The next OAS General Meeting is March 4, 2025 at 7p.m
Special guest lecturer Dr. Jim Keyser, speaking on
“War Stories: Biographic War Paintings on Plains War Horses”
Plains warriors pictographically represented their war honors on many different media, from their clothing and buffalo robes, to tipi covers, to ledger books. But one of the least known of these is the designs they painted on their war horses to advertise their warfare exploits. These paintings are reported from the earliest written records of Plains explorers and even captured in early artists’ paintings. But the best examples we have are more than 100 photographs taken during the period from 1890-1930 when the last of the war chiefs were recounting their brave deeds to reservation audiences at various sun dances and other celebrations. In this presentation I show the sorts of images that were used by different Plains and Plateau tribesmen to document these accomplishments.
Jim is a Montana native who earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Oregon. He has conducted rock art research across western North America from Alaska to New Mexico and in the Valcamonica in Italy. He has more than 250 rock art publications and is the author of numerous books including Indian Rock Art of the Columbia Plateau (1992), Plains Indian Rock Art (2001), The Five Crows Ledger: Warrior Art of the Flathead Indians (2000), and Art of the Warriors: Rock Art of the American Plains (2004). His newest book—co-authored with Dave Kaiser—is War Stories: Reading Plains Indian Biographic Rock Art (2023). He was an Assistant Professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo and the University of Tulsa before he retired from the U.S. Forest Service. He now splits his time between his home in Portland, OR and a home in Italy.
The meeting will be live at OMSI, free and open to the public
and also available to OAS members via Zoom.
Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) is located at
1945 SE Water Ave. Portland, OR 97214-3354
Recordings of meetings will be available to the general public on the OAS YouTube channel one week after the meeting date. Visit the OAS YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVcaApNDyXOz2W6tsiWTPZw/
OAS Free Public Lecture Series, 2024-2025
Sept 3, 2024
Dr. April Nowell, University of Victoria
Dr. Nowell will be speaking on “Growing Up in the Ice Age: Were Children Drivers of Human Cultural Evolution?”
Oct 1, 2024
Cheryl Mack
“The Search for Chequoss – A Camp From the 1853 Pacific Railroad Survey Expedition”
November 6, 2024 Date change to Wednesday
Dr. Larry Loendorf, Sacred Sites Research
“Warfare, Pots and Rock Art in the
Jornada Mogollon Region, New Mexico”
December 3, 2024
Dr. Robert Losey, University of Alberta
“The Par-Tee Archaeological Site on the Oregon Coast: Equipment Scaling and Learning”
January 7, 2025
Dr. Virginia Butler, speaking on
“Updates from The Dalles Roadcut Site, a Sample of the Stories”
February 4, 2025
Dr. Karen Steelman, SHUMLA Archaeological Research and Education Center, Texas. “Radiocarbon Dating Pictographs: Field & Laboratory Research”
March 5, 2025
Dr. Jim Keyser, Oregon Archaeological Society
“War Stories: Biographic War Paintings on Plains War Horses”
April 1, 2025
Dan Stueber, University of Victoria
“Understanding Stone Tools Through Replication and Experiments”
May 6, 2025
Jocelyn Lee
“Feeling Safe in the Field: Fostering Spaces of Inclusion during Archaeological Excavations”
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