Rock Art Blog

THE NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL MODEL AND HALLUCINOGENS:

2012-01-27T11:13:00.000-07:00

Castle Gardens, Wyoming. Photo Peter Faris, 1992.

There is a modern theory about interpreting rock art known as the Neuropsychological Model. At this point I must confess that I do not care much for the Neuropsychological Model. It basically states that rock art is created by shaman to record the visions they saw after taking hallucinogenic drugs or otherwise inducing a trance. Now some rock, art in some places, might actually fit that description, but proponents of this theory try to apply it to all rock art, and that just doesn’t work.

It has been proposed, for example, that some of the flower blossom petroglyphs in the American Southwest portray the hallucinogenic datura blossom. If we have believable documentation about use of datura to induce trances or visions in the southwest then this might make sense. One example of a petroglyph that I know is intended to illustrate a hallucinogen is the example here which can be found on a cliff at Castle Gardens, Wyoming, among the shield petroglyphs that this locale is so famous for.

Readers who would like to learn more about the Neuropsychological Model should read any of David Lewis-Williams books of the last 3 or 4 years. Then, to read an eloquent refutation of it I will direct you to the book by Paul G. Bahn listed below.

Bahn, Paul G.

2010 Prehistoric Rock Art: Problems and Polemics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

FLYING SQUIRRELS IN ROCK ART?

2012-01-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Sherman Spear, 1966.

One marvelous rock art site known to many people in the Rocky Mountain West is Newspaper Rock in San Juan County, UT. Newspaper Rock has a petroglyph panel of mixed Fremont culture and Ute rock art. It was one of my early sites in my first few years of interest in rock art.

Newspaper Rock close-up, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Sherman Spear, 1966. Arrows

point to figures under discussion.

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Glen Weaver,
Sept. 1999. CRAA Archives.

In the upper left portion of the panel of petroglyphs are three enigmatic figures that have four outstretched limbs (arms and legs), fairly large tails, and what looks like nothing more than a fabric panel stretched out between the arms and legs. From the very first time I saw them they struck me as portrayals of flying squirrels but this seemed so improbable that I really did not take it seriously. From relative repatination these enigmatic figures appear to be early Ute in provenance rather than Fremont culture.

Flying Squirrel in flight. Image courtesty

CyHampsonFlyingSquirrels.com.

Map of Northern Flying Squirrel range.

Public domain. Note the outliers in Utah

- especially in Southeastern Utah.

In a location like the Canyonlands of the desert southwest I would not have expected to find portrayals of a creature that I associate with the northern forests, but imagine my surprise when I looked into the range of the Northern Flying Squirrel and found that it did extend down into just about that area. Could these figures actually represent flying squirrels? Perhaps some of you with knowledge on Ute mythology could cast some light on this possibility.

TLALOC AS A ROCK ART THEME IN THE SOUTHWEST:

2012-01-13T10:37:00.001-07:00

There is a loose category of rock art images in the American southwest that are generically referred to as Tlalocs. They are certainly not kachinas, but they perhaps played a similar role in the society for a period as kachinas later did. These are figures with large eyes which are often outlined with squares, and also sometimes show fangs or pointed teeth.

Tlaloc, Three-Rivers, New Mexico. Photo:

December 1988, Jack & Esther Faris.

According to Wikipedia “Tlaloc was an important deity in Aztec religion, a god of rain, fertility, and water. He was a beneficent god who gave life and sustenance, but he was also feared for his ability to send hail, thunder and lightning, and for being the lord of the powerful element of water. In Aztec iconography he is normally depicted with goggle eyes and fangs. He was associated with caves, springs and mountains. Archaeological evidence indicates Tlaloc was worshipped in Mesoamerica even before the Aztecs settled there in 13th century AD. He was a prominent god in Teotihuacan at least 800 years before the Aztecs. This has led to Mesoamerican goggle-eyed raingods being referred to generically as "Tlaloc" although in some cases it is unknown what they were called in these cultures, and in other cases we know that he was called by a different name (e.g. the Mayan version was known as Chaac”).

Tlaloc, Three-Rivers, New Mexico. Photo:

December 1988, Jack & Esther Faris.

My illustrations, coming from the amazing Three Rivers petroglyph site, show both of these described traits. One shows the eyes as dots in large rectangular sockets, and the others show the large goggle-eyes with sharp fang teeth. The Three Rivers petroglyphs are the product of the Jornada Mogollon people between about 900 and 1400 AD. Their society possessed a number of imports from the cultures of Mexico pointing to trade with the south.

Tlaloc, Three-Rivers, New Mexico. Photo:

December 1988, Jack & Esther Faris.

Tlaloc, as a god of rain, fertility, and water, may have come to the American southwest along with traders from the south who supplied exotic trade goods such as macaws, copper bells, and other influences such as ball courts. For a culture that depended upon agriculture for survival a cult figure that might influence rain and fertility would have considerable appeal. The presence of these Tlaloc figures illustrates the result of that appeal and helps give us insight into beliefs of the early peoples of the southwest.

ROCK ART OF LEWIS AND CLARK:

2011-12-31T15:01:00.000-07:00

"Manitou on a rock," Clark's journal, June 5, 1804.

The Lewis and Clark Corps of Discovery traversed regions of the continent that are now known to possess considerable amounts of Native American rock art. Among the instructions that Lewis and Clark had received from President Thomas Jefferson in June 1803 for their exploratory expedition was to gather information on the native peoples that they met along the way. They were to gather information on a number of points of native life and customs. President Thomas Jefferson had taken great pains to contact all available scholars and savants in the United States asking them to suggest things that such an expedition should try to ascertain.

Jefferson had delivered in January 1803 a confidential message to Congress that justified the expedition on the grounds of expanding trade with the Indians. Jefferson had also solicited suggestions from scientist and knowledgeable government officials for the types of information that should be sought. He could synthesize the resulting suggestions into a final draft of instructions for the expedition. Jefferson’s instructions concerning Native Americans covered everything from language and law to trade and technology. The explorers were to record Indian foods, what the Indians wore, their technology and handcrafts, and what they believed in. Jefferson told Lewis: “You will therefore endeavor to make yourself acquainted as far as diligent pursuit of your journey shall admit, with the names of the nations and their numbers”. The captains understood that they were to do more than count natives and list languages. From the beginning of the corps of discovery virtually every diarist in it diligently recorded all sorts of information about Indian life.

"Manitou, buffalo, and Indian." Clark's journal, June 7, 1804.

We must remember however that Lewis and Clark were very much men of their times and that they were imbued with the belief that the culture they represented was much higher and more enlightened that the cultures of the native tribes. As avocational natural historians they certainly would have agreed with modern science’s need for accuracy, but would not have understood any need for impartiality.

Their questions and observations of Native Americans predominately were intended to gather information about the economic and military strength and potential of each tribe. Can they provide raw materials for our industry, can they provide a market for our merchants and traders, are we likely to become embroiled militarily in inter tribal squabbles? Such information goals would only distantly be affected by information on the arts of Native Americans. Therefore their journals contain few references to the arts of these peoples. Likewise, there were few examples of what we would call the visual arts in the items that they collected to send back to Jefferson. One such item was a buffalo robe that they sent back after the winter of 1805, at Fort Mandan. On a large buffalo skin a Mandan artist had portrayed in vivid detail a 1797 battle between Arikara-Sioux raiders and Mandan-Hidatsa warriors. Significantly, this piece of art was most likely included not for its artistic interest but for whatever intelligence could be gained from it concerning the military power of Indian tribes.

Petroglyph, Indian Cave State Park, Nebraska.

One petroglyph that they probably saw because it is right on their path is an engraved quadruped found at Indian Cave State Park, Nebraska. William Clark also recorded in his journal a few examples of rock art that the party of exploration observed (see illustrations above). He drew rough copies in the journals of a number of these. While not the earliest known records of North American rock art, they are very early and display a significant interest in the cultures of the Native Americans they encountered. Clark labeled these images as manitoux, illustrating his assumption that they were religious images.

Tsagaglalal (she who watches), The Dalles, Washington. Photo Peter Faris, 2000.

Interestingly, their eventual route down the Columbia river led past the site of the magnificent petroglyph now named Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) but there is no hint in their records that they actually saw it. They visited a village of the Wishram people which was named Nixluidix by its residents. The Wishram were one of the Upper Chinook people and prospered in their location on trade, specifically in large quantities of dried salmon. Tsagaglalal was apparently near the site of Nixluidix and was one or two hundred feet above the river on the flat. With its location above and back from the original river bottom Lewis and Clark apparently passed within a few hundred yards of it on both their westward journey and their return trip, although they recorded in detail their visit to the Indian village at that site.

Wm. Clark's inscription. Pompey's Pillar,

Billings, MT. Photo Peter Faris, 2009.

One inscription that was created by the expedition is William Clark’s signature with the date July 25, 1806, inscribed on the rock pinnacle known as Pompey’s Pillar, just a little east of Billings, Montana.

On the whole it is not surprising that Lewis and Clark did not record more information about the Native American rock art that they passed on the way. Given the cultural biases of the time, and their mission from Thomas Jefferson, recording all rock art was just not generally thought worthwhile. We do have to wonder what other things we could have learned about Native American art had attitudes been different.

OCHRE PIGMENT IN PICTOGRAPHS:

2011-12-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

Ute pictographs, Shield Cave, Glenwood Canyon, Eagle

County, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 1991.

Humans have been using naturally occurring ochre as a pigment almost as long as we can trace the human lineage. Ochre has been found in Neandertal burials, and even earlier in hominid contexts.

In its use in rock art ochre is found in a range of colors from yellow to brownish red. Yellow ochre (Fe₂O₃ • H₂O) is a hydrated iron oxide, and red ochre (Fe₂O₃₎ is the anhydrate of yellow ochre, which turns red when heated because heat drives off the water. This was described by Paul Bahn (1998): “the colour of ochre is modified by heat, and Palaeolithic people very clearly knew this, since even in the Chatelperronian of Arcy there were fragments at different stages of oxidation still in the hearths. Yellow ochre, when heated beyond 250° C, passes through different shades of red as it oxidizes into haematite.” (Bahn 1998:100)

Ute hearth with fragments of red and yellow ochre.

Shield Cave, Glenwood Canyon, Eagle County,

Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 1991.

An excellent example of this can be found at Shield Cave, in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. In the back of shield cave is a vein of yellow ochre which gives every indication of having been extensively mined. In roughly the middle of the floor of the cave is a stone hearth which includes samples of not only the original yellow ochre, but deep red colored ochre apparently produced by roasting the mined yellow ochre in the fire. At the mouth of the cave are painted a number of red pictographs of shields, as well as figures on horseback produced by Ute artists. (see my 1991 photograph above of samples of ochre on one of the rocks around the fire place).

All of the natural materials for producing pictographs is present at this site. Inside the cave is the pigment and the fire pit for preparing it. At the mouth of the cave the vertical cave walls provide the surface for painting upon, and outside the cave on the slopes can be found not only the wood for the fire pit, but yucca plants to provide yucca juice for the vehicle and binder of a paint, and yucca leaves for brushes.

Fremont/Barrier Canyon style pictograph, Westwater Canyon,

Grand County, UT. Photograph: Peter Faris, Oct. 2001.

Ochre nodule in cliff face. Westwater Canyon, Grand

County, UT. Photograph: Peter Faris, Oct. 2001.

In other locations I have noticed the presence of ochre naturally in the vicinity of painted images that may have been done with the local pigment. In Westwater Canyon, Grand County, Utah, captivating painted figures can be found on the canyon walls. Ochre nodules may also be discovered in areas of the cliff face with careful search and the talus at the bottom of the cliffs might have been mined for ochre nodules already weathered from the rock.

Probable Fremont pictographs in Wild Horse Draw,

Canyon Pintado, Rio Blanco County, CO.

Photograph: Peter Faris, July 2005

Ochre nodule in cliff face. Wild Horse Draw,

Canyon Pintado, Rio Blanco County, CO.

Photograph: Peter Faris, July 2005.

This is also the case in Wild Horse Draw off of Canyon Pintado, in Rio Blanco County, northwestern Colorado, where painted images may be found on cliff faces that also contain ochre nodules which would serve as the pigment. They also may have been prehistorically recovered by searching the talus at the cliff bottoms for nodules which had weathered out of the rock.

In both these instances the other materials for creating the paintings are available locally as well with yucca cactus readily procured. Yucca sap or juice would make an excellent paint vehicle and binder as it contains natural latexes which would polymerize upon drying, and the leaves of the yucca can be made into effective brushes.

REFERENCE:

Bahn, Paul G., and Jean Vertut

1998 Images of the Ice Age, Facts on File, New York., p. 100

SPOTTED HORSES IN CAVE ART:

2011-12-18T10:35:00.001-07:00

Spotted horses, cave of Pech-Merle, France.

The panel of painted horses from the cave of Pech-Merle in France has caused considerable speculation as to its accuracy and intention. The approximately 25,000-year-old painting of The Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle depicts spotted horses on the walls of a cave in France remarkably similar to a pattern of overall spot markings known as "leopard" in modern horses such as Appaloosas.

An article in LiveScience.com by Charles Choi, and dated Tuesday, 8 November 2011, reported the discovery of genetic evidence that the Paleolithic horses of Europe had the potentiality of overall “leopard” spotting indeed. “Scientists investigated the differences in genes for coat color of 31 ancient horse fossils from Siberia, Eastern and Western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula.” To study the genetics of equine coat color, the international research team analyzed DNA from fossilized bones and teeth from 31 prehistoric horses representing over a dozen different archaeological sites.

Genetic analysis indicated that eighteen of the horses had been brown and seven were black. In six of the horses researchers found the LP genetic variant that corresponds to leopard like spotting in the coats of modern horses. Additionally, among ten 14,000 year old Western European horses, four had the LP genetic marker. These results suggest that at the time of the creation of the ancient cave paintings spotted horses could well have been observed in nature and copied in the cave paintings.

Contemporary spotted horses - Appaloosas.

In the past some researchers have found the spotting of the Pech-Merle horses to be perhaps unrealistic and have suggested that these horses represented fantastic imagined horses or spiritual creatures rather than realistic animals. This genetic study proves that the beautiful spotted horses of Pech-Merle could indeed have been painted from life.

REFERENCES:

Charles Choi, LiveScience.com. Tue, Nov 8, 2011.

CAVE ART AND THE KONIK HORSE:

2011-12-11T21:10:00.001-07:00

Painted horse, Grotte de Niaux, Ariege, France.

Painted horse, Lascaux cave, France.

With the discovery of the magnificent painted caves of Europe people began to learn what had been lost from nature in the spread of civilization. These painted panels pictured animals that had been plentiful but were now extinct or extremely rare. Among these were the prehistoric wild horses seen painted in full color on cave walls.

Konik horses.

On December 4, 2011, I published a posting about 20^th century attempts to back breed from modern cattle to recreate the magnificent aurochs bulls illustrated on the walls of caves in Europe. Also, in the 20^th century there were attempts recreate the horses illustrated in the painted caves of Europe through breeding. One attempt resulted in the horse known as the konik. In Polish, konik is used to refer to a horse showing primitive coloration and characteristics. Koniks show many primitive markings including a dun coat and dorsal stripe.

Konik horses grazing in winter.

Photo of the last remaining Tarpan, 1884.

In 1936, Professor Tadeusz Vetulani of Poznań University began attempts to breed the recently extinct tarpan back to its original state. To achieve this he used horses from the Biłgoraj area descended from wild tarpans captured in 1780 in Białowieża Forest and kept until 1808 in Zamoyski zoo. These had later been given to local peasants and crossbred with domestic horses. The Polish government commandeered all the koniks that displayed tarpan-like features. The result of this selective breeding program is that semi-wild herds of koniks can be seen today in many nature reserves and parks, and can also be seen in the last refugium in Bialowieza Forest.

Heck horses in Austria. Public domain.

Another program resulted in the Heck horse. This breed was created by the German zoologist brothers Heinz Heck and Lutz Heck, director of the Berlin Zoo, at the Tierpark Hellabrunn (Munich Zoo) in Germany in their attempt to breed back to the tarpan (equus ferus ferus), and as was the case with their attempts to breed back to the extinct aurochs from modern cattle their efforts attempting to recreate the Tarpan was supported by the Nazi party. The first foal born from the program was a colt born on May 22, 1933 at the Tierpark Hellabrunn.

The Heck brothers bred together several European small horse and pony breeds hypothesized to be descended from the tarpan. They used mares of the Konik, Icelandic horse, and Gotland breeds. These mares were bred to stallions of a wild horse type known as Przewalski's horse. The Hecks believed that the wild Przewalski blood would "help to draw out the wild characteristics" that they felt lay dormant in the domesticated pony breed mares.

Heck Horse.

Heck horses are dun or grullo (a dun variant) in color, with no white markings. The breed has primitive markings, including a dorsal stripe and sometimes zebra markings on the legs. Heck horses generally stand between 12.2 and 13.2 hands (50 and 54 inches, 127 and 137 cm) tall. The head is large, the withers low, and the legs, hindquarters, and hooves are strong.

As with the attempts by the same Heck brothers to breed back to the aurochs, we have another case where the original animal had inspired our ancestors to create their images in cave art, and the cave art later inspired modern attempts to recreate the extinct original animal. Another case of life imitating art.

REFERENCE:

Wikipedia

Levy, Sharon, Once and Future Giants, Oxford University Press, New York, 2011.

LASCAUX'S PAINTINGS, THE AUROCHS, AND HECK'S CATTLE:

2011-12-04T10:59:00.001-07:00

Extinct Aurochs, painting, Lascaux Cave,

France. This photo is in public domain.

One of the most impressive of the animals painted on the walls of certain caves in Europe is the image of bos primigenius, the aurochs. This distant ancestor of the cow was awesome in both size and strength.

Extinct Aurochs, painting, Lascaux Cave, France.
This photo is in public domain.

During the early years of the 20^th century attempts were made to recreate the magnificent extinct wild bulls of ancient Europe, the Aurochs, by breeding. The theory was that by selecting for the traits that can be identified in the painted panels in cave art the animal could be reverse engineered as it were, also known as breeding back. The bulk of the early work in this was done by the Heck brothers in Germany. Heinz Heck working at the Hellabrun Zoological Gardens in Munich began creating the Heck breed in about 1920. Lutz Heck, director of the Berlin Zoological Gardens, began breeding programs supported by the Nazis during World War II to bring back the aurochs. The reconstructed aurochs fitted into the Nazi goal of recreating an ancient imagined Aryan nation. The Berlin breed was lost in the aftermath of World War II so modern Heck cattle are descended from the Munich breed. At the end of the 20th century, other so-called primitive breeds were crossbred with Heck cattle to come closer to the aim of creating a cattle breed that resembles the extinct aurochs in external appearance.

Skull of extinct Aurochs.

Heck's cattle, public domain.

Although there was a measure of success with matching the appearance there has been much less success to date in reaching the awesome size of the Aurochs. A typical Heck bull should be at least 1.4 m (4'5") high and a cow 1.3 m (4'3"), with weight up to 600 kg (1,300 lb). Heck cattle are twenty to thirty centimeters shorter than the aurochs they were bred to resemble. The Heck bulls were not much larger than the bull of most breeds of domestic cattle, while wild aurochs bulls are believed to have often exceeded 1000 kilograms (2,200 lb), half the size of a rhinoceros. However, cross-breeding efforts continue to increase the size and weight of the breed, particularly in Germany.

Heck cattle. Wikipedia.

Modern efforts have been driven more by attempts to manage wild lands naturally with a full ecosystem of animals and predators. Ancient Europe had evolved with forests and steppes housing these animals and it is thought that they (or similar substitutes) would be valuable in natural management of the land.

Herd of Heck cattle in a park.

What strikes me as remarkable about this situation is that first there were the actual animals that our ancestors painted on the walls of caves, and then the rock art was used as the guide in an attempt to recreate the animals again - a marvelous example of life imitating art.

REFERENCE:

Wikipedia

Sharon Levy, Once and Future Giants,Oxford University Press, New York, 2011.

A DEATH VALLEY PETROGLYPH:

2011-11-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Death Valley petroglyph boulder, California.

Photo: Richard Coleman, 2011.

This photograph was sent to me by Richard Coleman, who found it “in a wash in Death Valley National Park, near the Mesquite Springs campground area”. He found the combination of elements to be interesting and odd for Great Basin rock art.

Richard is the moderator for the Yahoo American Rock Art Group. Richard is also an accomplished photographer and takes spectacular photos of rock art. Visit his site http://www.westernrockart.org to see other examples of his wonderful photography.

Thank you for sharing Richard, this is one area that I have not yet been able to visit in person - and happy trails.

HANDEDNESS:

2011-11-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

On August 5, 2009, I posted a column on Hand prints in Rock Art in which I discussed the fact that a viewer can sometimes determine the gender of a rock art creator by measuring the relative length of the first and third fingers in a hand print. Statistically more males have a longer third finger while more females have a longer first finger.

I believe it is also possible to get a suggestion of the handedness of the creator of the rock art by examining a hand print. A human normally finds one side or the other dominant and capable of finer control and dexterity.

Hand-prints, Texas. Photo: Peter Faris, 2004.

According to Wikipedia right-handedness is most common. Right-handed people are more dexterous with their right hands when performing tasks. A variety of studies suggest that 70-90% of the world population is right-handed, rather than left-handed or any other form of handedness. Left-handedness is less common than right-handedness. Left-handed people are more dexterous with their left hands when performing tasks. A variety of studies suggest that 8–15% of the world population is left-handed.

Now how would we apply this knowledge to the analysis of a hand print in rock art? It seems to me that if the hand print is actually a print of a hand – a hand covered in paint and applied flat to the rock face – the creator of the image would probably use their dominant hand out of force of habit. Therefore if it is a print of a right hand it was probably a right-handed person and if it is a print of a left hand it was probably a left-handed person.

If, on the other hand (pun intended), it is a tracing of a hand, whether painted or pecked, it is probably the opposite because the creator would be using their dominant hand to do the tracing around the less useful hand that they were holding flat against the rock face. When the outline was made permanent, either with paint or by pecking, it was a recording of the person’s subordinate hand, not the dominant one.

Applying this reasoning to the same panel of hand prints in Texas that I photographed in 2004 and used to illustrate the August 5, 2009 posting about hand-prints we see that these hand-prints were made with a paint covered right hand applied flat to the rock face. We have already seen that these prints indicated that their creator was probably a male, now we can see that he was probably a right-handed male. Not bad for a group of anonymous hand-prints.

ANIMALS IN ROCK ART, THE PUSH-ME-PULL-YOU:

2011-11-12T11:35:00.001-07:00

Push-me-pull-you (right center of photo), at the mouth

of Salt Arroyo, Purgatoire Canyon, Bent County,

Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, June 1998.

Of all the many portrayals of animals (zoomorphs) in rock art some of the most fascinating are the double ended animals known lightheartedly as “Push-Me-Pull-You’s”. On May 1, 2010, I published a posting entitled Sisiutl – The 2-Headed Serpent. Sisiutl, a snake with a head at each end, represents one form of the “Push-Me-Pull-You”.

Push-me-pull-you (lower left of photo), Carizzo Canyon,

Baca County, Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1993.

The more common form that these creatures take however is that of a quadruped, a four legged animal with a head at each end. What these Push-Me-Pull-You’s actually represented to their creators I do not know. I can show a few examples to illustrate the general form of this creature, but except for Sisiutl (mentioned above) I have no idea as to what they were intended to mean.

Push-me-pull-you, Rochester Creek,

Utah. Photo: Peter Faris, 1993.

Alex Patterson (1992:202) suggested that the two-headed animals “zoomorphs with a head at both ends” is an animal birth scene representing the “invariable head-first appearance of many animals at birth.” Can this be the meaning of these enigmatic creature? Well, it is a very clever idea and may, in fact, actually be applicable in some instances. However, many of the Push-Me-Pull-You’s are shown with what appear to be horned heads on both ends, and no animal I know of is born with a set of adult horns in place. An example is the Push-Me-Pull-You from Rochester Creek in Utah which has a set of Bighorn Sheep horns on the head at each end.

Push-me-pull-you.

So, this brings me back to the question what do they represent? I really have no idea, but I would like to hear your suggestions.

REFERENCE:

Patterson, Alex
1992 A Field Guide To Rock Art Symbols Of The Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder.

THE UPPER SAND ISLAND MAMMOTH PETROGLYPH, UTAH:

2011-11-06T10:33:00.001-07:00

Veteran readers of RockArtBlog may remember that I have published postings on the subject of mammoths in North American rock art in the past. On May 4, 2009, I posted A Possible Mastodon Petroglyph in Southeastern Colorado, and on April 16, 2011, I posted a column entitled The Earliest Art in North America, The Vero Beach Mammoth. Additionally, on November 25, 2009, I posted Elephantids in North American Rock Art – The Moab Mastodon, in which I explained my disbelief in the identification of what has been called the Moab Mastodon.

Petroglyph panel with images highlighted, San Juan

River, Utah,upstream from Sand Island. Photograph

used by permission of Ekkehart Malotki.

Behind all of this, however, I have always felt a strong conviction that there should be examples of mammoths and mastodons in North American rock art. We know people in North America coexisted with these Pleistocene giants, we know that they preyed on them, there should be examples of mammoths and mastodons in rock art, but, of all the candidates suggested so far only the Vero Beach mammoth has supposedly been scientifically authenticated (and I say supposedly because I do not believe that test results have been fully proven yet).

Mammoth petroglyph from the right side of the panel.

The mammoth image on the left side of the picture is

partially superimposed by a large bison. Photograph

used by permission of Ekkehart Malotki.

Mammoth 1 - close up of proposed mammoth petroglyph.

Photograph used by permission of Ekkehart Malotki.

Now from the great rock art site of Sand Island on the San Juan River, near Bluff, Utah, internationally known author and rock art researcher Ekkehart Malotki, and H. D. Wallace, have put forth a new candidate (I should say candidates) in the search for elephantids in rock art. Malotki is emeritus professor of modern languages at Northern Arizona University, while Wallace is an archaeologist from Tucson, Arizona. They have described a couple of petroglyphs from that site that they have identified as representations of mammoths dating to the Pleistocene/Holocene transitional period. Malotki was originally introduced to the possible mammoth by Joe Pachak, an artist from nearby Bluff, Utah. This identification is based upon details such as the bifurcated trunk tip of the mammoth which Malotki suggests a forger would not know about, and their height (approx. 5 meters) above the present day ground level and weathered condition.

Mammoth 2 - close up of proposed mammoth petroglyph

from the left side of the panel. Photograph used by

permission of Ekkehart Malotki.

As I have not yet seen the petroglyphs in person I will refrain from cluttering up the discussion with my own speculation other than to say that I truly hope that Malotki and Wallace are correct. I want there to be petroglyphs of mammoths and mastodons in North American – there should be petroglyphs of mammoths and mastodons in North America. People were here while the great beasts were still alive, and people make marks and pictures.

Ekkehart Malotki. Photograph used by

permission of Ekkehart Malotki.

I also want to congratulate Malotki and Wallace on having the courage and dedication to stand up and say what they believe they have, especially knowing that stating this opinion may invite considerable controversy, and sometimes personal attacks. I hope that this debate can stay civilized. In any case this will be fun to watch as it plays out in the arena of scientific opinion.

See the full paper at www.stonepages.com/docs/malotki-wallace.pdf

CIMARRON RIVER MONSTER:

2011-10-29T20:28:00.000-06:00

Petroglyph of a River Monster along the Cimarron River

in Northeastern New Mexico. Photo: Bill McGlone.

This remarkable photo was taken by Bill McGlone a couple of decades ago along the Cimarron River in northeastern New Mexico. It appears to be a portrayal of the head and foreparts of a large creature and incorporates considerable work as well as an example of incorporating a natural projection of the cliff face for the head. My first reaction upon seeing this image was that it is a portrayal of the Mesoamerican Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent. It certainly bears what appears to be a ruff of feathers on top of the head. What might represent a fin can be seen projecting downward from behind the head.

Drawing of the river monster petroglyph, Cimarron

River, New Mexico. Drawn by Peter Faris.

Virtually all of the peoples of the American Great Plains believed in underwater monsters living in the lakes and rivers. I have written elsewhere that I assume that such beliefs were originally inspired by the erosion of the large bones of prehistoric mammals (mammoths, mastodons, etc.) out of the river banks during the spring runoff. Given the location of this large, complex petroglyph near the Cimarron River in northeastern New Mexico I believe we are justified in assuming that it represents one of these great underwater monsters.

Of the people who occupied that area during prehistoric and protohistoric times, we can identify the Southern Cheyenne, the Comanche, and the Kiowa. The area that the Kiowa claimed as their homeland lay in the southwestern plains adjacent to the Arkansas River in southeastern Colorado and western Kansas and the Red River drainage of the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma.

Zemoguani, painted lodge, collected by James Mooney,

1891-1904. National Anthropological Archives.

The Kiowa version of the great underwater monster was the zemoguani. Portrayals of zemoguani were collected by the anthropologist James Mooney in 1904 from the Kiowa. These include a painted model tipi with zemoguani on its side and a hide painting of a Kiowa camp circle showing the painted zemoguani tipi erected in its place in the camp circle.

Kiowa Model Painted Tipi with Zemoguani, National Cowboy

& Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, OK.

As I said above the first reaction of many viewers to this remarkable petroglyph is that it is Quetzalcoatl, but given the location of the image on the cliff in the area claimed by the Kiowa, and given its resemblance to zemoguani, I personally feel that this identification is more reasonable.

NOT REALLY ROCK ART - TOOL GROOVES:

2011-10-23T09:40:00.005-06:00

Tool sharpening grooves in a boulder.

Freezeout Canyon, Baca County,

Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1996.

There are certain types of rock markings that really should not be called rock art. One of these is the tool sharpening groove. These are created by the act of sharpening a bone or antler-tine awl on the rock surface. As the tool is sharpened it also wears away the surface of the rock. As the point becomes sharper the groove it wears is also narrower, eventually becoming a “v-shaped” groove abraded into the rock. Another type of tool mark on the surface of the rock is a wider, shallow smoothed area that is created by sharpening the edge of a stone tool such as an axe. Many examples of these can be seen in the illustration of the site from the Picketwire Canyonlands. Another example often lumped in with rock art (or at least recorded with the rock art at a site) is the bedrock metate, a shallow hollow in a horizontal rock surface that was used for grinding plant materials with a hand held stone called a mano.

Tool sharpening grooves in cliff,

Picketwire Canyon, Bent County,

CO. Photo: Peter Faris, 1997.

Linea Sundstrom has pointed out that tool grooves can be helpful in roughly estimating dates. Tool sharpening grooves essentially ceased being made when trade with Anglos, whether European or American, began to trade goods for furs, because among early essential items for such trade were metal awls and needles. This suggests that any rock markings that can be identified as tool grooves were basically prehistoric. The presence of tool grooves also suggests either a habitation site or, at least, a site where preparations for domestic chores were conducted. I believe we got into the habit of including these indications of industrial practices in with rock art because when rock art is being recorded it is considered important to record all features on the surface of the rock, including tool grooves, axe sharpening hollows, and bedrock mutates.

Some examples can be found where tool-sharpening grooves have been incorporated into rock art images. I have seen tool sharpening grooves that had been turned into lizards by the addition of four legs paired on both sides of the groove by pecking or abrasion.

If the tool groove is somehow incorporated into a rock art image as in the lizards mentioned above, then I would classify the modified tool groove as rock art. If the tool groove, however, is not modified, or demonstrably incorporated into rock art elements, I will have to classify it as another element of the rock surface that needs to be recorded, but not as rock art.

MESA PRIETA PETROGLYPH PROJECT EDUCATION PROGRAMS:

2011-10-15T11:32:00.001-06:00

Katherine Wells with rock art panel.

Photo: Peter Faris, September 2011.

In addition to recording the rock art and working for its preservation the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project has a major focus on educational programming. One facet of this is providing docent-led tours of rock art, including tours for a 4^th grade level curriculum they have developed for local public and Pueblo schools as a adjunct to the study of New Mexico history in the 4^th grade social studies curriculum. These classes complete at least six classroom activities before visiting the Wells Petroglyph Preserve on Mesa Prieta for a field work day. In the field these students participate with adult volunteer docents in discovery hikes and identify petroglyph themes and elements and compare relative patina or rock varnish to estimate relative age. Such field trips give the students a real sense of the history and cultural significance of the rock art. Many of these students are descendants of the people who created the images centuries ago and they can experience a personal identification with the imagery and what they have learned about its creators.

In addition to helping these children develop a sense of identity with the creators of the rock art it is very hard to imagine that any of these students in later years will participate in vandalism against rock art sites. Such a program seems like a win-win situation for all concerned and could serve as a model for other rock art sites. It certainly deserves support and encouragement.

Donations may be mailed to: Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project, P.O. Box 407, Velarde, NM, 87582.
mesaprieta@cybermesa.com

KWAHU, THE EAGLE KACHINA:

2011-10-07T15:20:00.000-06:00

Eagle head, Three Rivers, New Mexico. Photo

November 1988, John and Esther Faris.

One category of images commonly seen in rock art in almost all areas of North America represents sky themes. This is especially true in the American Southwest where climatic conditions are generally dry and desert-like, and people relied upon regular rain for their food supplies. In the southwest numerous petroglyphs and pictographs of birds (especially eagles who are the beast deities of above) can be found, and one is a kachina figure seen in Puebloan Kachina dance rituals representing Kwahu, the eagle kachina. The eagle ruled the sky, and was thus in charge of the source of the rain needed for crops. Eagle petroglyphs are particularly common in areas near the region of the upper Rio Grande where dense populations of Pueblo peoples relied heavily on agriculture for subsistence.

The first illustration (above) is a grand naturalistic eagle head from the large petroglyph site at Three Rivers, New Mexico.

Eagle, star, and lightning. Galisteo dike,

New Mexico. Photo: Peter Faris.

The petroglyph of the eagle with a star and lightning is from Galisteo dike. This combination of sky themes in one composition covers all the bases toward the source of rain. The mixture of eagle and star themes is very common in Galisteo, and also at Petroglyph Park west of Albuquerque. Adding the lightning in this example reinforces the water connection as lightning usually occurs in conjunction with rain.

As a kachina, Kwahu wears a case mask painted blue-green although older examples were sometimes brown. It possesses an eagle-shaped beak with a black inverted “V” or chevron above it. Occasionally, in one of the night ceremonies in March or during the Powamu, one may have the satisfaction of seeing a performance of the Eagle Kachina. Usually the performer imitates the step or motion and cry of the eagle to absolute perfection. Eagle Kachinas will sometimes appear with Mudheads at night ceremonies in March.

Eagle (Kwahu) kachina mask, Three Rivers,

New Mexico. Photo: Peter Faris.

This petroglyph from Three Rivers, New Mexico, appears to represent an eagle mask seen from the side. It shows the hooked beak of the eagle pointing to the left, with a large eye, and a double diagonal line beneath the eye like the common tear motif which can be related to the inverted “V” or chevron seen above the beak of the eagle kachina illustrated. Given the location of Three Rivers there are basically three birds that have this natural marking and that this petroglyph might represent. The three are Prairie Falcon, Peregrine Falcon, and the American Kestral, all of which can be seen in the area and which have the natural “tear marking” below their eye as seen in the petroglyph. This feature is, however, also an attribute of the mask representing Kwahu, and has probably become a generic symbol for the raptors in general, thus its use on the Eagle kachina.

MESA PRIETA PETROGLYPH PROJECT, NEW MEXICO:

2011-10-01T11:27:00.001-06:00

This photograph was provided by Vecinos del Rio.

In August, 2011, we traveled to northern New Mexico to visit friends Jeanne and Bill in Los Alamos and see as much rock art and as many adobe churches as possible. The rock art part was easy, they just took us back to Black Mesa (aka Mesa Prieta).

Mesa Prieta covers 36 square miles and has an estimated 20,000 petroglyphs. Most of the land is privately owned and not open to unrestricted public access. There is, however, a way to possibly earn access. A tax-exempt non-profit organization, the Vecinos del Rio Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project records petroglyphs, has educational programs about them, and works to preserve rock art on the mesa. All recorded information is being put into a GIS database. For those who are lucky enough to live in the area they need volunteer docents (I understand that they will also accept cash donations, and as they are a 501(c)3 such donations are tax-deductible).

To receive information about the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project and Vecinos del Rio contact them at:

Vecinos del Rio

P.O. Box 407

Velarde, NM 87582

(505)852-1351

mesaprieta@cybermesa.com

ANTOINE ROBIDOUX, 13 NOVEMBER 1837 - AN HISTORIC INSCRIPTION:

2011-09-25T09:52:00.000-06:00

Antoine Robidoux inscription,

Westwater canyon, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, 2001.

On the wall of what is now named Westwater Canyon in the Bookcliffs of Grand County in eastern Utah (about 5 miles west of the Utah-Colorado border) there is a concentration of rock art. Ranging from Archaic to historic the pictographs and petroglyphs include painted Barrier Canyon style figures, pecked Archaic and Uncompaghre Style petroglyphs, painted Ute Indian figures and symbols, and some historic imagery. On the west wall of the canyon a surface approximately 9 feet high and 4½ feet wide bears a prehistoric painted red shield with an inscription carved above it that reads Antoine Robidoux passé ici le 13 Novembre 1837 pour etablire maison traitte a la Rv. Vert ou wiyte. Translated from the French, this means: “Antoine Robidoux passed here 13 November 1837 to establish a trading post at the Green River or White.”

Antoine Robidoux, 1843,

Museum of New Mexico.

Antoine Robidoux had been born in 1794, one of the sons of Joseph Robidoux, Sr., French-Canadian owner of a St. Louis-based fur trading company. In early 1824, Antoine and his brother Louis rode 800 miles to Santa Fe where they visited with an old family friend and close ally, Auguste Choteau. In the late summer of 1824 Antoine had joined a party of trappers led by Etienne Provost from Santa Fe into the wilderness of what would later become eastern Utah and western Colorado to explore the trapping and trading potential of new beaver country. They found streams filled with beaver and the resident Ute Indians friendly and eager to trade.

Antoine and his brother Louis became Mexican citizens and in 1827 Antoine was elected to the Santa Fe City Council. He had also been courting the Mexican Governor’s adopted daughter, Carmel Benevides. Antoine received the governor’s permission to marry Carmel in 1828. As the son-in-law of Santa Fe’s most powerful official, doors opened for Antoine that might otherwise have remained closed. Within weeks he received what amounted to an exclusive license to trade and trap in the mountain territory that would someday become western Colorado and eastern Utah. Antoine shortly organized an expedition into that area. Antoine took his pack animals north out of Taos, traveled into the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado and then took an old Indian track over the continental divide at Cochetopa Pass. From there he descended down into the Gunnison Valley, passed south of what is now the Blue Mesa Reservoir, crossed Cerro Summit and dropped into the Uncompaghre Valley where he built his first trading post.

Fort Uncompaghre was erected in 1828 and trading began that year. It was built on the south bank of the Gunnison River. Antoine selected a site two miles below the confluence of the Gunnison and Uncompaghre rivers, convenient also because it was a short distance from a natural fording place.

Reconstructed Fort Robidoux, in Delta, CO, from

Antoine Robidoux and Fort Uncompaghre, Ken Reyher,

1998, Western Reflections Inc., Ouray, CO.

In September 1844, warring Utes killed the employees of Fort Uncompaghre and took the trade goods. They also killed more than 100 settlers from Abique to the San Luis Valley before attacking the fort. A new governor in Santa Fe placed part of the blame for the uprising on Robidoux and ordered an investigation of his sale of firearms to the Utes. Facing threatened legal action Carmel closed their Santa Fe home and returned to St. Joseph with her daughter. Antoine, who possibly spent several months in the Wyoming area, also returned east according to a story in the September 17, 1845, Missouri Democrat. After the 1844 destruction of Fort Uncompaghre, and with the trapping business in decline, Antoine spent the next few years as a guiding immigrant parties, and as an army interpreter.

Essentially starting over in 1849-50, Robidoux amassed another fortune outfitting immigrants at St. Joseph and then re-outfitting them at the only blacksmith and supply station in western Nebraska. An 1851 immigrant described "an old man nearly blind" wintering at the post. This was probably Antoine, who died in 1860 in St. Louis.

Although the inscription panel shows numerous bullet holes acquired during the historic period, actually primarily aimed at the Native American shield image, it presents us with a record of a fascinating piece of the history of the American West, an inscription from the latter years of the fur trappers and mountain men and the beginning of written history in the central intermountain area.

VANDALISM OF ROCK ART - THEFT:

2011-09-17T10:48:00.000-06:00

Orca petroglyph, Petroglyph Beach, Wrangell,

Alaska. Photo Peter Faris, 2001.

One form of vandalism of rock art that has many different facets that need to be considered is theft. First, many museums have examples of rock art in their collections that have been moved to the facility from its natural environment. This may have been done for many reasons. Often the rock has been moved to protect it from erosion or from theft or other vandalism. Other examples of rock art in museum collections were acquired before our modern sensibility to the feelings of indigenous peoples and our current attitude that these images belong where they were created. Many were collected just like any other artifact back in the 1800s. While we tend to overlook these heritage examples, I am afraid it still comes up once in a while. At least we now have considerably more sensibility to such occurrences.

More commonly are stories about people who have taken rocks with petroglyphs on them for their own personal reasons. If taken from public land this is theft and a federal crime.

One example I personally ran into in 2001 while on an Alaska cruise was the rock with the famous Orca (Killer Whale) petroglyph on Petroglyph Beach at Wrangell, Alaska. My wife and I searched the boulders for quite some time and could not find the image anywhere. We finally had to go to lunch but, after lunch, while she stayed on the ship I went back to search some more. Again I was unsuccessful and was actually turning to leave when I noticed that one of the houses with back yards adjoining the beach had a fire pit in the yard surrounded by boulders that matched the ones on the beach.

I went over to the fire ring (yes, I was trespassing) and found that one of the boulders in the ring had exactly the Orca petroglyph I had been searching for on it. In other words that home owner had stolen it. They probably did not think of it as theft, after all they live there. They may have thought of it as protecting the art. The fact is, however, they took the petroglyph rock away from its location on the public beach and placed it on their own private property. Maybe it is better protected now!

VERMILLION CANYON MEDICINE WHEEL:

2011-09-10T19:22:00.001-06:00

Vermillion Canyon medicine wheel, visit by members of the
Denver Chapter, Colorado Archaeological Society.
Photo: Peter Faris, 1999.

Throughout the northern Great Plains a number of Medicine Wheels have been found. These usually consist of a circle of rocks with a number of interior spokes (there are a few examples which omit the circle and consist only of rock alignments like spokes) and may or may not include cairns of stone that mark various locations on the structure.

The medicine wheels, especially important to the northern Arapahos and to a lesser extent the Shoshones, reflected the reverence that all people of the plains maintained for the circle, a shape that suggested spiritual and political unity and connected people with one another and with the natural world.

Vermillion Canyon is found in Brown’s Park in far northeastern Colordo. It runs south from the Vermillion Basin carrying Vermillion Creek through the eastern end of the Cold Spring Mountains to join with the Green River at the south end of Brown’s Park. The northern half of Vermillion Canyon is a narrow slot cut through the rock of the ridge, and the southern half opens up into an enclosed bowl. This bowl is well watered by Vermillion Creek, a permanent stream, and shows signs of prehistoric habitation in addition to the rock art and medicine wheel discussed here. There is considerable rock art produced by the Fremont culture, dating from between AD 600 and AD 1000, in Browns Park and Vermillion Canyon. Most rock art in the Brown’s Park area is attributed to the Uinta Fremont culture and all rock art in Vermillion Canyon is Uinta Fremont. Some of the petroglyphs in Vermillion Canyon are of the Classic Vernal Style as defined by Polly Schaafsma.

In northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado the Fremont culture seems to have been followed by the Shoshone. About 1000 years ago speakers of the family of languages known to linguists as Numic, which includes Shoshone, began a movement that originated in the southwestern Great Basin and expanded northeastward. Groups of people who spoke the Shoshone language spread up through central Nevada and across northern Utah into southern Idaho and adjacent Wyoming. The Shoshone probably succeeded the Fremont Culture in northwestern Colorado around AD 1300.

In 1994 a medicine wheel was discovered in the lower reaches of Vermillion Canyon by John Tarnesse, an Eastern Shoshone spiritual leader, and Joseph Triscari, a Denver photographer. They had been told by elders on the Wind River Reservation (some 275 miles to the North) in Wyoming of rumors that there was a medicine wheel in that area and had been searching for it, as well as visiting the rock art in Vermillion Canyon.

The Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel is located in the bottom of the lower portion of Vermillion Canyon, near the foot of the slope of the western wall of the canyon. This position at the bottom of the canyon prevents the long sight lines to a distant horizon to be expected in a site with archaeoastronomical significance. I therefore conclude that the significance of the Vermillion Canyon medicine wheel had nothing to do with archaeoastronomy. Measuring approximately 27.5 feet in diameter (8.4 meters), the wheel is laid out as two concentric circles, linked by four spokes, and surrounding a single upright center stone. The four spokes consist of seven stones each for a total of twenty-eight stones. The number 28 is often quoted as the length in days of the lunar cycle (or synodic cycle) although the real number is 29.53 days. For instance there are 28 spokes in the Bighorn Medicine Wheel located in north central Wyoming.

The four spokes in the Brown’s Park Medicine Wheel are roughly aligned to the cardinal directions. The four winds or four directions of the compass represented both natural and metaphysical powers. In effect, because the great creator force (or Holy One Above) created everything in fours, the Plains Indians believed they should do as much as possible in fours”.

The age of the medicine wheel is unknown. Given the absence of an absolute date at this time, any guess as to its age must be made on the basis of relative factors. As earlier peoples are not known to have made medicine wheels, and since Shoshone occupation of the region began in about 1300 AD, it should date from that time or later.

The medicine wheel is located near three Fremont rock art sites on boulders that, as suggested above, may have provided part of the motivation for the location selected for the wheel.

A feature like the Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel in a location like Vermillion Canyon compels us to attempt to explain its purpose. As we have seen, medicine wheels were of spiritual significance to the Shoshone culture, and we must assume that no matter who originally created the Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel, the Shoshone people appropriated it later for their own cultural purposes.

However, it is likely that the Vermillion Canyon Medicine Wheel was created by the early Shoshone inhabitants of the area, the ancestors of the Eastern Shoshone tribe of the Wind River Reservation in Western Wyoming. They had a considerable time depth in occupation of the area. The proximity of the wheel to the rock art is known to be of considerable importance to the Shoshone. This suggests that Vermillion Canyon in northwestern Colorado is a location that was of rich spiritual significance to the Shoshones.

Considering its relatively recent discovery and nearly pristine condition there were early attempts to keep its location secret. However, during our first visit there in the company of a BLM archaeologist to whom we had sworn secrecy, we found a car from California parked nearby. It has apparently already made it to the New Agers circuit. Let’s hope that they don’t feel the need to bury offerings there to mess up the archaeological record.

ROCK ART VANDALISM - A SPRAY PAINTER HAS BEEN SENTENCED:

2011-08-29T10:09:00.001-06:00

I am reprinting the following news story because of its importance as a precedent. While on the one hand it seems that this vandal is getting off lightly, on the other hand it is perhaps just right. Not a level of punishment to confirm him as a hardened criminal, but supposedly plenty to make him and others think twice about such acts of desecration. I fervently hope that the judge is correct and that this works.

Photo by K.M. Cannon, Las Vegas Review Journal.

By Jeff German, LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The desecration last year of prehistoric artwork at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area sparked outrage and focused attention on the spread of graffiti throughout the Las Vegas Valley.

This week, the 17-year-old youth charged with defacing the Red Rock area received his punishment behind closed doors in federal court, ending a case that rallied the community to help remove the spray-painted graffiti.

U.S. District Judge Kent Dawson on Wednesday sentenced the unidentified youth to nine months behind bars, which he already has served. The judge also placed him on nine months of supervised release and ordered him to pay $23,775 in restitution to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The defaced rock art panels on Aztec sandstone slabs and walls contain pictographs, painted symbols, the BLM estimates are 1,000 years old. One slab has a petroglyph, stone etching, that might be older.

BLM spokeswoman Kirsten Cannon said Thursday it cost roughly $24,000 to restore the ancient artwork. All of the money came from private donations.

John Hiatt, president of the Red Rock Audubon Society, which has closely followed the case, said he was pleased to hear about the sentencing.

"It's good that he's getting punished, so other people will see that they can't just damage archaeological resources with impunity," Hiatt said.

"The legal system is starting to recognize that these resources are irreplaceable and, without real protection, we will lose them forever."

In a news release, Natalie Collins, a spokeswoman for the Nevada U.S. attorney's office, said the youth pleaded guilty to two federal charges: unlawful defacement of archaeological resources and wilfully injuring or committing depredation against property of the United States.

The youth, whose identity has been withheld because he is under 18, committed the acts on July 24 and July 25 of last year.

"Public lands are for everyone's use," Cannon said. "It's disheartening when this happens."

Cannon said the publicity surrounding the crime helped the BLM create more awareness about graffiti in the 198,000-acre Red Rock area, most of which occurs in restrooms and on signs and trash cans.

"We've had more volunteers come out to remove graffiti," she said.

Initially, there was a spike in onlookers at the vandalized site, but that waned as the cleanup efforts began this spring, Cannon said.

Authorities think the defendant is a member of the NHC tagging crew, vandals who paint graffiti together around Southern Nevada.

NHC has several meanings, including Nasty Habits Crew.

The Red Rock graffiti was discovered by hikers in mid-November. It included the street names "PWE," "RODO" and "64C."

Las Vegas police arrested the youth in December, and he was later charged with the federal crimes.

Dawson on Wednesday imposed several special conditions on the youth during his nine-month supervised release, including barring him from entering any national parks, forests or recreational areas.

He also must undergo substance abuse treatment, participate in a life skills program and earn a general equivalency diploma. He cannot possess any firearms or explosives.

Contact Jeff German at jgerman@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-8135.

COMPANY E, 11th OVC, 1864, A Historic Inscription In Wyoming:

2011-08-27T20:50:00.000-06:00

Company E, 11th OVC, 1864. Near Douglas,

Wyoming. Photo: Peter Faris, 2001.

On May 26 and 27, 2001, rock art sites were visited and recorded on private land near Douglas, Converse County, Wyoming. One of the sites is a historic-period engraved inscription in a location that is fifty miles east of the location of Fort Caspar, Wyoming.

Line drawing of inscription. Peter Faris.

This panel consists of a historic period inscription on a boulder. The eroded letters spell Co. E, 11-OVC, 1864, and provide a record of the presence in 1864 of Company E of the 11^th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry.

Platte Bridge Station map by Caspar Collins, 1864.

During the American Civil War regular troops were needed for the battlefields back east so their place in Western posts was taken by state volunteer outfits. On May 30, 1862, Companies A, B, C, and D of the First Battalion, 6^th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry reached Fort Laramie, assigned to guard Overland Mail routes across the plains from Julesburg to Green River. Commander of the battalion was Lt. Col. William O. Collins. In early June 1862 the troops moved to a site along the North Platte River and began building a military outpost that became known as the Platte Bridge Station.

Portrait of Caspar Collins, painted by Ruth Joy Hopkins,

facing p.23, J.W. Vaughn, The Battle of Platte Bridge,

Univ. of OK, 1963.

In July 1863, Collins organized a second battalion consisting of Companies E, F, G, and H. It was consolidated with the first battalion to form the 11^th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry. By October 10 they arrived at their new post at the Platte Bridge Station. Collin’s regiment was 50 men short when he recruited the new companies in 1863 so it was filled out with Confederate prisoners who volunteered for western service in the union cavalry. Men enlisted in this manner were known as “Galvanized Yankees”. The city of Fort Collins, Colorado was named after Lt. Col. Collins. On July 26, 1865, the Battle of Platte Bridge occurred near Platte Bridge Station in Wyoming. Lt. Caspar Collins, the son of Lt. Col Wm. Collins was ordered to lead a troop west of the post to escort a supply train due to arrive from the Sweetwater Station. They were ambushed by Cheyenne warriors and Lieutenant Caspar Collins was killed”. Fort Caspar and the city of Caspar, Wyoming (near the site of the old Platte Bridge Station) were named after him. The present spelling of the city’s name, Casper, is attributed to the U.S. Postal Service which changed it later. The 11^th Ohio Volunteer Cavalry was mustered out on July 14, 1865. Major General John Pope changed the name of Platte Bridge Station to Fort Caspar by special order #49 on November 21, 1865.

Battle of Platte Bridge, drawn by a member of the 11th

Kansas Cav. who participated in the fight of July 25-27,

1865, facing p.102, J.W. Vaughn, The Battle of Platte

Bridge, Univ. of OK, 1963

The site of the inscription on the boulder is approximately 50 miles east of Fort Caspar. It was probably created by troopers from an escort party or a foraging party who had camped by the location for an evening. The soft sandstone boulder is eroding seriously and portions of the lettering are completely gone. As it disappears it takes with it a tangible piece of evidence to the history of the development of Wyoming and the West.

WE NEED TO KEEP AN OPEN MIND:

2011-08-21T22:49:00.000-06:00

I have written elsewhere about the dangers of relying too much on statistical analysis in drawing conclusions about rock art. I have also written about professional bias among professional archaeologists when it comes to rock art research. In all fairness I must say that this really cuts both ways and the rest of us need to keep an open mind about things as well.

When we have studied some aspect of rock art deeply and have come to some degree of understanding about it we cannot let that become dogma to the extent that we are not willing to consider other possibilities. I can illustrate this with a story. There is a well-known Lakota story about the coming of the buffalo with the appearance of Buffalo Woman. Most versions of it have her appearing to two young warriors and her beauty drives one of the warriors to lust after her. Upon his approaching her there is a sudden appearance of a cloud, concealing them both. The cloud dissipates within a few minutes leaving behind only the skeleton of the lustful young man for his friend to see.

This is usually presented as a punishment for his impiety; he was instantly killed and stripped of all flesh because he insulted the sacred figure of Buffalo Woman. A few months ago, however, I heard another version of this story that almost reverses that assumed meaning. My informant said that the traditional interpretation was wrong, that, in fact, the lustful young man had married Buffalo Woman and their offspring became the buffalo. They had lived a long and full life until his normal death of old age. What his companion had perceived as only an instant until the appearance of the skeleton was sort of like the time rift of science fiction, his companion had lived his whole life in that instant, and it was the other warrior’s perception that was wrong.

While this is at odds with the usual interpretation of the story it is a lovely version and believed by at least a few people for it to have come to my attention. We need to be aware of other possibilities, and always beware of dogma.

A BEGINNER’S MISTAKE – BIGFOOT MAN AT MCCONKEY RANCH:

2011-07-24T12:46:00.001-06:00

Bigfoot man, McConkey Ranch, Vernal, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1985.

Among the marvelous Fremont culture rock art at McConkey Ranch outside Vernal, Utah is the figure known as Bigfoot Man. This figure presents us with an example of a beginner’s mistake. Anyone who has actually taught art will recognize this immediately as a common error made by beginning students in figure drawing. What it represents is someone starting to draw the figure on a scale that is too large for the surface. Depending upon where the student started the head may be too big for the rest of the body, or some other portion may be seen as outsized. Then they recognize that they have to change the scale to fit the rest of the figure onto the surface. In the case of Bigfoot Man the artist ambitiously began with a pair of large feet and quickly realized that he had to reduce the scale for the rest of the figure to fit onto the chosen rock face.

Some other points to note in this panel; the figure has been given knobby knees which I interpret as an attempt to realistically portray the patella, or knee-cap, and he is shown with six fingers on his hand (polydactylism again). Finally, notice that this panel is not only pecked, but paint has been added as well, it is mixed-media.

Funny looking - yes? This is, however, diagnostic of a situation in which the creation of rock art was actually being taught to someone, and probably critiqued by the teacher. In our culture we call that an art school and it suggests a high degree of sophistication in the Fremont culture.

THE 1868 CAMPAIGN OF THE 5TH CAVALRY - A HISTORIC INSCRIPTION:

2011-07-24T10:17:00.032-06:00

J. O’HARE, CO II, 5^TH CAV. – A HISTORICAL INSCRIPTION:

J. O'Hare, Co.II, 5th Cav., a historic inscription

in Baca County, CO. Photo: Peter Faris, 1982.

In Baca County, southeastern Colorado, on a private ranch, this historic petroglyph was recorded in 1995. It is deeply inscribed in a rock shelter in a tributary of Soldier Canyon and says “J. O’Hare, Co II, 5^th Cav.” The name of Soldier Canyon commemorates an event from the Indian Wars still related by local residents who tell of an Army column that got caught in a blizzard in those canyons and that many animals and a number of soldiers froze to death. It provides an intriguingly personal touch in an environment that still feels isolated, because of its distance from modern civilization, and perhaps because the many ruined homesteads in the vicinity give one a feeling of the fragility of civilization. Attempts to establish the identity of J. O’Hare have so far proved unsuccessful but much of the background of this story can be determined.

5th Cavalry, Nat. Anthropological Archives.

In 1868, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody was hired by the U. S. Army as the Chief Scout for the 5^th Cavalry stationed at that time at Fort Lyon. The 5^th Cavalry had been designated as the northern prong of the great 3-pronged winter campaign against the tribes of the southern Great Plains.

Old Fort Lyon, Colorado. Colorado State

Historical Society.

H. Allen Anderson described the events of December 1868 on the website of the Texas State Historical Society as follows: On December 2, 1868 (Major Eugene) Carr led seven troops of the Fifth Cavalry and one company of the Third Infantry out of Fort Lyon, Colorado. His orders were to join Bvt. Brig. Gen. William H. Penrose, who had left Fort Lyon on November 10 with five troops of cavalry, and set up a supply base on or near the North Canadian (Beaver) River from which they could scour the area to the southeast. The column, which included 100 pack mules and 130 wagons, fared well for three days but then ran into a severe blizzard. - it was not until December 23, after much agony, that Carr finally reached Penrose’s beleaguered camp, with its supplies greatly depleted, on Paloduro Creek in present Texas County, Oklahoma. Pushing on south into the Texas Panhandle, Carr sent out scouting parties and on December 28 established a base on the main Canadian, probably in what is now Roberts County, about twenty miles west of the supply camp set up by Maj. Andrew W. Evans’s Canadian River expedition. What was more, forty of Carr’s teamsters quit and forfeited their pay rather than endure the icy weather any longer.

Camping in the Snow, p.220, The Life of Hon.

William F. Cody Known as Buffalo Bill,

autobiography, 1978, Univ. of Neb. Press

Other sources list a higher number of casualties from the blizzard. “Carr was also having his troubles. He left Fort Lyon on December 2 in clear but cold weather. Three days later, however, a howling blizzard struck the column, froze four men to death, and caused the loss of more than two hundred head of cattle that were to supply fresh meat for both Carr and Penrose. Carr fought his way slowly through the mountainous drifts, worrying increasingly about the fate of Penrose and the possibility of not being able to locate him in such weather.”

The 5^th finally found Penrose’ column and, after resupplying them, they scouted around the area for hostile Indians with no success. Considering the fact that Carr’s and Penrose’s columns never saw a hostile Indian was a plan that led to such loss of life justifiable? Carr and Penrose had accomplished their mission, although they had not seen a single Indian as the position of their forces had prevented the Cheyennes from moving north or west and kept them firmly in the path of the principal striking force. There was now nothing for them (Carr and Penrose) to do but retrace a cold and weary path back to Ft. Lyon, which they reached on February 19.

Carr and the 5^th Cavalry went on to deliver the final blow to the free Cheyenne on the Northern Plains with their July 11, 1869, defeat of the Dog Soldier band at Summit Springs, Colorado, in which their chief Tall Bull was killed.

Apparently, while confined by the storm in Soldier Canyon, in what was to become Baca County, Colorado, J. O’Hare passed some of his time inscribing this record of his presence in the sandstone of the cliff. Then, in February 2010, I received a communication from Pamela Owens who located enlistment records on www.ancestry.com for a John O’Hare who enlisted in the U.S. Army in August 1864 in Detroit, Michigan, and served in the 5^th US Cavalry, Company I. Born in Detroit, O’Hare enlisted at the age of twenty. The records located by Owens further show that he survived the blizzard because he was discharged from the army at Camp Grant, Arizona Territory in August 1872 at the end of his service contract. He could not be identified on the 1870 or 1880 federal censuses. Mr. O’Hare may well have living descendants who have no idea of this record and I hope that somehow one of them runs across this story.

REFERENCE:

Anderson, H. Allen

2001, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/CC/fcadd.html, Texas State Historical Association.

ATLATL, PHI-SIGN, OR CAT TAIL:

2011-07-16T16:18:00.003-06:00

It is a dictum that we tend to find pretty much what we are looking for, and what we are looking for is primarily affected by our mind set and the knowledge that we have to apply to the quest. In evaluating rock art we are looking for its meaning and we too often interpret the clues in that rock art to fit our preconceived notions. One excellent example of that can be found in interpretations of the symbol that consists of a circle or oval bisected by a line. This is usually dismissed by rock art researchers as a known quantity – it is an atlatl, the Aztec name for a spear thrower. Although that can be correct in the case of some hunting scenes, it is often misapplied even there in that the term is so often used to designate the fletched dart projecting from the prey animal instead of the actual spear thrower (atlatl) that launched it.

5BN7, Hicklin Springs, Bent County, CO.

Photo: Jeannie Hope Gibson, 1991.

On the other hand, among those interested in epigraphy the same symbol, at least when seen alone and not sticking out of the back of an animal, it is often called a “phi-sign” because of its resemblance to the Greek letter phi. Indeed, in some parts of the world, in inscriptions of certain ages this interpretation may make much more sense.

Dr. Douglas Reagan is an ecologist. This gives him a mental framework and a set of knowledge tools that is somewhat different than that of so many rock art researchers who usually tend to be from an archaeological background, or the arts.

While hiking in The Narrows of Utah’s Canyonlands Dr. Reagan observed a rock art panel like the examples from Kenneth Castleton’s book Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah. It included images of ducks or geese as well as images of our symbol in question. As an ecologist however, Douglas saw ducks among cattails, and he soon saw other examples. Douglas had observed and recognized a complex of water-related images in this dry and desert environment. Many images of various types of water fowl and shore birds have been long known from the 4-Corners region and Colorado Plateau. They are traditionally interpreted as a plea for rain through sympathetic magic. When found with the “atlatl” images of a circle or oval bisected by a straight line, they are interpreted as a hunting scene. Douglas Reagan has now given us an alternative interpretation, a wetlands scene.

p. 248, Fig. 7.99, Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Utah,

Vol. II, Kenneth B. Castleton.1987, Utah Museum

of Natural History, Salt Lake City.

Dr. Reagan applied his knowledge as an ecologist to an examination of the landforms of the area and found definite indications of much wetter periods in the past in the ground. In other words, instead of being a desert at the time the petroglyphs were created, the scenes of water birds and possible cat tail plants were created at a time that the area was much wetter. Reagan believes that he has since found evidence of this in the presence of soil deposits that were laid down in relatively still water, and in buried snail shells of a species that indicate the presence of lake water at the soil level that relates to the period of creation of the rock art.

So what do we make of this; it is certainly an intriguing possibility, as well as a reminder to us to look for the context before deciding that we know what we are talking about.

THE “S-WORD”, SHAMANISM – OR, THE DYING MAN IN LASCAUX REVISITED:

2011-07-09T16:10:00.002-06:00

The Dying Hunter, Lascaux, France.

On April 29, 2009, I published a posting about the famous panel of the wounded bison and the dying man in Lascaux Cave and how it was interpreted by the great Joseph Campbell. He believed that it represented a Shaman’s Duel based upon Australian aboriginal mythology. I took exception to his analysis, questioning the applicability of an Australian myth to a rock art panel separated from it by 12,000 miles in space and tens of thousands of years in time. Following the principal of Occam ’s razor I assume that it is most likely to represent just exactly what it seems to represent - a hunting accident.

In his 2002 book The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, David Lewis-Williams revisited the shamanism argument for the dying man panel. Lewis-Williams originally swept the rock art community with his early analysis of much of South African rock art in light of San (bushman) religious practices that he defined as Shamanism. He eventually served as director of the Rock Art Research Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand from which he retired in 2000. He has since published many important books and reached a position of respect world-wide. He has a great ability to organize and analyze data and search for clues and patterns.

As might be expected, considering his focus and early success on the interpretation of South African rock art in light of shamanic influences, he tends to find shamanism behind pretty much anything he looks at. At this point I must confess that I believe that the use of shamanism as an explanation of rock art is hugely overdone. I have gotten to the point where I think of shamanism as the “S”-word. It has reached the position where anyone who cannot come up with a better explanation for rock art just calls it shamanic. A few decades ago pretty much all rock art of animals was dismissed as “hunting magic” and much of the early respect afforded Lewis-Williams came from the fact that he very convincingly gave us an alternative to that overused term. We need to be very careful that we now do not just automatically substitute the “S- word” for “hunting magic” and continue to make the same mistake.

Self portrait by Samantha, 1998.

A number of years ago on a field trip an enthusiastic rock art fan explained to me that all human figures in rock art that have their arms stretched out straight represent shaman figures. Upon return from that trip to the museum where I worked as exhibits curator at the time I was confronted by the illustration above. It turned out that the picture had been done by a young girl named Samantha who had run out of space on the page when signing her name. The resulting picture had been posted on a lobby wall by the institution’s education curator.

I kept a copy of the picture because at that time its innocent childishness seemed to sum up so perfectly the statement that “all figures in rock art that have their arms outstretched straight represent shaman figures”; why she even spelled shaman almost correctly. At the very least it represents scientific proof as definitive as some of Lewis-Williams’.

It is a natural human impulse to assign answers to unexplained phenomena, but that does not make them correct.

POLYDACTYLISM IN ROCK ART – CONTINUED:

2011-07-02T16:09:00.001-06:00

Anasazi Ridge, UT. Photograph

by Richard Colman, 2011

On December 9, 2009, I published a posting on polydactylism (extra fingers or toes) in rock art, and explained Marie Wormington’s theory on what it indicates. At that time I wrote:

“Back in 1982 I had the privilege of meeting H. Marie Wormington on a few occasions. During the course of one conversation over dinner we discussed her theory of why so many 6-toed footprints (and 6-fingered hand prints) can be found in rock art.

Marie had joined the Denver Museum of Natural History staff in 1935 as an archaeologist, and was the curator of archeology there from 1937 to 1968. Her knowledge and opinions were extremely influential in early studies of prehistoric cultures of the 4-corners and Great Plains.

She explained to me that her theory had been based upon the circumstances of a Fremont culture burial that she had excavated many years before. This particular male skeleton was found with valuable grave goods suggesting a VIP, and she found that this person had displayed polydactylism - the man had six fingers. She had put those two facts together and theorized that perhaps the presence of the polydactylism had contributed to the person’s status. We frequently hear that among Native American cultures physical and mental differences were looked upon as marking a person as special instead of being a cause for discrimination against them. Following this thought it only made sense that a person born with six fingers might have gravitated to a position of influence in the society, perhaps a shaman or medicine man. And then, to expand on that thought we have to ask who was most likely to have been commemorated in rock art?

It is often assumed that a hand print in rock art represents a person’s signature or identity and, if this is indeed the case, the six-fingered hand print or footprint represents a particular important individual who possessed that trait.”

This particular example was photographed by Richard Coleman in 2011 at Anasazi Ridge, in the area of St. George, Utah. You can see that the two lower footprints each have six toes. Wormington’s hypothesis works for me here as well. Footprints with six toes on each foot would have been made that way on purpose, you just don’t miscount when making something like that. So, I see them as representing someone with polydactylism, someone specific. In other words they serve as a portrait of a certain individual; an individual perhaps memorialized by these images.

Also, at Anasazi Ridge, a pair of what appear to be bear paw prints with seven claws each can be found. Since the claws are the dangerous part, perhaps extra claws are meant to portray greater danger, or an encounter with a bear that involved great risk. Who knows?

THE OLDEST ART IN AMERICA - CLOVIS ART? – THE GAULT, TEXAS, ENGRAVINGS:

2011-06-25T13:16:00.000-06:00

Engraved stone, Clovis, Gault, TX.

Drawing by Peter Faris after a

photograph by Michael Collins.

I have written previously on some candidates for the earliest art in North America. These were the Vero Beach, Florida, engraved bone and the Cooper, Oklahoma, painted bison skull. The Cooper painted skull has been dated to the Fremont period and the Vero Beach engraving is problematical at best.

Purposefully made markings on stone from the Clovis culture have been recovered from deposits at Gault, Texas. A number of limestone plaques or flakes have been modified or decorated with lines scratched into them. Interpretations of the lines range from maps of surrounding drainages to illustrations of plants. A number of these engraved stones have been recovered from with identifiable artifacts from a Clovis context dating to approximately 13,500 years ago.

The example illustrated was recovered in proximity to a Clovis point made from “Alibates flint”. It shows engraved lines on both sides. D. Clark Wernecke and Michael Collins examined over 100 other stones from this location with purposeful markings on them as well which they date from 13,500 B.P. to 9,000 B.P. and reported on this to the September 2010 IFRAO Congress Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas. Their description of this example is that it “is limestone and has a design, on both sides, that incorporates parallel lines meeting with lines terminating in diamonds. It may represent plants or, as often found in iconography elsewhere, fletched darts.”

Wernecke and Collins also reported that some artifacts and stones found at Blackwater Draw, the type site for Clovis, had incised lines on them.

This suggests that Clovis period engraved stones must be considered as strong candidates at this time for the oldest art in North America.

Reference:

WERNECKE, D. Clark and Michael B. COLLINS
2010, “Patterns and Process: Some Thoughts on the Incised Stones from the
Gault Site, Central Texas, United States”, IFRAO Congress, September 2010 – Symposium: Pleistocene art of the Americas.

PROGRESSIVE ILLUMINATION IN CAVE ART INTERPRETATION:

2011-06-19T11:21:00.003-06:00

Painted aurochs, Lascaux, France.

We do not know whether or not any of the painted caves in Europe were conceived of as overall complex compositions although this is one thread historically pursued in attempts to unravel the “meaning” of the painted walls and chambers in the caves. Modern analysts measure the relationship of painted images and panels in the cave in terms of their proximity and distance from other images and panels, the cave entrance, etc.

There is no one space in any of the painted caves of Europe from which one can see all of the art. In general the art is scattered in panels in various locations throughout the cave, and in some isolated figures. This is done in a search for significance in their arrangement, both the placement of panels within caves and the arrangements of elements within the panels themselves. The prehistoric artists may have bypassed locations that were easily approached for places that are (and were then) quite hard to get to. This suggests that something about specific locations was quite important, and maybe the distances between was important as well. In other words, perhaps there is a reason why this image is supposed to be a certain distance from that image.

Illuminated cave art.

A potential viewer entering the cave would then see the painted images in a certain order, moving from this image or panel to the next in sequence. Certainly, with the simple illumination of torches and animal fat lamps used originally the painted images would emerge from the dark as one approached their location, only to fade into the dark again before one moved very far away. This suggests the possibility of an integrated interpretation of the overall in the same way that a modern Hollywood movie has scenes definitely assembled into the overall plot (think of story boards), with the spacing of panels and elements serving as the equivalent of timing in the narrative, the equivalent of spacing and time within the telling of the story.

The proponents of this theory would probably point out that the imagery contained in each panel would be similar to the actors in each scene in our movie, with some actors appearing in one scene, some appearing in another, some appearing in more and others in fewer scenes, but all necessary to the overall plot of the film.

While I cannot personally believe that they were originally conceived of, and produced, as an overall complex but unified whole, I can agree to the probability that they were seen that way by later visitors. Although we know that some of the painted caves of Europe were not visited by later visitors, I am not aware of that proscription for all caves. Imagine a later visitor entering one of these caves with his own torch or fat lamp for illumination and seeing for the first time the surprising and unexpected images. This viewer would also see them in some order and would, I believe, be forced to make up a narrative to explain the images in their order. This narrative would almost surely not be the same one that the original creators would have applied to their work, but it would be as powerful and important to these later viewers as it was to the original creators. Indeed their subsequent mythology and legends would necessarily accommodate the these pictures which require explanation by their very existence. Indeed, it is quite possible that the order in which the later viewers approached the contents of the cave would necessarily be different because the entrances to these caves are known to have changed over time. A rockfall or landslide could cover up one entrance while another one is being created by erosion. We know that for many of the caves our modern entrances are definitely not the same as the ones used originally.

In the American west we find little art in caves proper but much rock art in our western canyons and a the same case can be made for its viewing and interpretation. Wouldn’t the story you come away with depend on where you started? You can enter the canyon at its mouth, its head, or perhaps find a trail to drop down somewhere along the canyon’s length. This would also affect the order in which you saw the panels.

Our ancestors may have exited prehistory and entered history carrying a cosmic view and mythology based upon memories of their ancestor’s interpretation of the illustrated caves. This means that the old stories and legends that we learn could be directly traceable back in time to the stories and legends used to explain the cave paintings and other rock art. Our myths and legends could be traceable back to roots in the painted caves of Europe, and even today we are making up our own stories to explain them.

HAWAIIAN ROCK ART IN UTAH:

2011-06-11T11:11:00.000-06:00

Sea turtle petroglyph, Iosepa, UT.

Photograph by Benjamin Pykles.

In the last few months I have posted comments of a number of rock art sites I visited on a trip to Hawaii. What I had never expected was the fact that I could have visited Hawaiian rock art considerably closer to my home in Colorado.

Sea turtle petroglyph, Iosepa, UT.

Drawn by Peter Faris, after a

photograph by Benjamin Pykles.

In Skull Valley, Utah, west of Salt Lake City, Benjamin Pykles of the State University of New York at Potsdam has conducted archaeological investigation of the former site of the town of Iosepa. Pykles was assisted by Jonathan Reeves, an archaeology student at SUNY Potsdam. They recorded a remarkable group of petroglyph on the slope of Salt Mountain, overlooking the site of Iosepa and they presented their findings during a Society for American Archeology conference on April 1 in Sacramento, Calif. What makes these petroglyphs remarkable is the fact that they are mostly of tropical marine themes, and were done in a very Hawaiian-looking style.

Fish petroglyph, Iosepa, UT.

Drawn by Peter Faris, after a

photograph by Benjamin Pykles.

Subjects pictured in the 26 petroglyphs are reported to include fish, sea turtles, palm trees, a whale, and even what seems to represent a jellyfish, as well as more expected images such as a jackrabbit. The town of Iosepa had been founded in 1889 by Hawaiian converts to the Mormon Church who had moved to Utah with returning Mormon missionaries and settled in the Salt Lake City area.

Richard Poulsen, the President of the Iosepa Historical Society described the founding of the town in http://www.kued.org/productions/polynesian/history/.

“In the late 1800's the Mormon Church was expanding rapidly around the world due to the dedicated efforts of many diligent missionaries. Church membership grew especially fast in the Hawaiian Islands, where the native Polynesian people were quick to embrace the teachings of the gospel. Many of these Hawaiian converts felt a strong desire to come to Zion, where they could do temple work for themselves and for their ancestors. Soon arrangements were being made to undertake the journey, and these members began trickling into Utah as they accompanied missionaries returning to Utah from the Sandwich Islands. These pioneers settled into the Salt Lake Valley and its surrounding areas.

In 1889 a group of three Hawaiian converts and three return missionaries chose a section of land on Skull Valley's Rich Ranch for the purpose of forming a colony of Polynesian Saints. This colony was called Iosepa, the Hawaiian equivalent of Joseph, in honor of Joseph F. Smith, who had served a mission in the Hawaiian Islands.

On August 28, 1889, these Polynesian Saints moved to Iosepa, where lots were drawn for plots of land that had room for a home, garden, barn and corral. A sawmill was purchased and the Polynesians built homes, a chapel/assembly hall, a school, and a store in their community.”

The town developed steadily, and, with irrigation, became a thriving oasis in the Utah desert. The population grew to 228 souls and it was considered to be one of the great success stories in the colonization efforts of the church. Plantings thrived and included 300 walnut trees, 300 fruit trees, over 100 ornamental trees, grass, grape vines berries and flowers, especially noted were its yellow roses (Poulsen).

Poulsen continued “In 1915, Joseph F. Smith, then president of the Mormon Church, announced plans to build a temple at Laie, on the North Shore of Oahu. Some of the Hawaiians decided to return to the Islands, where they would now have more opportunities to perform sacred ordinances than they did in Utah, since the temple in Salt Lake City was 75 miles away. Church officials did not advise the colonists as a group to return, but did offer financial assistance to those who needed it. All of this had a snowballing effect, with more and more families deciding to return to Hawaii. Soon, even those who wished to remain in Iosepa were uncertain of the town's future. By January 1917, the town was virtually abandoned.”

Although these have to be considered historic (not prehistoric) images there is apparently no record of their purpose or any possible meaning. They may have been an appeal to remembered ancestral spirits to watch over the settlement, or perhaps just a vestige of homesickness on the part of one of the colonists. In any case, the petroglyphs of Iosepa are a record of a fascinating historical episode.

Reference:
http://www.kued.org/productions/polynesian/history/

A HISTORIC INSCRIPTION - James Ragen, Co. H, 2nd CO. CAV, Apr.20, ‘65:

2011-06-04T15:44:00.000-06:00

James Ragen inscription, Bent's New Fort, CO.

Photo - Bill McGlone.

This inscription is carved on the cliff along the Arkansas River near the site of Bent’s New Fort, located a few miles downriver from Bent’s Old Fort. In the late 1840s Indian troubles caused a decline in trade, which made Bent’s business unsustainable. Wm. Bent attempted to sell it to the army but they would not meet his price so in 1849 he blew the fort up. In 1853 Bent built a new stone fort to the east of the old fort in what is now Prowers County, Colorado. In 1860, Fort Wise was established by the US Army one mile west of the site of Bent’s New Fort and in 1861 its name was changed to Fort Lyon. William Bent left his new stone fort and rented it to the army as a storage depot. He retired to a farm at Boggsville, along the Purgatory River. Unfortunately Fort Lyon had been built too near the river and in early 1865 a spring ice dam on the Arkansas River backed the river up and flooded the buildings. The fort was moved to a new site near Las Animas in Bent County, Colorado in 1865.

Old Fort Lyon, fr. Hyde, The Life of Geo. Bent, 1968.

The Second Colorado Cavalry was organized in October 1863, in St. Louis, MO, by consolidation of the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Regiments. James Ragen enlisted with the rank of Private and was assigned to Company H. Companies F, G, H, and K, were on duty in Colorado at Fort Lyon and other points until November 1863. “Company K stayed at Fort Lyon till the month of November; then Companies F, G, and H of the Third Regiment, in obedience to general order, concentrated with Company K of the Second at Fort Lyon and received orders to march for the States. Accordingly, on the twentieth day of November, 1863, with Major Pritchard in command, we started at noon and made about twelve miles.” While Company K of the Second Colorado was crossing the Plains the rest of the regiment, including Company H which was already on duty in Arkansas, received orders to march to Kansas City preparatory to consolidation. Another trooper in Company H of the Second Colorado Cavalry was John Johnson, otherwise known as “liver-eating” Johnson, the notable mountain man and the model for the character of Jeremiah Johnson in the movie of the same name.

Lt. Col. Theodore Dodd (L.) and Col. James H. Ford (R.),

photo archived at Carlisle Barracks.

“The first and only colonel of the regiment was James H. Ford, Theodore Dodd was the lieutenant colonel. At the time of the consolidation Company A of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry (Dodd’s former company) became Company B of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry. Company B of the 2nd Colorado Infantry (originally Ford’s Independent Company) became Company A of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry.” In January, 1864, the 2nd Colorado Cavalry was ordered into the Missouri border counties to fight against Confederate “bushwhackers” and in October, 1864, was part of the Union force raised to repel the Missouri invasion of Confederate General Sterling Price. When he withdrew, the 2nd Colorado Cavalry joined the pursuit, meeting his forces for the last time near Fayetteville, Arkansas, in November 1864.

In December 1864 they were moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where Colonel Ford, with the Brevet rank of Brigadier General, commanded the military district of the Upper Arkansas. The 2nd Colorado Cavalry was largely devoted to escorting supply and wagon trains, and occasionally skirmishing with Indians. At Fort Riley, Kansas, there were eight companies of the 2nd Colorado, accompanied by one section of the 9th Wisconsin Artillery. Two companies of the 2nd Colorado were also stationed at Fort Larned with one company of the 12th Kansas Cavalry, one company of the 11th Kansas Cavalry, and one section of the 9th Wisconsin Artillery. On December 31, 1864, Col. Ford had 24 officers and 803 men present, able for duty, and in the saddle. Of course, there were many not in the saddle.

The last troops of the 2nd Colorado Cavalry were mustered out in September 1865 leaving this inscription as a tangible record of the events. It reminds us of the history of the area, and gives us a peek into the complicated stories of the early years of American settlement of the West.

THE FLUTE-PLAYING ARMADILLO:

2011-05-28T21:19:00.002-06:00

Flute-playing armadillo, on a private ranch north of Santa Fe, NM.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1994.

Field sketch of flute-playing armadillo.

Peter Faris, 1994.

I photographed this illustration on a private ranch North of Santa Fe, New Mexico. It has been interpreted as a flute-playing armadillo, which I have no argument with since it looks like that more than anything else. There are extraneous figures on the rock that confuse the image somewhat (apparently two crude anthropomorphs among others) so I have included a black and white field sketch as well.

Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, New Mexico.

Photo: John and Esther Faris, 1988.

The second petroglyph is from Three Rivers Petroglyph Site in New Mexico, and is often called a rabbit because of the long ears. If, however, you look at a photograph of an armadillo you will see that they have quite long ears as well. Additionally, this figure has a long, narrow, pointed tail and I cannot think that it is truly meant to be a rabbit. It has a patterned body that might indicate the pattern of an armadillo’s scales, and indeed is also holding a stick or flute in its forepaws much like my other example.

Researching the armadillo in Native American mythology gives one a number of symbolic meanings for this creature. According to the Legends of America website armadillo represents “Safety oriented, grounded, and has boundaries”. Support Native American Art stated that armadillo “Understands personal boundary and respects the boundaries of others; carries protection at all times; understanding of vulnerabilities; empathy; discrimination.” None of this carries any musical connotation at all.

Perhaps the most interesting result of my search, however, is the following myth from Latin America found on Americanfolklore.net referring to “The Armadillo’s Song”.

Armadillo's Song, A Bolivian Legend retold by S.E. Schlosser.
There once lived an armadillo who loved music more than anything else in the world. After every rainfall, the armadillo would drag his shell over to the large pond filled with frogs and he would listen to the big green frogs singing back and forth, back and forth to each other in the most amazing voices.
"Oh," thought the armadillo, "Oh how I wish I could sing."

The armadillo would creep to the edge of the water and watch the frogs leaping and swimming in a frantic green ballet, and they would call back and forth, back and forth in beautiful, musical tones. He loved to listen to the music they made as they spoke, though he didn't understand their words; which was just as well - for the frogs were laughing at this funny animal that wanted so badly to sing like a frog.
"Don't be ridiculous," sang the frogs as they played. "Armadillos can't sing."

This experience was repeated with crickets that moved into a house near him, and they also ridiculed his desire to sing like them.

Then one day a man came down the road carrying a cage full of canaries. They were chirping and flittering and singing songs that were more beautiful even than those of the crickets and the frogs. The armadillo was entranced. He followed the man with the cage down the road as fast as his little legs would carry him, listening to the canaries singing.
"Oh," gasped the armadillo, "Oh how I wish I could sing." Inside the cage, the canaries twittered and giggled. "Don't be ridiculous," sang the canaries as they flapped about. "Armadillos can't sing."

The poor tired armadillo couldn't keep up with the man and the cage, and finally he fell exhausted at the door of the great wizard who lived in the area. Realizing where he was, the armadillo decided to beg a boon of the man.
Timidly, the armadillo approached the wizard, who was sitting in front of his house and said: "Great wizard, it is my deepest desire to learn to sing like the frogs and the crickets and the canaries."
The wizard's lips twitched a little in amusement, for who had ever heard of an armadillo that could sing. But he realized that the little animal was serious. He bent low to the ground and looked the creature in the eye. "I can make you sing, little armadillo," he said. "But you do not want to pay the price, for it will mean your death."
"You mean if I die I will be able to sing?" asked the armadillo in amazement.
"Yes, this is so," said the wizard.
"Then I want to die right now!" said the armadillo. "I would do anything to be able to sing!"

The wizard and the armadillo discussed the matter for many hours, for the wizard was reluctant to take the life of such a fine armadillo. But the creature insisted, and so the wizard finally killed the armadillo, made a wonderful musical instrument from his shell, and gave it to the finest musician in the town to play. Sometimes the musician would play his instrument by the pond where the frogs lived, and they would stare at him with big eyes and say: "Ai! Ai! The armadillo has learned to sing." Sometimes the musician would play his instrument by the house where the crickets lived, and they would creep outside to stare at him with big eyes and say: "Ai! Ai! The armadillo has learned to sing."
And often the musician would visit the home of his friend who owned the cage full of canaries - who was also a musician - and the two men would play their instruments together while the little birds watched with fluttering wings and twittered in amazement: "Ai! Ai! The armadillo has learned to sing." And so it was. The armadillo had learned to sing at last, and his voice was the finest in the land. But like the very best musicians in the world, the armadillo sacrificed his Life for his Art.

This myth refers to the creation of the Latin American musical instrument known as the charanga, and it is most definitely not prehistoric. According to Wikipedia “the charango is a small South American stringed instrument of the lute family traditionally made with the shell of the back of an armadillo. It typically has 10 strings in five courses of 2 strings each, though other variations exist. The instrument was invented in the early 18th century in the Vice-Royalty of Peru (nowadays Perú and Bolivia).” Are we entitled to conjecture that there may have been prehistoric roots linking armadillos with music that later were manifested in this myth? In other words where could the origins of the singing armadillo be?

We know of myths and legends in the American southwest that seem to have been adopted as a result of influences from Central America. So could this myth from 18th century Central America explain these prehistoric petroglyphs? No, of course not. Are these animals actually even armadillos, well perhaps. If any of my readers have a suggestion I am very interested in hearing it, but until then it is an interesting story and a charming myth.

References:
http://americanfolklore.net/folklore/latin-american-folklore/
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-totems.html
http://www.support-native-american-art.com/Native-American-Animal-Symbols.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charango

BIGHORN SHEEP PETROGLYPHS - GROCERIES, OR METAPHOR?:

2011-05-22T22:08:00.000-06:00

Fremont Indian State Park, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1992.

Back in the 1980s I was invited to speak about rock art at a meeting being held in the town of Springfield in southeastern Colorado. As part of the presentation I was talking about bighorn sheep petroglyphs which are very common in that area. I don’t honestly remember exactly what I was saying about them, but I was rudely interrupted from the floor by someone who stood up and loudly proclaimed that LaVan Martineau had solved the question of bighorn sheep petroglyphs. “They are a metaphor for travel. The clues needed to understand their meaning are that the length of the legs represents the distance to be traveled, and the contour of the belly of the sheep represents how rough the country to be crossed is. Bighorn sheep petroglyphs with a deeply rounded belly show the contour of the country to consist of deep valleys, in other words rough country with plenty of mountains and valleys to cross”(Martineau 1973).

The photograph of petroglyphs from Fremont Indian State Park in Utah includes two bighorn petroglyphs. According to Martineau that would refer to two trips, presumably taken by the maker of the images. Also, their bodies are shaped differently so that means that the country they passed through varied on those trips.

From The Rocks Begin to Speak, LaVan Martineau, 1976, p.122.

In his book, The Rocks Begin To Speak, Martineau illustrates a mountain sheep (which he calls a goat) and his analysis says that the “symbol – of a goat with four legs signifies travel”. Martineau proceeded to read this image as the story of Major John Wesley Powell’s exploratory voyage through the Grand Canyon in 1869. “The horn incorporates with the goat’s back to form a V on its side, meaning open, or an opening – in this case the opening of a canyon, the Grand Canyon itself. This highest horn is also crooked, denoting the crookedness of the canyon, it also forms the goat’s head to denote going into a crooked canyon’’ (Martineau 1973:122).

Martineau went on to explain that “the other horn traversing the full length of this goat’s back indicates a journey the full length, or from one end to the other of this canyon. This lower horn is a single one, a doubled horn would indicate a safe journey. This was obviously not the case , since the Paiutes killed three of Major Powell’s men who had left the expedition, supposedly near Separation Rapids”. As I have previously written, Martineau claimed that he learned to read the symbols in rock art during training for the US Army Intelligence Corps. Well, I also went through the US Army Intelligence Corps training and served in the US Army Intelligence Corps, and I can testify that there was nothing in that training that had any relevance to rock art.

Wounded bighorn sheep, Three Rivers Petroglyph Park,

New Mexico. Photo: Jack and Esther Faris, 1988.

In fact the illustration of the bighorn sheep from Three Rivers Petroglyph Park in New Mexico with three arrows sticking in him provides strong evidence that at least some bighorn sheep rock art represents groceries.

Flint blade from Baca County, Colorado.

Drawn by Peter Faris, 1994.

Shortly after the episode in Springfield, I had the opportunity to view a cache of large blade tools that had been discovered in a rock shelter in that same area by the wife of the rancher that owned that particular parcel of land. These impressive blades had been struck out of Alibates flint. I borrowed one of the blade tools which was chipped into an effective knife blade, and turned it over to Dr. Richard Marlar, who was at that time perfecting his techniques for detecting and identifying blood protein residues on stone tools. He had discovered the amazing durability of blood protein residues which last for surprisingly long periods of time on a stone surface. Dr. Marlar ran his tests on this blade and found positive signs of bison, deer, sheep, and rabbit blood on that blade. In other words, back before it was cached prehistorically this blade had been used as a knife to cut up those animals, or at least had come into contact with blood from those animals. From this we can probably deduce that the ancient inhabitants of southeastern Colorado had hunted and butchered bighorn sheep, probably the desert bighorn variety.

To me this fact provides a strong piece of evidence that the ancient images of bighorn sheep are more likely to have represented hunting records and food resources, than they are to have represented metaphors for travel. Which brings us back to the original question, are bighorn sheep petroglyphs statements about hunting a food source (groceries), or are they a metaphor for travel? In my view the Alibates flint blade that had butchered bighorn sheep also butchered the idea of the bighorn being a metaphor for travel, but I do not expect that this reasoning will affect true believers.

On the other hand, if we want to make up a meaning that satisfies both possibilities it would be that the bighorn sheep petroglyph represents the food needed for the trip – groceries and travel metaphor in one! However, our making it up has no bearing on the truth of the situation. The risk here is in believing our own pronouncements too seriously. Remember, we are trying to figure out what the ancient peoples who produced the rock art meant by it, not trying to figure out what we think it might mean. There is often a big difference

AN OPTICAL ILLUSION? - IN ROCK ART:

2011-05-14T15:04:00.000-06:00

Double Kokopelli, from Dorothy Hoard, 1995,

Sentinels on Stone, the Petroglyphs of Los Alamos,

Los Alamos Historical Society, Los Alamos, p. 11,

photograph by Betty Lilienthal.

Double Kokopelli reversed, from Dorothy Hoard, 1995,

Sentinels on Stone, the Petroglyphs of Los Alamos,

Los Alamos Historical Society, Los Alamos, p. 11,

photograph by Betty Lilienthal.

This photograph is found in the book Sentinels on Stone by Dorothy Hoard (1995:11), with photographs by Betty Lilienthal. It shows a remarkable image of a kokopelli or flute player with some extra features. The remarkable thing about this flute player is that he works both ways, right side up and upside down. He is a twinned figure containing two images in one. This is, perhaps, analogous to the optical illustion of a rabbit's head that can also be a duck's head, and the drawing of the face of an old woman that can also be seen as a 3/4 rear view of a young woman. It also seems to be related to the phenomenon of the “ambigram”, a word written in such a font that it reads the same either side up. As the flute player image is the product of a pre-literate culture the term “ambigram” does not fit well, but in order to preserve the concept perhaps we can use the variation ambiglyph to describe this petroglyph. In any cased it is a remarkable example, purposely created to work as an image of kokopelli, the flute player, that can be recognized either way up.

Reference:

Dorothy Hoard,

1995 Sentinels on Stone, the Petroglyphs of Los Alamos, Los Alamos Historical Society, Los Alamos, photography by Betty Lilienthal, p.11.

SUNDOWN INSCRIPTIONS:

2011-05-07T08:03:00.000-06:00

Reviewing James Lowen’s book, SUNDOWN TOWNS: A HIDDEN DIMENSION OF AMERICAN RACISM, The New Press, New York, 2005.

Sundown Towns is the descriptive name applied to many American towns that had posted signs at the city limits warning African/American people to be out of the town limits before dark. The inscription was generally some variation of a warning to “get your black ass out of town before dark”. How does this historical racist phenomenon possibly impinge upon the world of rock art? Well, if painted on rock the message qualifies as a shameful but historical inscription.

This writer can testify to the presence of a wooden sign on the outskirts of one small town in east Tennessee in the late-1960s that said “N - - - - -r, don’t let the sun set on you in this town”. As convenient shorthand for the “get your black ass out of town” version many locales reportedly simply sported a painting of a black donkey (ass) on a convenient cliff or rock near the town limits, with its head pointed away from town. Those for whom the message was intended understood the message all too well.

The slightly blurry version pictured was copied from James Loewen’s 2005 book, Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism, published by The New Press, in New York. Loewen credits this picture to one Margaret Alam who snapped the slightly blurred image outside of a Liberty, Tennessee, in 2003. Loewen gave no indication of when the image might have originally been painted, hopefully it is a holdover from an earlier time of more overt racism, although it seems significant that no one had removed it by 2003.

Why bring such an unpleasant thing up at all, wouldn’t it be better to just ignore this? I believe that if we are serious about trying to understand rock art we have to take the bad with the good. This most certainly qualifies as a historic inscription casting light upon a part of American history that still has not been completely resolved, and as such it has as much or more relevance to our field of study than does William Clark’s signature on Pompey’s Pillar outside of Billings, Montana, although it is much less pleasant to contemplate. Indeed this particular historic inscription implies events and ideas that still resonate in our society and our daily lives.

NEANDERTAL ROCK ART:

2011-04-29T08:25:00.000-06:00

La Ferrassie rock slab with cupules, redrawn from

p. 25, Chakravarty and Bednarik, Indian Rock Art

and Its Global Context, 1997. Peter Faris, 11-21-10.

There has recently been a spate of interest in the question of Neandertal cognition. A recent scientific news story has circulated about an example of Neandertal jewelry exemplified by a pierced and purposefully painted scallop shell. My point then was that I really cannot doubt that a human mind that has been shown to be capable of creating such an example of purposeful decoration could have not been capable of another form of purposeful decoration, in this case rock art.

In 1933, in the cave of La Ferrassie, in the Dordogne in southwest France, the burial of a Neandertal child was discovered which had been covered by a large limestone slab. On the underside of this slab an arrangement of man made pits had been created, commonly known as cupules these are usually considered to be an element of rock art. They are described as two larger hollows and eight pairs of smaller holes. Given its association with evidence of Mousterian occupation these cupules have been assigned a date of approximately 60,000 years BCE.

So here is my point, since we classify cupules as rock art when we find it to have been created by Native Americans, Australian aboriginals, or any other modern human populations in any part of the world, why is it not rock art if it was created by Neandertals? The cupules on this slab have been called the “oldest rock art in Europe” and do represent, if we accept cupules as rock art, an example of Neandertal rock art. What else might be awaiting our recognition?

IS THERE NEANDERTAL ART?

2011-04-23T14:32:00.001-06:00

A COMMENT ON “HEAVY BROWS, HIGH ART”, an article by Charles Q. Choi in the March 2010 issue of Scientific American magazine.

Painted scallop shell, Spain. From Scientific American,

March, 2010 issue, written by Charles Q. Choi,

photo by João Zilhão, University of Bristol.

One fascinating question in the study of rock art in Europe and the Middle East involves the great span of time that these areas were occupied by Homo neandertalensis, who left traces of their material culture, burials, and habitation, but no commonly recognized rock art panels or images. In his book The Mind In The Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art, David Lewis-Williams (2002) ambitiously tackled that question. In questioning the differences between Neandertal and Homo sapiens he looks at the remains left by our sapiens ancestors – “instances of material culture, body adornment and burial were both associated with the expression and construction of hierarchical, or at least differentiated, society that was not simply based on age, sex, and physical strength. For the Neanderthals, this kind of society was – literally – unthinkable.” We have long known the Neandertal material culture as Mousterian, discovered in the earlier layers of many habitation sites in their area of occupation. Archaeologists have also discovered Neandertal burials, some with indications of purposeful ceremonial components. We now know of manufactured items of body adornment from Neandertal deposits, apparently satisfying Lewis-William’s third criteria.

Archaeologists from the University of Bristol in England have found 50,000-year-old jewelry at two caves in southeastern Spain, 10,000 years before modern humans entered Europe. An article in the March 2010 Scientific American written by Charles Q. Choi, reports that archaeologist João Zilhão and his colleagues discovered in Cueva (Cave) Antón a pierced king scallop shell painted with orange pigment made of yellow goethite and red hematite collected some five kilometers from the site. Among material unearthed at Cueva de los Aviones, alongside quartz and flint artifacts, found two pierced cockleshells that were painted with traces of red hematite. No dyes were found on food shells or stone tools, suggesting the jewelry was not just painted at random.

Indeed, in the same article “anthropologist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St. Louis, who did not take part in this study, hopes that the finds “will start to bury the idea that’s been around for 100 years—that Neandertals died out because they were stupid.” The jewelry also implies that "Neandertals might have taught our ancestors how to paint—or vice versa.”

We would do well to remember that in our modern culture we do classify the design and creation of jewelry as an art form. While this report does not connect Neandertal abilities and activities with the production of cave art, it is certainly direct evidence that speaks to their abilities and interests. If the Neandertals of southeastern Spain could collect or trade for these scallop shells, manufacture the paint from goethite and hematite, paint the shells, string them on a cord of their manufacture, and wear them for personal adornment, can anyone seriously believe that they could not have painted on cave walls the images of animals from their environment and symbols from their imaginations? We may yet hope for the eventual discovery of rock art created by the Neandertal people. Or conversely, ironically, we may already have it but because of cultural bias simply not have recognized it and attributed it to them.

THE EARLIEST NORTH AMERICAN ART – THE VERO BEACH MAMMOTH BONE:

2011-04-16T15:11:00.000-06:00

Carved bone, Vero Beach, Florida. Photograph from fhttp://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090610-oldest-art-mammoth-picture.html

A candidate for the earliest known art in North America was found a few years ago near Vero Beach, in east central Florida. Vero Beach is known to fossil collectors for its prehistoric mammal fossils and shark teeth. Fossil hunter James Kennedy had discovered a 15” (38 centimeter) piece of bone and placed it in a box under his sink for storage for a time and had retrieved it and dusted it off when he discovered that something was engraved on the bone.

Writing in the National Geographic Blog Central, June 10, 2009, Chris Sloan reported that “when the specimen came to the attention of Dr. Barbara Purdy and other experts at the University of Florida and the Florida Museum of Natural History, they initiated a study which has thus far been unable to show that it is a fake. At this time, they are cautiously supporting its authenticity. Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History said, "One does have to wonder, but at face value it looks pretty good.”

Purdy, a professor emerita at the University of Florida, and scientists there, also “determined the bone belonged to one of three animals: a mammoth, a mastodon, or a giant sloth—all of which died out at the end of the last ice age, between about 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. I literally went on the assumption that [the carving] was a fake," said Purdy, who was later convinced of its authenticity after the bone had passed a barrage of tests by University of Florida forensic scientists. The examinations revealed that the light etching is not recent, and that it was made a short time after the animal died, according to Purdy.”

Now we know that in other parts of the world where humans and mammoths co-existed, the humans left imagery of the mammoths in paint, bone and stone. To a certain extent we have to then ask ourselves if they did that elsewhere, why would they not have done so here as well. Until further scientific testing has managed to conclude the question of the engraving’s authenticity and date as an ancient artifact, we will have to leave the discussion open, but it is a fascinating possibility.

Reference:

http://blogs.ngm.com/blog_central/2009/06/mammoth-art-in-america-or-mammoth-fraud.html

WATER MONSTERS - UNKTEHI AND UNCEGILA:

2011-04-10T11:34:00.001-06:00

Winnebago medicine animal,

Nebraska Historical Society.

Among the proto-historic tribes of the Great Plains (and one assumes the prehistoric tribes as well) there was a nearly universal belief in gigantic reptilian underwater monsters that are referred to as giant horned water serpents. For the Lakota peoples this creature was known as Unktehi. Unktehi was the male of the species, his mate was known as Uncegila. These creatures lived in lakes and rivers, and although most people would not claim to have seen them directly, everyone knew of someone who had seen one. In this respect their belief resembles the phenomenon known as an urban myth today.

Omaha water monster, 1906.

Juvenile mammoth skull, Lamb Springs, Douglas

county, Colorado. Photo Peter Faris.

Portrayals of these creatures generally show them with four short legs, large horns on their heads, and a long tail, usually with a saw-toothed backbone. It has been said that all mythology is based upon some reality. In this case I believe that the belief in Unktehi and similar creatures originated with observations of mammoth and mastodon fossils. Spring runoff erosion of riverbanks would occasionally have exposed the gigantic bones and skulls of these giant elephantids and, with no modern analog for the creature, the people would have figured out the best answer they could to them. In this case they assumed that they were found on the riverbank because they had lived in the river. Similarly, Inuit and other northern peoples usually believe that mammoth bones come from giant creatures which live underground because they find them weathering from the earth. In many of these beliefs the light of the sun is believed to be deadly to the creatures because by the time that they emerge to the light of day they only exist as bones or other remains. The abnormally large size of the bones on the riverbank would prove the gigantic size of the creatures. I believe that the idea of huge horns on their heads come from the tusks of the mammoths. Native American observers had no animal analog for the front-projecting tusks of an elephantid, instead they would assume that they projected upward like the horns of a bison, but immeasurably larger. Simply turn the mammoth skull upside down and there you have it, an immense skull with gigantic horns that stick up from the creature’s head.

Jonathan Carver, 1766-7, drawing of

Sioux water monster, British Museum.

Although called giant horned water serpents these creatures are usually portrayed as having short legs. Presumably, like the Sisiutl (see link below) that I posted about on May 1, 2010, they could grow legs whenever they wished. I believe that the myths of Unktehi and Uncegila represent the Native American’s creative solution to the questions raised by the giant fossils, and that portrayals of these myths provide the imagery in their art, including the rock art.

SISIUTL POSTING:
http://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/sisiutl-two-headed-serpent.html

UNLIKELY AT BEST – CADBOROSAURUS:

2011-04-02T14:58:00.000-06:00

Sea-wolf petroglyph at center-left, Nanaimo Petroglyph

Park, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Photo Peter Faris, 1995.

There is a new program on the National Geographic Channel on our cable that is named The Beast Hunter. The host of the program, biologist Pat Spain, searches for mythological creatures that are unknown to science but recorded in the mythology of peoples around the world. Various episodes have followed him in a search for the Mokele-mbembe in Africa, and Mapinguari in the Amazon. This program seems to be basically an exercise is crypto-zoology but is supposedly given scientific credence by the host’s degrees.

One recent episode concerned a search for the so-called Cadborosaurus in the waters around Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Various crypto-zoologists have suggested that the cadborosaurus actually exists and is descended from a relic population of plesiosaurs or mososaurs. Descriptions by witnesses who claim sightings often include a long neck, a serpentine body seen in two or three loops out of the water, and a vaguely horse-like head.

Sea-wolf petroglyph at center-left, Nanaimo Petroglyph

Park, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.

Drawing after Indian Rock Carvings, by Beth Hill,

Hancock House Publishers, 1980, p.22.

The host used as part of his evidence for the existence of this creature petroglyphs from the Nanaimo Petroglyph Park on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The petroglyphs illustrated are ones that are usually identified as the “sea wolf” of Northwest Coast mythology. The sea wolf is a mythological sea animal of the Pacific Northwest native cultures of the Haida, the Tsimshian and the Tlingit. This mythological creature that is interpreted in many different forms throughout these diverse cultures often is often portrayed with the head of the wolf and the fins of the killer whale. Native representation of this beast often depicts a long serpentine animal and a dog like or crocodilian head, sometimes with small forelimbs.

Sea-wolf petroglyph, Sproat Lake, Vancouver Island,

British Columbia. Photo Peter Faris, 1995

Is there a “sea wolf”, I certainly cannot say. If such a legendary creature actually is based upon reality it may have been inspired by sightings of the cadborosaurus. Does cadborosaurus exist? I really don’t know although it is hard to picture the existence of such a large sea creature without a little more factual proof. For those of us who enjoy flights of imagination it is an entertaining program, and this episode, at least, provided some really good close-up views of the petroglyphs of Nanaimo which are notoriously difficult to photograph. I suppose that they deserve credit for that.

References

Hill, Beth
1980 Indian Rock Carvings, Hancock House Publishers, Surrey, BC.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/beast-hunter/all/Overview?source=banner_semgngc_170

COLORADO ROCK ART ASSOCIATION 2011 CALL FOR PAPERS:

2011-03-29T10:11:00.000-06:00

The Colorado Rock Art Association is seeking speakers for its annual meeting in Fort Collins, Colorado, on April 29 – May 1, 2011 (papers to be presented on Saturday, April 30). Paper length may be around 20 to 30 minutes and should focus on rock art of Colorado or surrounding areas, or related aspects of rock art study in general, ethnoarchaeology, educational programs, or conservation efforts. Particular attention is requested for integration of rock art into other aspects of culture such as regional or site interpretations in which rock art is a part.

Please submit abstracts of 150 words or less by April 9, 2010, to Peter Faris, archeofaris@yahoo.com. See http://www.coloradorockart.org for more information.

2011-03-26T18:25:00.002-06:00

E=MC²- A MODERN INSCRIPTION:

E=MC²inscription, near Los Alamos, NM. Photo. Betty Lilienthal.

At one point early in the formal study of rock art, it was assumed that much of the art addressed the question of success in the hunt and game animal fertility. This was about the same period when any artifact that an archaeologist found but could not identify specifically was listed as “ceremonial object”. Now, as I have written elsewhere, the favorite catch-phrase for rock art imagery not specifically otherwise identified is that it is “shamanic”. I doubt that this is much truer today than it was during the preceding periods of dubious assumptions in labeling rock art.

This modern inscription is illustrated in Dorothy Hoard’s book Los Alamos Outdoors (1993:75). It is assumed to have been produced by an Anglo scientist from the Los Alamos atomic project. Dorothy cites Betty Lilienthal with photo credits for that volume.

Researchers have always assumed that much of rock art consisted of inscriptions of a spiritual nature. That has apparently not changed much in our modern era. After all, what could go more deeply and directly to questions of an ethical nature, a spiritual sense, or of man’s relationship to the divine, than Einstein’s equation E=MC^2. It directly addresses a view of creation and it opened up research into nuclear energy that led to the atomic bomb and much of modern science. As such, it seems to fit perfectly into the tradition of rock art as a spiritual expression. It may even be the modern version of Shamanic.

Reference:
Hoard, Dorothy
1993 Los Alamos Outdoors, Los Alamos Historical Society, Los Alamos, NM. – illustration on page 75.

BIRDS IN ROCK ART - PARROTS:

2011-03-20T14:20:00.000-06:00

Parrot and mask, West Mesa, Albuquerque,

NM, Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

On December 15, 2010, I posted a column about petroglyphs of macaws at Hovenweep National Monument. In it I discussed them as indications of long distance trade networks between the cultures of the American Southwest and Meso-America in ancient times. I also discussed the value of their brightly colored feathers to the ancient inhabitants of the southwest. Although most of the recorded data concerning the presence of these birds comes from Mimbres and Hohokam sites, pictures of these birds in other locations (like Hovenweep) testify to their equal importance in the Ancestral Puebloan peoples of the Four-Corners area.

Parrots, star, and eagle tail headdress. Petroglyph Nat.

Mon., Albuquerque, NM. Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

Another area with parrots or macaws pictured as petroglyphs on the rocks comes from the Petroglyph National Monument on West Mesa at Albuquerque, New Mexico. The photographs of parrot petroglyphs accompanying this posting were taken there in 1988.

Close-up of parrots, and eagle tail headdress. Petroglyph

Nat. Mon., Albuquerque, NM. Photo: Peter Faris, 1988.

Both photos include a 6” scale to give an indication of the size of the images. The first picture shows a single parrot in side view along with what I believe is intended to represent a mask. The second picture is of a pair of parrots pictured belly to belly facing each other. This second portrayal is on a boulder with other sky themes including a four-pointed star and another mask surmounted by an eagle tail fan. As can be seen the facial area of the mask is below the surface of the ground and there may be more unseen rock art down there as well.

TAGGING, AND TERRITORIAL MARKING IN ROCK ART:

2011-03-13T13:18:00.000-06:00

Aurora, Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 2010.

One of the motives often cited for the creation of rock art is territorial marking. Somewhat like a wolf or coyote scent marking his territory, the creator of the rock art is supposed to be putting a message on the rock for all to see stating “this is my territory”. As I understand it this is pretty much also the motivation for tagging (the spray painting of symbols and/or messages) in our modern society. The image I have included in this article is an example of tagging from just a little distance outside of my neighborhood in 2009. So why was this design painted on the surface of this electrical control box? While I am not sure of the reason, I suspect it was an adolescent’s cry for attention - I am here! Another possibility is that it was a territorial marker, exactly as in the theory postulated.

Fremont Indian State Park, Utah. Photo: Peter Faris, 2001.

I have friends who believe passionately in this theory of territorial marking, who see a pattern in the placement of rock art images on geographical features near the edges of territorial boundaries which they interpret as boundary markers to warn other groups that they have reached the land of our group. Even if we accept the reality of this pattern of symbol placement at territorial boundaries there is another possible motivation for this effect that they totally overlook. The boundaries of our territory are not only the part of our land first contacted by foreigners; they are also often the farthest places in our territory from our residential centers. In other words they would also be the best locations to place something that we do not want our own people to have unrestricted access to. Whether we are trying to keep something secret or trying to keep something of spiritual significance undefiled by our profane eyes, a spot as far as possible from where our people live would tend to fall on the boundaries of our territory.

Is this at all possible? There are examples, at least in the religions of peoples of the Great Plains, where items of great spiritual significance are supposed to be concealed from the eyes of others. The design on the shield of a Plains Indian warrior was considered so sacred that it had to be concealed from prying eyes, and the shield was kept hidden in a decorated cover except when opened to carry into combat. There are also instances of objects that are sacred to the tribe or group being kept wrapped up in a so-called “medicine bundle” and concealed in the care of a specially appointed keeper, only to be opened and viewed by the few select people who are considered qualified, on the occasion of special rites or ceremonies. In light of these examples, hiding images of sacred significance as far from the prying eyes of the rest of the group could make sense.

So what is it; boundary marker, scent marking, or sacred imagery? I do not yet know any way we could differentiate. I guess that we will probably individually continue to apply the interpretation that makes the most sense to us personally. I must admit however that I enjoy speculating that the creation of many of the abstract symbols in rock art was done by adolescent prehistoric taggers, and that their parents could be seen shaking their heads in dismay over such vandalism to the neighborhood.

BIRD-HEADED FIGURES:

2011-03-05T13:20:00.006-07:00

Bird-headed figure, Kiva Point, Ute Mountain Ute

Reservation, CO. Photo: Peter Faris, 1981

Bird-headed figure, Kiva Point, Ute Mountain Ute

Reservation, CO. Photo: Peter Faris, 1981.

Arrow is pointing to bird on the anthropomorph's head.

One of the more enigmatic, and interesting, themes in the rock art of the 4-corners and the Colorado Plateau, is the bird-headed figure. Many of these figures have a bird standing on the head of an anthropomorphic figure; others have the head of the anthropomorph replaced by a bird.

Tule reed duck decoy, from Marsha C. Bol, ed. (1998, 104).

In 1998, Sandra L. Olsen wrote in Animals in American Indian Life: An Overview “Several north American tribes made duck decoys. Remarkable preservation at Lovelock Cave, Nevada, has led to the recovery of 3,000-year-old decoys - - - that were made by stretching a bird skin over a tule reed form. Many ethnographic reports describe hunters putting duck skins – on their heads as they swam right up to live ducks. They captured the ducks by grabbing their feet and pulling them underwater, so as not to disturb other nearby fowl” (Bol, 1998:104).

Back during that period the American southwest was considerably wetter than it is today. In parts of what is now desert, people were swimming and duck hunting. Lovelock Cave was named after Lovelock in Humboldt County, Nevada. Then the area had a large lake and extensive tule reed marshes. Excavations in that cave as well as others in the area prove that the people of 3,500 to 1,000 years BP lived a life of relative plenty with large numbers of waterfowl included in their diet. Although this is not part of the Colorado Plateau we can assume that similar conditions must have existed there leading to the bird-headed anthropomorphs in the rock art.

Bird-Headed figures, from Alex Patterson, (1992: 49).

It seems probable that the presence of bird-headed figures on rock art panels had some influence on the later development of the kachina beliefs of the Ancestral Pueblo peoples. I can picture later people inspired by those images, making headdresses and masks to imitate the images with birds on (or replacing) their heads. This might be supported by the important place that ducks take in the kachina religion.

At Zuni it is believed that when the kachinas return home they do so in the form of ducks. Ducks are addressed not only in invocation of rain, but of seeds as well, and thus for plentiful crops. The Salimobia kachinas were guardians, messengers to the spirits, and seed bearers from the directions. They arise from the waters of the lake under which the kiva of the kachinas is located. Salimobia are like ducks, and their kachinas are associated with ducks. The duck kachina is called Pawik and his mask is equipped with a duck’s bill.

So the bird-headed figures may have been originally depictions of hunters wearing duck decoys on their heads, and later became involved with the kachina cults of Ancestral Pueblo peoples. These figures today provide us with clues to the ancient history of the area, and charming figures in their own right.

Reference:

Bol, Marsha C., editor

1998 Stars Above, Earth Below: American Indians and Nature, Roberts Rinehart Publishers, Niwot, CO.

Patterson, Alex

1992 A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest, Johnson Books, Boulder.

THE EARLIEST PAINTING IN NORTH AMERICA?

2011-02-25T10:41:00.003-07:00

Trampled skull of Bison antiquus with arrow pointing to red painted

zigzag line. httpwww.ou.educasarchsurcountiesharper.htm .

In 1994 a candidate for the title of earliest painting in North America was discovered in northwestern Oklahoma. In 1992, Dick James, a game warden in the Cooper Wildlife Management Area, had shown Oklahoma Archaeological Survey archaeologist Lee Bement a site where large bones (which proved to be bison antiquas) were caving off a sandy bluff near the Beaver River. During that first trip, there were no signs that people had a hand in the deaths of the bison whose bones were eroding from the cliff. However, another trip to the site brought the find of a spear point, left by Folsom hunters more than 10,000 years ago. Since that discovery, a meticulous excavation of the site has uncovered three bison kill episodes.

After the first event of driving the bison into this gully, they took one of the skulls and painted a thunderbolt on it before placing it, nose-first, into the gully where bison from the second drive trampled it. That skull, possibly the oldest painted object ever found in North America, is now on exhibit at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman, OK.

Folsom points from Cooper Site. httpwww.arrowheads.

comindex.phpcomponentcontentarticle400-the-cooper-

site-folsom-bison-hunting-on-the-souther-plains.

Bement subsequently described this discovery in his book Bison Hunting at Cooper Site (1999:37). “I was removing dirt from an articulated leg, the bones of which lay across the eye orbits of a skull. As the forehead of this skull was uncovered, a brilliant red zigzag line was exposed. – The zigzag of red stood in stark contrast to the bleached white skull surface and was visible from all areas of the bone bed. To say that there was an instant of incredulous awe does not quite describe that moment of discovery.”

Analysis of the paint has shown that it contains a majority of iron oxides and hydroxides (Bement 1999:51) which give it an intense red not found in the surrounding soil. Concentrations of these minerals are reported found in sandstones and shales in the area (probably in concretions) which were a possible source for the minerals in the paint.

The circumstances of the Folsom artist selecting a skull from the first bison kill, painting the red, zigzag lightning symbol on it, and placing it in a position in the arroyo prior to the bison drive that became the second kill, strongly indicates that this very early example of art played a role in some ritual thought to affect the success of the subsequent hunt. While not exactly rock art, this discovery can shine light on possible uses of early imagery which would include rock art images and symbols, and in any case it can stake a claim toward being the oldest known painting in North America. Additionally, we have to ask; if this example of paint survived more than 10,000 years should we not assume that some examples of pictographs painted in protected places might not have such great age as well?

References:

Bement, Leland C.
1999 Bison Hunting at Cooper Site, Where Lightning Bolts Drew Thundering Herds, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

Goins, Charles Robert, and Danny Goble
2006 Historical Atlas of Oklahoma, Fourth Edition, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

http://www.ou.edu/cas/arch/sur/counties/harper.htm

THE ART OF PAM VOVOLA:

2011-02-19T13:17:00.000-07:00

Group of Nalbidji Spirit Men & Women, Pam Vovola.

I was recently contacted by a remarkable artist who focuses on the subject of rock art. Pam Vovola, as a student of archaeology and art, resided for a period of time in Australia and became fascinated by the aboriginal art she saw. She saw that “many of these timeless images are being destroyed by weather, time, and vandalism and become less and less visible every year.” This developed into a passion to record and preserve that imagery. “By using these images as my “cultural inspiration”, I am hoping to bring an interest to western art connoisseurs of the prehistoric art of the past and a way of saving long forgotten and sacred images for future generations.”

Two Tasseled Bradshaws with Marsupial, Pam Vovola.

Now I have long been somewhat critical of “artists” who adopt the styles and subject matter of the art of other cultures as, all too often, this means that they cannot come up with a style and subject matter of their own, and they are cashing in on the popularity of something that is not genuine and pertinent to them, and that they will never completely understand. The second I saw Pam’s art, however, I realized that this is clearly not the case with her work. Looking through her gallery at http://www.archeologicalart.com/ is like looking at the photos in a text on Australian aboriginal art, but with a difference.

Bradshaw Figure, Pam Vovola.

There are rare instances when a painting or drawing can capture more than a photograph can. In part this is because Pam works with natural pigments on a highly textured surface to reproduce the feeling of the rock surface. She explains that “Much of the paint is made from natural pigments that I’ve collected from all around the world. The images are not just painted on the board; they are actually carved into it. I research each piece very thoroughly and always try to find colored pictures so they can be reproduced as close as possible to the original. Attached to each piece is a narrative and explanation of the art, its approximate age, location, meaning, etc.” The less tangible part of the more-than-photographic truth of some paintings and drawings is the humanity and empathy of the artist. The artist’s ability to mentally and emotionally understand part of the creative process that the original aboriginal artist was experiencing. This can sometimes be translated to a feeling of relevance or “rightness” in the viewer that gives them a stronger experience than the photograph.

Wandjina mythological beings, Pam Vovola.

Pam now says she is expanding into Egyptian and Mayan art and I expect to see great things in this. As long as she sticks to her standards she will be producing works of art that will add to the public’s knowledge of underappreciated art of other peoples and cultures. Pam Vovola’s work can be seen on her web site http://www.archeologicalart.com/ and you can find some newer examples that have not yet made it to her site by visiting her Facebook page. Thank you Pam for enhancing the rock art experience for us all.

Pam Vovola's website: http://www.archeologicalart.com/.

DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS AND THE GIANT LIZARD PETROGLYPHS AT CUB CREEK, DINOSAUR NATIONAL MONUMENT:

2011-02-09T21:43:00.000-07:00

Close-up of giant lizard panel, Cub

Creek, Dinosaur National Monument,

Utah. Photo: Peter Faris, 2005.

One location in Utah where extensive rock art is associated with abundant fossil remains is found at Dinosaur National Monument in northeastern Utah and northwestern Colorado. Fossil dinosaur bones there first appear in our history with the 1909 discovery of what is now called the Douglass or Carnegie Quarry by Earl Douglass. From 1909 to 1924 thousands of fossil bones were removed for museum collections. It does not seem likely that such deposits of fossil bone would have been overlooked by Native Peoples who lived there before the arrival of Euro-American explorers and exploiters. A large number of rock art sites are also found in what is now named Dinosaur National Monument. A few miles from the Douglass/Carnegie Quarry is an extensive collection of Fremont petroglyphs at the location named Cub Creek.

Giant Lizard panel, Cub Creek, Dinosaur National

Monument, Utah. The top arrow points to the small Fremont

figure and the lower arrow points to the six foot lizard.

Photo: Peter Faris, 2005.

The Fremont people were proto-agriculturalists who lived on the northern and western peripheries of the Ancestral Pueblo peoples planting some maize and hunting and gathering to make up the balance of the year’s food needs (sort of like the country cousins of the Ancestral Pueblo peoples of the Colorado Plateau). The Fremont culture may have developed from the Desert Archaic Culture by AD 500 in eastern Utah and western Colorado. Abandonment of the region by Fremont people falls at ca. AD 1300. They manufactured some ceramic vessels and built permanent dwellings in villages. The Fremont group occupying the area of Dinosaur National Monument has been designated Uintah Fremont. They created the marvelous rock art of the area which has been designated the Classic Vernal Style by Polly Schaafsma. The dates of Classic Vernal Style rock art has been estimated as between AD 600 and AD 1000 by Sally Cole.

A large concentration of Classic Vernal Style anthropomorphs are found on the cliff along a trail up the mesa at Cub Creek in Dinosaur National Monument, a few miles from the location of the Douglass/Carnegie quarry. In this case however, the images of interest are a group of solidly pecked petroglyphs of very large lizards (eight in total) seemingly focused on a small human figure (arrow). The human figure measures perhaps 12”, the largest lizard is about six feet long, and some of the lizards are very obviously focused on the anthropomorph. Other lizards at the site are not focused on the human figure but seem associated with the ones that are in the main group. Given a reasonable estimate of the minimum height of a Fremont male at just a little over five feet the creator of this petroglyph panel was picturing lizards that would approach thirty feet in length correspondingly. Such a juxtaposition of small human and large reptiles is, of course, tremendously suggestive. The most common form of animal life seen there today (other than tourists, of course) are small lizards and, since the climate in that region was similar in the time of the Fremonts to that of today there is no reason to assume that lizards were any less common then.

Therapod dinosaur track, Cub Creek dinosaur track site.

Photo: John Mayers, BLM, Vernal, UT, 2005.

One hundred and eleven Chinle formation dinosaur track sites in and around the Dinosaur National Monument have been recorded to date. One of these is located at Cub Creek, approximately 2.5 km. from the Cub Creek lizard petroglyphs. “It has produced the trackways of more than fifty individual vertebrates from five stratigraphic levels.”(Lockley 1995:97) The track site is up the watershed of Cub Creek itself from the petroglyph panel which was the natural thoroughfare for native peoples who would have followed the water course. The tracks are located in a rock shelter which is found over a saddle from Cub Creek above an adjoining drainage, but again in the reasonable route for passing from the Cub Creek drainage to the next canyon. Most of the visible tracks are casts in the ceiling of the rock shelter but one fallen boulder has many tracks on its face. This location suggests that the dinosaur tracks are certainly within a reasonable distance and position for influencing the creation of the petroglyphs.

The Navajo people of northern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico reportedly recognize petrified dinosaur tracks as the tracks of monsters described in their creation story. An article in the Arizona Republic newspaper stated that “Navajos call the fossilized footprints ”Naasho’illbahitsho Biikee’,” which means “big lizard tracks.” (Anonymous 2004) This article cited 16-year old Stephanie Haskie who works part-time as a tourist guide to show people the trackways near Tuba City. “Fifty years ago, Haskie’s grandparent, while herding sheep home, stumbled across the tracks. They believed that the tracks must have been made by the monsters described in the Navaho creation story. All of the details fit – the muddy imprints, the three toes of a lizardlike animal.” This is tangible evidence that fossil dinosaur footprints were believed by Native American peoples to have been made by giant lizards.

People who had witnessed the gigantic bones of animals weathering from the rocks around them needed to explain their presence and, in this instance, I assume that explanation included mythological accounts of gigantic creatures. The presence of nearby lizard-like footprints measuring eight inches in length would certainly reinforce such an interpretation and would have also suggested that the creatures were giant lizards. Unfortunately this assumption cannot at present be tested because anthropologists are still uncertain of the fate of the Uintah Fremont people. They may have eventually migrated away to become one of the historic period groups of the southwest, or they may have stayed in place and evolved into the Ute and Paiute peoples of the proto-historic period. Indeed it may be possible to throw some light on the question of the eventual fate of the Uintah Fremont people by looking for mythologies of giant lizards among the extant peoples of the southwest.
Until such a time we can only assume such a connection based upon available evidence, but I suggest that the evidence available may well be strong enough to warrant such an assumption.

REFERENCES:
Lockley, Martin, and Adrienne P. Hunt
1995 Dinosaur Tracks and Other Fossils of the Western United States, Columbia University
Press, New York.

TIME FACTORED DATA IN ROCK ART:

2011-02-02T14:13:00.001-07:00

9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photo: Peter Faris, Aug. 1993.

In the art history of our western culture we are used to art that portrays time data. Van Gogh's "Potato Eaters" is very obviously a night scene, and bright noontime sun was a favorite subject of many Impressionist painters. During the Renaissance allegories of various seasons became stock in trade for painters as well. These are all examples of art that includes clues that convey time information.
In some rock art one can find clues that convey time information as well. This might be seen either as “intended content”, a part of the message intentionally conveyed in the rock art, or as “inherent content”, information conveyed unintentionally as part of the composition or subject matter. An example of time information conveyed as inherent content would be a possible estimate of the time it took to create a petroglyph panel based on the hardness of the rock surface it was created on, or perhaps the possibility of estimating the time of its creation by subject matter.

One good example of this is found in the so-called “Cottonwood Panel” in Nine Mile Canyon, UT. Matheny, et al (2004) point out that this panel seems to be a hunt scene with a “hunt boss” who wears a horned headdress, with a large group of bighorn sheep. This grouping of animals appears to consist of mixed rams, ewes, and lambs, which they suggest would only be found together during the rut in late fall or early winter. If true this panel was either intentionally created to represent that time of year, or was created in the late fall or early winter when the mix of animals seen would have naturally included the rams, ewes, and lambs seen in this grouping.

There must be a number of other rock art images that can be interpreted in this way, that represent something that would only happen at a certain time of the year. For instance petroglyphs of maize plants with ears formed, like examples found in New Mexico, certainly represent late summer or fall, if they are intended to represent a time of year.

Reference:

Matheny, Ray T., Deanne G. Matheny, Pamela W. Miller, and Blaine Miller,
2004 Hunting Strategies and Winter Economy of the Fremont as Revealed in the Rock Art of Nine Mile Canyon, p. 145 to 193, in New Dimensions in Rock Art Studies, edited by Ray T. Matheny, Museum of Peoples and Cultures Occasional Papers No. 9, Joel C. Janetski, series editor, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

KUKANILOKO BIRTHING STONES, WAHIAWA, OAHU:

2011-01-26T10:14:00.000-07:00

Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, Wahiawa, Oahu.

Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

Located a little north of the old royal city of Wahiawa, Oahu, the Kukaniloko Birthing Stones are a vestige of the old ways, still apparently honored as indicated by the presence of offerings placed upon some of the stones. Kukaniloko was a place of great mana, and it was reportedly customary for pregnant women from the ruling families to come to the site to have their baby lying upon one of the stones in the belief that it will gain great mana from that. The stones are found in a grove of palm trees surrounded by fields of sugar cane and was once part of the Dole pineapple plantation.

Offerings on stones, Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, Wahiawa,

Oahu. Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

According to Van James, “this is the first ancient site on Oahu to have been officially recognized, preserved, and protected, thanks to the efforts of the Daughters of Hawaii in 1925.” “The site is believed to have been established by chief Nanakaoko and his wife Kahihiokalani. The efficacy of the stones was attributed to aumakua residing in them.” (2010: 113) “In Hawaiian mythology, an ʻaumakua is a family god, often a deified ancestor. The Hawaiian plural of ʻaumakua is nā ʻaumākua, although in English the plural is usually ʻaumakuas. Nā ʻaumākua frequently manifested as animals such as sharks or owls. Nā ʻaumākua were worshipped at localities (often rocks) where they were believed to "dwell".” (Wikipedia 2010)

Engraving on top of rock. Kukaniloko Birthing Stones,

Wahiawa, Oahu.Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

Shadows cast on the engraving on top of the rock.Kukaniloko

Birthing Stones, Wahiawa, Oahu. Van James, Ancient Sites of O’ahu:

Revised Edition, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu, 2010, p. 114.

Few of these stones have recognizable petroglyphs although many of them seem to be shaped in ways that suggest that they have been worked. Many of them bear hollows like basins that may have been used for sacrifices or divination rituals. Others have channels in the surface like drains, and one extreme stone has a large number of rounded vertical projections around the upper rim. Although to the casual viewer’s eye there are no tool marks on these they seem too extreme to not suspect purposeful working. This stone also has the most obvious petroglyph on its upper surface, four concentric circles. With a low sun, at certain times of the year, some of the projections cast shadows across the petroglyph which has prompted suggestions that this has calendrical significance.

Piko stone, Kukaniloko Birthing Stones, Wahiawa,

Oahu. Photo: October 26, 2010, Peter Faris.

Another stone that has obvious working is identified as a piko stone. A stone into which a number of small pits has been pecked. These were reportedly intended as repositories for the umbilical cords (piko) of children born at Kukaniloko, and Kukaniloko is identified as the piko (navel) of Oahu.

A number of lei offerings on the stones at the time of our visit testify to the continued relevance of this site to the beliefs of some people.

References:

James, Van
2010 Ancient Sites of O’ahu: Revised Edition, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumakua

A MISPLACED RELIANCE ON STATISTICAL ANALYSIS:

2011-01-25T18:20:00.000-07:00

A recent trend in rock art studies is the partial acceptance of rock art as a legitimate subject for study by academics and professionals. Much of this is made possible by the application of statistical analysis of rock art which lends an air of scientific respectability to what was before a somewhat messy field of study. This is because the statistical analysis provides quantifiable data that can be pointed to as scientifically verifiable objective fact. I have personally never been completely comfortable with this type of rock art study but I had always put it down to the fact that, as an art historian, statistical analysis is seriously foreign territory, something I am not conversant with. My feeling has been that once we have finished the elaborate statistical analysis of rock art elements, and now know which elements are closer to which other elements, what have we really learned? We could have pretty much determined that by simple observation, and learned just as little by doing so.

On July 12, 2010, I published a posting titled The Writing On The (Cave) Wall concerning a recent example of this sort of study which was related in a February 17, 2010, article by Kate Ravilious in New Scientist magazine entitled “The Writing On The Cave Wall” which made the ambitious claim that writing had been discovered on the walls of the painted European caves. According to this report a pair of scholars at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, graduate student Genevieve von Petzinger and her supervisor April Nowell undertook as a Master’s project a numerical analysis of all the signs found in 146 sites in France covering a date range from 37,000 to 12,000 B.P. The signs were compiled in a database for analysis. They found that 26 of these signs appeared frequently in numerous sites. The most common sign was a line that was found at 70 percent of the sites and across all time periods. The next most common symbols were what they called “open angles” and dots being found at 42 percent of the sites. Having found quantifiable examples of common occurrence of these symbols in conjunction with each other they made the amazing announcement that they represent a form of written communication, and astoundingly the scientific community, including anthropology and archaeology, seems to accept this statement. Why would scientists fall for this? Because, Petzinger and Nowell got their results from a statistical analysis of numbers in a database.

An essay by Tom Siegfried in the March 27, 2010, issue of Science News titled "Odds Are, It’s Wrong: Science Fails to Face the Shortcomings of Statistics", addresses the question of accuracy and truth in science based upon statistical analysis. In a detailed explanation, and with a number of interesting examples, Siegfried points out that all scientific results that have been reached through a statistical analysis are literally only possible explanations, not proven truth. One example he cites is the 2007 meta-analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine, which attributed an increased risk of heart of attack to users of the diabetes drug Avandia. Siegfried stated that “raw data from the combined trials showed that only 55 people in 10,000 had heart attacks when using Avandia, compared with 59 people per 10,000 in comparison groups. But after a series of statistical manipulations, Avandia appeared to confer an increased risk.” We have since seen much about this in the news including recent hearings by an FDA panel on the subject.

Now, as I stated above, I am not a statistician, and am not personally qualified to pass judgment on statistical work done by others. However, if I was interested in doing statistical analysis of rock art I would certainly read Siegfried’s essay before I tied my reputation to the results.

References:

Siegfried, Tom
2010 Odds Are, It’s Wrong: Science Fails to Face the Shortcomings of Statistics, Science News,
Vol. 177, No. 7, (26-29). (March 27)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527481.200-the-writing-on-the-cave-wall.html?full=true

ARCHAEOASTRONOMY - TURKEY TRACKS ACROSS THE SKY:

2011-01-17T10:48:00.000-07:00

Tracks on cliff, Fremont Indian State Park, Utah. Photo: Peter Faris, 2001.

Native Americans recognized constellations of stars just like other ancient cultures, they just had different names for them. In Stars of the First People, Dorcas Miller (1997:179) wrote “Pueblo farmers kept turkeys, so it is not surprising that they should recognize a Turkey Feet constellation. John P. Harrington, an ethnologist who worked in the southwest and published information about Tewa constellations in 1916, writes that the group is “”an easily learned constellation of the exact form of a turkey’s foot,”” but to the frustration of later readers he does not identify these stars. The shape of a turkey’s foot is similar to that of the Northern Cross, which has also been suggested as the Pawnee Bird’s Foot constellation.” The Northern Cross is the central grouping of the larger constellation Cygnus, the Swan. Looking at star charts for this area of the sky, I find nearby another classical constellation that looks, if anything, even more like a turkey track and that is Aquila, the Eagle. Taken together Cygnus the Swan and Aquila the Eagle would represent a pair of turkey tracks, Turkey would have been walking across the sky.

Star map showing Eagle and Northern Cross constellations.

Miller, Stars of the First People, p.17.

When we find a row of bird tracks on a rock in the Southwest there are a standard few pat answers as to what they represent. In many instances they would be assumed to represent the turkey itself and its role as a food source, or a source of feathers, or even represent a spirit helper. In traditionally ancestral Puebloan areas they might be called clan symbols. What I do not believe that I have ever seen as an explanation however, is that they might represent an archaeoastronomical reference, the constellation – Turkey Tracks across the sky.

Reference:
Miller, Dorcas S.
1997 Stars of the First People, Native American Star Myths and Constellations, Pruett Pub. Co.,
Boulder, Colorado.

SHEEP BUTT PAINTINGS – NOT REALLY ROCK ART:

2011-01-06T10:03:00.002-07:00

Red paint smear with petroglyphs,

Photograph provided by Bonnie Newman.

We have all seen them, the meaningless smears of paint two to three feet above ground level on a vertical rock face, often in a rock shelter or overhang somewhere in the American west. The paint often looks relatively new but it is always unrecognizable as any sort of image or symbol, just a smear. Rock art researchers have speculated that these markings were made by sheep which had been marked with paint. This premise has now been confirmed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometry in a project by rock art researchers Bonnie Newman and Larry Loendorf.

Ewes with paint applied to their rumps.

Photograph provided by Bonnie Newman.

“Ewes with painted rumps are responsible for creating some "rock art" panels in central Wyoming. That's what researcher Bonnie Newman, of the Museum of New Mexico's Office of Archaeological Services, and New Mexico State University archaeologist Larry Loendorf discovered when they compared suspiciously abstract paint smears at the Notches Dome site with paint found at a nearby historic shepherds' camp. X-ray fluorescence spectrometer analysis revealed that the blue, green, and red paint smeared onto Notches Dome rock projections was chemically very similar to the paint used in a woman's portrait on a barn wall at the sheep camp. Ewes marked with paint for breeding and branding purposes had probably taken shelter beneath the rock ledges, where they left paint smears later mistaken for rock art.” This marvelous analytical tool was previously discussed here on October 28, 2010.

Close-up of sheep paint smear. Photograph

provided by Bonnie Newman.

Sheep paint on rock surface.

Photograph by Bonnie Newman.

For at least a century pigments have been used to brand sheep, or to match ewes with their infants, as well as which ewes have been bred by which sires. The paint spot for the first purpose would have been applied to the back of the ewe and baby which could be rubbed off on an overhanging rock. The paint used to determine which sire bred which ewe would have been applied on the low chest area of the ram, some of which would have rubbed off on the ewes back or rump when he mounted her. A shepherd with two or more breeding rams could mark each one with a different paint color to maintain records of bloodlines among his flock. Some of this paint could be transferred to the rock by the ewe in the same way as in the other example.

Bonnie Newman and Lawrence Loendorf have pretty much settled the question for us with this cutting edge research.

Bonita Newman is an archaeologist with ICI Corporation, Virginia Beach, VA., and is currently a member of the board of directors of the Colorado Rock Art Association. Lawrence Loendorf is a retired professor from New Mexico State University, and a former President of the American Rock Art Research Association.

Reference.
Quote from: Archaeology Magazine, Volume 61 Number 1, January/February, 2008.

THE NU’UANU PETROGLYPHS, OAHU:

2010-12-29T21:10:00.000-07:00

On October 23, 2010, we were given a tour of the Honolulu area by my cousin Rob and one of the sites that we located was the Nu’uanu petroglyphs. They are located in Nu’uanu valley which is where the deciding battle of King Kamehaha I’s drive to conquer Oahu and thus unify the Hawaiian islands occurred in 1795.

Nu'uannu Stream, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii. Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 23, 2010.

According to Wikipedia the battle “is known in the Hawaiian language as Kalelekaʻanae, which means "the leaping mullet", and refers to a number of Oahu warriors driven off the cliff in the final phase of the battle. Kamehameha I had begun his campaign to unify Hawaii in 1783, but prior to 1795 had only managed to unify the Big Island. In February 1795 he assembled the largest army the Hawaiian Islands had ever seen, with about 12,000 men and 1,200 war canoes. Kamehameha initially moved against the southern islands of Maui and Molokai, conquering them in the early spring. Then he invaded Oahu”. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nu'uanu)

Nu'uannu petroglyphs, dogs and human figures. Honolulu,

Oahu, Hawaii. Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 23, 1020.

Kamehameha I prevailed and at the climax of the battle, caught between the Hawaiian Army and a 1000-foot drop, “over 400 Oahu warriors either jumped or were pushed over the edge of the Pali” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Nu'uanu) - the leaping mullet. This had been the last major challenge to Kamehaha I and afterword the combined islands were known as the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Dog petroglyphs, Nu'uannu, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaii.

The Nu’uanu petroglyphs consist of three sites along the Nu’uanu stream behind the Nu’uanu Memorial Park Cemetery and the Royal Mausoleum, near Alapena pool. They have a total of as many as forty carved images mostly human figures and dogs. The number of dog images is somewhat surprising as there are no wild canids on the Hawaiian Islands to commemorate, so they have to be representations of the domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris).

While the meaning of these dog images is not known for sure there are a number of possibilities in mythology listed in Traditions of O’ahu: Dog Gods of the Ko'olau Mountains. A number of the tales involve a supernatural dog named Poki. Seeing Poki was an ill omen and a traveler who saw the dog would be wise to return home to avoid disaster. In other tales Poki was the pet of an evil spirit living in the mountains.

Nu'uannu petroglyphs, dogs and human figures. Honolulu,

Oahu, Hawaii. Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 23, 1020.

There is another interesting myth involving a dog. In this myth Kane, the chief god of the Hawaiian pantheon used to party with his companions at night in the mountains over Wai-pi’o valley and each drink of awa (the intoxicating drink known as kava in the Pacific islands ) was accompanied by a blast on their conch shell horns (pu). Kane’s horn, the famed kiha-pu, was of divine origin and possessed supernatural power, as well as being louder than any other. These loud sessions disrupted the whole countryside and kept the inhabitants awake all night. To deal with these disruptions King Liloa sent a dog named Puapualenalena to steal Kiha-pu, which subsequently became a prized possession of Hawaiian monarchs. (http://www.sacred-texts.com/pac/ulh/ulh22.htm) This Kiha-pu can be seen on display at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu.

One myth directly related to the Nu’uannu petroglyphs claims that they portray a mythical dog named Kaupe who had once been a human who had ruled Nu’uanu valley. During his reign he ate a lot of people and later Kaupe became a malevolent spirit in dog form that calls out to people at night to lure them to their deaths. (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaupe)
Whichever story we choose to believe this concentration of dog petroglyphs seems totally unique and is off the beaten path so it may not be visited as regularly as more publicized sites.

References:

Traditions of O’ahu: Dog Gods of the Ko'olau Mountains, Asia-Pacific Digital Library, Kapi’olani Community College, (http://apdl.kcc.hawaii.edu/~oahu/stories/kona/doggods.htm).

Wikipedia

A PAINTED BOULDER IN SOUTHPARK, COLORADO:

2010-12-22T19:27:00.000-07:00

Hereford, West face of the painted boulder, South

Park, Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1994.

One day in the summer of 1994 I was driving down South Park in the Colorado Rockies on C-285 headed for Chaco Canyon when I came upon this idyllic scene. I do not know exactly what caused me to pay attention to this cow specifically because there is no shortage of cattle in pastures along rural roads in Colorado to observe. Something about this cow lying down in the field attracted my attention. A few seconds later I looked back in the rear-view mirror and saw the second scene. I pulled over and stopped on the shoulder of the highway before turning around and going back to take the pictures included here.

This erratic boulder in the field which so resembles in size and shape the form of a reclining cow had been (as you can see) painted to look like just that, and cleverly, whoever the artist had been, a different breed was used for each side. The east face of the boulder resembled (to my eyes anyway) a Holstein while the west face of the boulder was obviously a Hereford. They were certainly well enough done that they stood up to a casual glance and I was at least momentarily fooled by the scene.

Holstein, East face of painted boulder, South

Park, Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris, 1994.

To me this is a wonderful example of playfulness, whoever painted this boulder (and I assume that it was the rancher who owns the land it lies on) took the time and effort with no possible profit other than the joy involved. And it has been kept up as far as I know. The last time I saw it was just a couple of years ago and it was still painted although the paint looked much less fresh than when I first saw it. In its current incarnation it is not painted as two different breeds, at my last observation of it both sides were painted to look like the Hereford.

Each time I drive down C-285 I look forward to visiting my old friend, and it has been that way for the past sixteen years. My thanks to that anonymous rancher for adding a spot of joy to the world. Oh, and by the way, good job painting too!

A REVIEW - READING THE ROCKS:

2010-12-22T19:12:00.000-07:00

A REVIEW: Reading the Rocks: Aboriginal Australia’s Painted History, by Samir S. Patel, pages 32 – 37 & 68, Archaeology, January-February 2011, Vol. 64, No. 1.

This article, excellently written by Samil S. Patel, a senior editor and writer at Archaeology, is about the researches of archaeologist and rock art specialist Paul S. C. Tacon of Griffith University in Gold Coast, Australia, at the amazing rock art site of Djulirri in the Wellington Range of Arnhem Land in northern Australia. Its setting is a visit with Tacon and the aboriginal owner of the site Ronald Lamilami to Djulirri which affords the opportunity to describe the site and its significance. Djulirri’s additions and overpaintings cover an immense period of time. Tacon traces its early images back 15,000 years and the last major additions to the panels were painted about 50 years ago.

Aside from good information, and a very interesting look at the Australian rock art tradition, the importance of this piece by author Samir S. Patel is that for a change rock art is being discussed as a valid part of the historical record and a source of cultural information. “Djulirri is among the top handful of rock art sites in the world, and in its layers of pigments and stained rock is an abundance of information about Aboriginal culture and how it dealt with the sweeping changes of the last few centuries.”

This article also includes valuable information on how the aboriginal culture understands the rock art record. “All the stories are here in the rock” says Lamilami. “Each year, a new concept would be drawn - what happened the year before that, it’s a time lapse.” Patel points out that “Other rock art sites, such as Lascaux in France, capture only a narrow period of time, and even the deepest archaeological deposits aren’t willful creations like this. Djulirri might be the longest continuously updated human record in the world.” In other words according to Lamilami, this site represents an annually updated record of what happened to his people over that span of time, much like the winter counts of many of the Native American tribes of the Great Plains of North America.

I feel that this six page article contains more real understanding and usable information than some of the books on rock art sitting on my bookshelf. Do yourself a favor; make sure you get to read this one.

BIRDS IN ROCK ART - MACAWS:

2010-12-15T15:00:00.001-07:00

Among the birds pictured in rock art of the American southwest are the figures of some birds that are not native to North America but which had been imported from Meso-America. These alien visitors are parrots and macaws. Macaws and parrots, along with copper bells, and sea shells were imported from the jungles of southern Mexico, up to 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) to the south.
Macaws and parrots were important birds in prehistoric Mimbres-area communities by A.D. 1000. Scarlet macaws apparently were imported into the area from the tropical lowlands in Mexico. Macaws in particular evidently were of special, perhaps ceremonial, importance as indicated by consistent age at death, probably reflecting sacrifice in the spring, and by deliberate burial, often in special rooms in the community. Remains of macaws and parrots were also found in abundance at Chaco Canyon and other sites proving that not just the feathers, but the birds themselves had been traded for.

There were basically two species of Macaw that were prehistorically imported into the American southwest from Mesoamerica. These are the military macaw (Ara militaris), a green feathered species, and the scarlet macaw (aro macao). The military macaw is from relatively dry areas and its range reached to within 20-30 miles of the Arizona/Mexico border. The scarlet macaw occupied wetter habitation so its natural range ends considerably farther south (Hutchins 36-37). Scarlet macaws are relatively easily tamed and so would have been easier to transport (Hutchins p.40).

Three macaws, Hovenweep National Monument,

Utah/Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris.

My petroglyph of macaws is located at Hovenweep. There are three of the birds arrayed horizontally across the center of the picture with their heads with curved beaks facing to the right and their tails pointing out to the left. The bird on the right has a squared fret design sticking up from its tail, the center bird seems to be standing on a Mesa Verde style t-shaped doorway, and a smaller, fainter one is on the left side past the spiral.

Close-up of three macaws, Hovenweep National

Monument, Utah/Colorado. Photo: Peter Faris.

Native American societies prized feathers for decorative purposes as well as for their perceived symbolic and spiritual meanings. For any people who highly prized feathers the feathers of Mexican macaws would have been valued highly indeed for the beauty of their bright colors. Pueblo peoples associated macaws with the rainbow because of their bright colors and, as birds, they belonged in the sky. The accompanying complex of associations included clouds, the sun, and rain, and maize (which needed rain to grow). The multicolored plumage of macaws also suggested the many colors of kernels found on Indian maize. Thus it is not surprising that macaw and parrot feathers were important for the creation of “Corn Mother” fetishes. Pueblo peoples create “Corn Mother” fetishes, based on a perfect head of corn bundled within a cluster of feathers. Called the mi’li at Zuni, the base was hollowed out and a heart of flint was placed within. Called a tiponi at Hopi, instead of flint it held seeds. Among the feathers affixed to the corn mother, the feathers of the macaw were highly prized. They would have also been prized for the creation of Pahos the so-called "prayer sticks".

Parrot effigy pot, Tonto polychrome, ca. 1300-1400,

p.189, Brasser, Native American Clothing, 2009

The Tonto polychrome macaw effigy pot illustrated was created by the Hohokam people of southern Arizona.

It is hardly surprising then to find images of parrots and/or macaws in the rock art of the region. While we cannot know if the motive for the creation of their images was to invoke spiritual influences, a prayer for rain, or just to brag about wealth, it is interesting to reflect that the images of parrots and macaws are placed on the rocks in a region where they never naturally lived. These images remain as a symbol of the complexities of the culture of these people who benefited from these long distance trade networks.

Reference:

Hutchins, Megan
2008 Survey of the Macaw, p. 36-44, in Mesoamerican Influences in the Southwest, Kachinas, Macaws, and Feathered Serpents, edited by Glenna Nielsen-Grimm, Museum of Peoples and Cultures, Popular Series #4, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

PACHYDERMAGLYPHS - NOT REALLY ROCK ART:

2010-12-08T16:16:00.004-07:00

In March 2004, we had an opportunity to visit the fascinating rock art of Hueco Tanks, east of El Paso, Texas. While the main purpose of the visit was to see the numerous mask pictographs at that location we saw many other things as well. Named for a number of natural pools of rainwater (or tanks) so valuable to non-technological people in that arid landscape, Hueco Tanks has obviously attracted visitors for millennia. According to the DesertUSA website: “Over the millennia, Hueco Tanks has drawn desert plant and wildlife communities and prehistoric and historic man into its folds primarily because its huecos (a Spanish word for “hollow”) – especially the deep ones that lie beneath sheltering rock ceilings – trap and hold drinkable water, that most valuable desert commodity. Indeed, as Robert Miles and Ron Ralph said in an article in The Handbook of Texas Online, Hueco Tanks held virtually the only dependable source of water between the Pecos River, roughly 120 miles to the east, and El Paso, some 30 miles to the west.”

Mammoth rub, Hueco Tanks, Texas.

Photo: Peter Faris, March 2004.

Not too far from the park headquarters, our ranger guide pointed out an area up on the cliff face where the rock projection had been been artificially smoothed and polished. This smoothing had been done by mammoths scratching their itches by rubbing against the rock. According to the ranger this had been confirmed by laboratory analysis which found the remnants of proteins from their skin and hair absorbed into the rock.

A number of other such locations have been discovered and can be researched online. This vestige of Paleolithic giants gave one a sense of personal connection. Unlike the sterility of simply academic knowledge of their former existence, here we could personally experience contact with a rock that they had rubbed up against. This feeling was not at all unlike the feeling we get when in the presence of rock art, that we can somehow contact on a personal level the reality of the person who created the art, and what can be more exciting than that?

Although these are generically known as "mammoth rubbing stones" and that is certainly accurate and descriptive, I have been looking for a technical term to apply to these sites. In the context of RockArtBlog I have decided to name them pachydermaglyphs - what do you think?

Reference:
http://www.desertusa.com/mag07/april07/Hueco.html

POHAKU KA LUAHINE, MOANALUA VALLEY, OAHU:

2010-12-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

Pohaku Ka Luahine, Moanalua Valley, Oahu. Showing one deeply

pecked anthropomorph and some random markings and grooves

on the top. Photo: Peter Faris, October 23, 2010.

Pohaku Ka Luahine is said to translate as "the rock of the old woman". It was reportedly given this name after an incident in which a child broke kapu by crying at a religious ceremony, an offense punishable by death. The child’s grandmother ran up the valley with it and hid behind the stone until the kapu expired and the warriors stopped searching for them.

Pohaku Ka Luahine, Moanalua Valley, Oahu. Showing

random markings and grooves on the top.

Photo: Peter Faris, October 23, 2010.

Pohaku Ka Luahine, Moanalua Valley, Oahu. Showing two faintly

pecked anthropomorphs and the trunk of the mango tree it sits under.

Photo: Peter Faris, October 23, 2010.

Wikipedia gives a short history of the Moanalua valley. “Samuel Mills Damon inherited the ahupuaʻa (uplands-to-sea tract) of Moanalua in 1884 from Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, whose husband Charles Reed Bishop was a business partner of Damon. Before her, since the lands were won in battle by Kamehameha I they passed from Kameʻeiamoku to Ulumāheihei Hoapili, then to Prince Lot Lot Kapuāiwa (who became King Kamehameha V), and Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani. Damon later became one of the first trustees of the Kamehameha Schools established by the Bishops. The Damon estate sold much of Moanalua to commercial and residential developers in 1956.” Formerly part of Samuel Mills Damon estate, the trail follows the old estate carriage road up the valley from the Moanalua Valley park.

Old carriage road hiking trail, Moanalua Valley, Oahu.

Photo: Peter Faris, October 23, 2010.

Cobbles of the old carriage road hiking trail, Moanalua

Valley, Oahu. Photo: Peter Faris, October 23, 2010.

With cousin Rob as my guide we hiked up the cobbles of the old carriage road the requisite seven crossings of the stream and there on the right under the mango tree just as described was the petroglyph boulder Pohaku Ka Luahine. Earlier records credit this boulder with twenty one anthropomorphic figures as well as a 90-point konane game board (James 2010:49). Unfortunately it has received a certain amount of vandalism and appears to have suffered from weathering erosion as well. A few traditional style Hawaiian figures are visible on the sides of the stone. I could not really see the grid of pits of the konane game board supposedly pecked into the top. This is a checkers-like game played with black and white pebbles by Hawaiians and examples have been found with one hundred and more pits pecked into boulders. Given the dim light under the jungle canopy there were few options for visual clues from side-lighting, the surface of the boulder appears fairly uniform, and much of what can be seen did not come through on photos.

It was certainly a lovely hike through the jungle though, well worth it for the exercise alone, and to also see the rock art made it a really special afternoon.

Reference:

James, Van
2010 Ancient Sites of Oahu: Revised Edition, Bishop Museum Press, Honolulu.

A POLL ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF SECRECY IN PROTECTING ROCK ART SITES:

2010-11-26T14:34:00.000-07:00

For a few weeks until July 24, 2010, the poll question on RockArtBlog was Do You Believe That Secrecy Protects Rock Art Sites, Or Is The Broadest Transparency And Education Possible More Effective? The answer choices are listed below along with their votes.

Open and effective education and site stewardship provide the best protection. 4 votes, 44.44%

Plant poison ivy and fertilize regularly. 3 votes, 33.33%

Controlled access limited to acknowledged researchers and scholars. 1 vote, 11.11%

Keep it totally secret - do not let anyone (including vandals) know where it is. 1 vote, 11.11%

It is important to remember the disclaimer, that this is only an opinion poll and in no way represents objective proof. It is also not possible to confirm the qualifications of the respondents. That said, it does represent the actual responses to an actual question and is worthy of note. We do not seem to believe that secrecy works to protect rock art.