Guest Lecture Series Resumes at County Museum

The 2006—2007 guest lecture series resumes at the San Bernardino County Museum on Wednesday evening, September 27 at 7:30 p.m. when Anne Stoll will speak on rock art in Peru and Chile. The lecture, “Touring in the Land of Giants: Petroglyphs and Rock Alignments in Peru and Chile,” is free and open to the public.

Among the many natural and cultural wonders to be found along the west coast of South America are vast fields of petroglyphs and hillsides decorated with immense rock alignments that seem to have been left by a vanished race of giants. Huge designs and the outlines of llamas and other figures have been traced in stone on the dry slopes of northern Chile, as if marching to an ancient rendezvous. Meanwhile dancing men, zig-zags, animals, and “mystery shapes” frolic across the rock faces at the petroglyph sites of Toro Muerto in southern Peru, Tamentica, and Rio Salado near the Atacama Desert, and the Valle del Encanto in Chile. These sites along with attractive coastal and Andean mountain towns and a warm welcome await travelers to this part of South America.

Anne Q. Stoll earned a B.A. in English Literature from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Masters degree in Anthropology with an archaeology emphasis from California State University, Fullerton. She has worked in cultural resource management for more than two decades. She is the author of Zzyzx the History of an Oasis, San Bernardino County, California (Santa Susanna Press, 1995) and Crown on a Landscaped Hill: A History of the Yorba & Slaughter Adobe (San Bernardino County Museum Association, 2005).

The San Bernardino County Museum sponsors its guest lecture series to share current research by prominent researchers and scholars with the public. Scheduled for this year’s series are Joan Schneider on recent archaeology in the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park (October 25), Ron Burgess on hydroelectric power (January 24, 2007), Marline Zuk on penguin sexual politics (February 28), Julie Rathbun on Saturn’s moon Enceladus (March 28), Joan Fryxell on boiling volcano lakes (April 25), James Sandos on converting California (May 23), and Alexis Tray on biological anthropology and forensics (June 27).

The San Bernardino County Museum is at the California Street exit from Interstate 10 in Redlands. Parking is free. For more information, visit www.sbcountymuseum.org.

The museum is accessible to persons with disabilities. If assistive listening devices or other auxiliary aids are needed in order to participate in museum exhibits or programs, requests should be made through Museum Visitor Services at least three business days prior to your visit. Visitor Services’ telephone number is 909-307-2669 ext. 229 or (TDD) 909-792-1462.