversation also examines how ongoing research is reshaping our understanding of the origins of monumentality, cooperation, and the transition to settled life.

In this episode, Alan speaks with Jose Battello about his Indigenous Nahua heritage, his journey into anthropology, and the role of Indigenous knowledge in archaeological interpretation. They explore decolonial approaches to research, Nahua cosmology as a lens for understanding Coso rock art, and the importance of Indigenous self-representation, language, and ceremonial traditions in preserving cultural knowledge.

In episode 167, Dr. Alan Garfinkel interviews author and conservationist Alan Ehrgott about his recent book, The Elusive Conquest of Queen Califa: California History Revisited. The discussion explores the Indigenous peoples of Baja California, the arrival of Spanish explorers and missionaries, and the role of rock art as a visual record of history, belief, and cultural survival. Ehrgott describes how his work blends historical research, memoir, adventure travel, and historical fiction, drawing from a 1,200-mile backpacking journey along Baja California’s Camino Real and decades of study of California history and conservation. The episode examines Indigenous lifeways, missionization, colonial encounters, cave paintings, and the enduring cultural landscapes of Baja California, while reflecting on how archaeology, oral traditions, and rock art help illuminate the complex history of California and its first peoples.

In episode 166, Dr. Alan Garfinkel continues his discussion of a major Coso rock art panel, focusing on recurring symbolic elements and their possible cosmological meanings. He examines prominent figures depicted with snakes and distinctive staff-like wands, drawing on insights from researcher Bernard Jones and Hopi ceremonial traditions to explore connections between rock art, the winter solstice, and beliefs about maintaining cosmic balance. Alan discusses Indigenous concepts of the sun and moon as opposing yet complementary forces, including Nahua and broader Uto-Aztecan traditions that explain celestial cycles through mythic conflict and renewal.

In episode 165, Dr. Alan Garfinkel interviews Dr. Meenakshi Dubey-Paik about her decades of research on India’s rock art, including extensive work on painted rock shelters. She describes how some tribes treat certain sites as sacred for vows, offerings, and festivals, using signs/symbols, animal imagery, dance, and music-induced trance, while noting cultural change from relocation and the addition of later shrines (e.g., Shiva/Kali) that shifts attention away from older images. Meenakshi highlights key motifs (animals, honey collection, dancers, tiger beliefs), and urges education and conservation to prevent vandalism and development damage.

Host Dr. Alan Garfinkel interviews Dr. John Bellezza about his path from traveling in India and Tibet in the 1980s to focusing on Tibetan prehistory, archaeology, cosmology, and rock art, later earning a PhD at the University of Kent based on prior publications. Bellezza stresses learning Tibetan languages and working in the field as Tibet opened to travelers in 1984, then turning to pre-Buddhist traditions often erased or absorbed by Buddhism and long neglected by scholars. He describes discoveries at Lake Namtso, evidence for high-altitude pastoralism and hunting, and key finds in rock art and monuments, including chariots and standing-stone complexes. He previews ongoing rock art volumes and future work on bronze talismans and Old Tibetan texts.

In this episode, Alan speaks with Dr Jayc Sedlmayr about his research into indigenous theology and animal ceremonial traditions. Drawing on interdisciplinary backgrounds, Sedlmayr discusses his “Embodied Essence” project, which explores how many cultures understood spiritual essence as residing in bodily substances—especially bone marrow. He explains how this perspective helps interpret ritual practices involving bones, such as their treatment as regenerative “seeds,” their placement in ceremonial contexts, and their role in maintaining relationships between humans, animals, and the spiritual world.

In this episode, Alan speaks with Dr Christian Bentz and Dr Ewa Dutkiewicz about their research on early systems of conventional signs. They explore how recurring symbols in rock art and mobile artifacts may reflect shared visual communication as far back as 40,000 years ago, and what this reveals about early human cognition and culture.