∗ Leigh Marymor
∗ William White
∗ Michael Kuhn
∗ Steven Schwartz
∗ Jerry Dickey
Jon Harman, Ph.D.
Jon Harman has spent over twenty years pursuing rock art as a serious hobby. He is a member of the Bay Area Rock Art Research Association (BARARA), the Society for California Archaeology and the American Rock Art Research Association (ARARA). He has traveled throughout the United States as well as to Mexico, North Africa and France in search of petroglyph and pictograph sites.
Jon earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics in 1972 from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1980 from the University of California in Berkeley. With this background, he enjoyed a lengthy career in the field of medical imaging. He worked for a CT manufacturer and an ophthalmology device manufacturer, specializing in the design of algorithms used in creating medical images and in analyzing structures in the images.
A suggestion from Robert Mark in November 2004 led to Jon’s implementing the decorrelation stretch scientific algorithm in a computer program that would assist rock art researchers. Jon then combined his career and hobby to create DStretch, an image enhancement program to be used specifically with digital photographs of pictographs. It is a plug-in for Image J, which is a public domain image processing program developed at the National Institute of Health by Wayne Rasband.
See D-Stretch example images below.
DStretch was introduced to the public in March 2005 at a meeting of the Society of California Archaeology in Sacramento. It has rapidly gained widespread recognition and acceptance as an invaluable research tool. Because DStretch requires a color difference, it works significantly better on pictographs, particularly those containing faint red, yellow and/or black. It enables the user to examine a photograph of a pictograph under eight different color spaces and see elements not visible in the original image.
Pictograph panels previously dismissed as insignificant or impossible to see can now be examined in a new light. Some particularly dramatic examples are from Great Basin National Park, Nevada; Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada; Kachina Cave, Nevada; Buckhorn Wash, Utah; Head of Sinbad, Utah; Chumash and Yokuts pictographs in central California; and the Great Mural Paintings of Baja California.
Since the advent of DStretch, rock art researchers and enthusiasts have been returning to sites with their digital cameras and re-photographing pictographs. Their results have been both amazing and revealing.
Jon has presented papers on the use of DStretch at meetings of the Museum of Man in San Diego , the Society for California Archaeology, ARARA, the Nevada Rock Art Foundation, the Nevada Archaeological Association, the Bi National Meeting of Balances and Perspectives on the Anthropology and History of Baja California and the Sociedad Mexicana de Antropologia.
Leigh Marymor
Leigh Marymor has been actively pursuing rock art interests for over 30 years. He is particularly interested in rock art site conservation and protection issues, and in the literature of rock art studies. Some of his activities in the field include:
1983 - Present Co-Chairman, Bay Area Rock Art Research Association
1993 - Present Compiler, Rock Art Studies: A Bibliographic Database, online at Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley
1995 - Editor, California Rock Art. A Site Inventory and Annotated Bibliography, Bill Sonin
2004 - 2006 President, American Rock Art Research Association
Link: Bancroft Rock Art Bibliography Website
William White, MA, RPA
William White is a professional archaeologist with 30 years of experience, employed with Statistical Research, Inc. Trained in historical archaeology, William specializes in late 19th and early 20th Century mining. He has worked in numerous Western states with focus in the Great Basin, and has been a long standing member and occasional volunteer, as time allows, with the Nevada Rock Art Foundation. William's rock art interests are in the location and spatial relationship of Pahranagat Representational Style sites in Lincoln County, Nevada.
Michael Kuhn, Ph.D.
Dr. Michael W. Kuhn
Ph.D. in Geography - U. C. L. A.
Taught at San Jose State College 1966-67 and U. C., Santa Barbara 1967-1974
City of Simi Valley 1974-2003 - in charge of Environmental Planning.
Life long interest in archaeology, including recording of archaeological and rock art sites in the Mojave Desert and in the Transverse Ranges of California and elsewhere.
Periodically work for W & S Consulting on archaeological surveys and excavations since 2004.
Author of hundreds of articles and professional papers relating to geography, anthropology, ethnography, local history, and natural history.
Steven Schwartz, Ph.D.
Steven Schwartz is a federal archaeologist with over 30 years of experience. He currently specializes in the archaeology and history of the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California, but has worked all throughout the Southwest over his career. Steve's rock art interests are in spatial analysis and the relationships of rock art sites to natural features. He is the author of numerous articles on archaeology, ethnography, history, historic archaeology, and underwater archaeology.
Jerry Dickey
Jerry Dickey is a judicial assistant in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, California and holds a degree in psychology from Cal State University Long Beach. He has training and education in archaeology, and completed his academic fieldwork on both prehistoric Archaic sites and a historic Spanish presidio in Southern California.
He has documented rock art for the Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, BLM/Arizona Strip, and the Kaibab National Forest since 1992. He has also recorded rock art in the California desert for the last 25 years. Currently his focus is on the rock art of the Grand Canyon region of Northern Arizona. He has written and co-authored numerous articles which have been published in American Indian Rock Art, the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly, and the San Diego Museum of Man Rock Art Papers.