Sand Canyon petroglyph panel. Photograph from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
On
September 19. 2018, I received an e-mail communication from one Mariette Eaton
of the BLM who informed me that there wasn’t really much rock art in Canyon’s
of the Ancients National Monument in southwestern Colorado. Her exact statement
was “unfortunately there is not a great
deal of rock art that is easily accessible.” This struck me as very strange
because any canyon you enter in that part of Colorado (Montezuma County) is
loaded with rock art and ancient ruins. I was also informed that Canyon of the
Ancients was closed to visitation. On 1 October 2018 I posted a column titled “Public Access/Public Servants/Responsiveness/and
Responsibility” in which I expressed dissatisfaction and disappointment at
being turned away like that, let alone with Mariette Eaton’s lie. Incidentally,
while we were at the Monument Headquarters one very nice park ranger confirmed
that there was a huge amount of rock art there, and had no idea why I would
have been denied visitation rights.
Now, I have
found out that literally at the same time that I was being turned away with
this brush off, a team of researchers from Poland was in there doing
archaeological work, and recording Rock Art. Now, I have no objections to
foreign visitors in our National Monuments, indeed I welcome them up to a
point, that point being when Americans are being lied to and turned away. This
Polish team was led by Radoslaw Polonka who has published a number of papers
and chapters on the rock art of Canyon of the Ancients.
Palonka’s
comments about Winter Solstice observation in December 2018 and Spring Equinox
observation in March 2019 (page 251) would seem to prove that he was there at
the same time that I was told that there is really not much rock art in Canyon
of the Ancients. Additionally, Palonka’s three pages of References includes;
David Breternitz, Kenneth Castleton, Sally Cole, Scott Ortman, Polly Schaafsma,
Dennis Slifer, and Mark Varien as well as many others who seem to have thought
that there was rock art in the area. But enough of my whining about Mariette
Eaton’s lies, let’s look at some of the things that Palonka found in Sand
Canyon of Canyon of the Ancients National Monument.
Sand Canyon petroglyph panel. Photograph from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
Palonka and
team apparently did some very good work during their time in Canyons of the
Ancients. They report on a number of sites we did not have records of up to
now.
“Since
2011, archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology at the Jagiellonian
University in Krakow have been taking part in the Sand Canyon-Castle Rock
Community Archaeological Project in the central Mesa Verde region. This
research focuses on the reconstruction of settlement structure and documentation
of rock art at dozens of sites that may have functioned as one Puebloan
community. In particular, the project explores the inter-relationships between
particular settlements, and the role of the towers and shrines as a means of
visual communication in the functioning of this system.” (Palonka et al. 2020:492) This Krakow
university must have one heck of an archeology program, references to it keep
popping up in papers from all over the world.
“The
team has also obtained dates from dendrochronological samples and pottery
analysis that are more accurate than previously achieved. This evidence has
allowed us to speculate that, contrary to some earlier research (or at least
questioning if some or most), small sites may have functioned contemporaneously
with the community centre. The community centre was the largest site in the
community that also comprised public buildings, such as plazas or large kivas
(ritual buildings). Together, these sites may have formed a community that was
connected by strong religious and social ties.
Additionally,
we have collaborated with the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Crow
Canyon Archaeological Center, the Maryland Institute College of Art and the
Hopi Cultural Preservation Office to gather more
comprehensive information concerning past landscape use, based, in part, on the
Pueblo oral tradition. Taken together, these findings
illuminate the
Operation
and final days of one of the largest communities
of Ancient Pueblo culture in the Mesa Verde region in the thirteenth century
AD.” (Palonka et al. 2020:492)
Three warriors, Castle Rock Pueblo community, Sand Canyon, Montezuma County, Colorado. Photograph from Radoslaw Polonka, 2019, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
They work
focused on Castle Rock community in Sand Canyon of the Canyons of the Ancients.
”We
documented ancient Pueblo rock art at 15 Castle Rock Community sites,
represented by both petroglyphs and paintings, including warriors fighting
with bows and arrows (a well known panel from Castle Rock Pueblo), concentric
circles, spirals, zig-zag lines, bird tracks and foot- and handprints. Other
motifs could be interpreted as being connected with astronomical observations.
The rock art can be roughly dated to the Pueblo III period (AD 1150–1300),
and was probably created sometime in the thirteenth century AD, based on
stylistic comparison to other well-dated rock art panels. There are, however, a
few cases where we can observe much older rock art within these Late Pueblo III
settlements, including anthropomorphic figures
with triangular or trapezoidal bodies that are either pecked (at site 5MT127:
Vision House) or painted with red and white (at site 5MT264: The Gallery). They
are often included in the so-called San Juan Basketmaker Anthropomorphic Style,
examples of which are also present in nearby Mancos Canyon, and as far as
Durango to the north-east. At least two sites in the Community, The Gallery and
Two Story House, have surviving plaster
murals on the building walls. These were placed in the buildings’ second
storey, while the first storey could have served
as storage rooms, based on its masonry, which is roughly shaped with no plaster
or paintings on the wall, while the second storey has been done with more care
and often contains plaster and murals. The example at Two Story House comprises
brown/reddish and white murals, including what appear to be three roughly
preserved triangles. Similar triangles are found in Cliff Palace and other
sites from the Mesa Verde National Park. They may represent the mountains
(perhaps different peaks of the Ute Mountains) and might have been important
religious symbols for the local Pueblo society. As with most of the cliff-dwelling
sites in the area, Two Story House faces south, with a clear view of Sleeping
Ute Mountain range.” (Palonka
et al. 2020:504) I have previously published about the three triangle
depiction of mountains on RockArtBlog (see the cloud index at the bottom) and
while Palonka suggests they may represent Sleeping Ute Mountain, my vote is for
Huerfano Butte in northern New Mexico or San Francisco Peaks. But it might even be the case
that all three are correct. Perhaps the ancestral pueblo peoples who found significance
in the Three Mountain theme applied it to nearby features that they were
familiar with, so at Mesa Verde the Huerfano Butte had this significance to
them, and at Chevelon pueblo it might well have been the San Francisco Peaks
while in the Canyons of the Ancients the Sleeping Ute range may have been their
inspiration.
Sand Canyon mural painting. Photograph from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
Also recent
articles in popular sources have been trumpeting some of their discoveries as
newly recorded archeoastronomical sites.
“Some Pueblo period
rock art iconography documented by our project may be connected with
astronomical observations and could have served as a kind of calendar or
solar/lunar markers, such as the petroglyphs at the sites 5MT129, 5MT261,
5MT1803, 5MT1823, and 5MT1843 and maybe the mural at the site 5MT264. These
representations, with a fairly large potential for research, can shed new light
on, for example, knowledge of celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena by
the Ancient Pueblo communities once inhabiting these canyons. The observations
conducted during the Winter Solstice in December 2018 and Spring Equinox in
March 2019 at the Site 5MT129 in Sand Canyon brought very interesting results
of light-shadow interactions with the particular sections of rock art panel, suggesting that it
was some kind of solar marker or calendar, although further observation in the field and
additional ethnographic analogies as well as consultations with different
Pueblo groups elders are needed. It seems that, in addition to accurate
documentation, visualization using new technologies like laser scanning and the
photogrammetry may provide invaluable help. Conducting this documentation and
later analysis in different graphic programs and a virtual
environment (for example, using the RTI- Reflectance Transformation Imaging)
allowed us to reveal many details and entire depictions that are not visible
using only traditional documentation. Using these techniques we were able to
document colored plaster and murals found on the walls of buildings at two
sites of the surveyed area, The Gallery in the East Fork of Rock Creek Canyon,
and Two Story House in Graveyard Canyon. They were done in reddish brown, white
and yellow, and placed on two opposite walls of the second floor of Room B at
The Gallery site, where even several layers of multicolored plaster have been
preserved. The paintings on this mural include geometric images that have been
preserved, such as dots,
zig-zag lines or depictions of a snake and three birds, probably turkeys. At the Two
Story House, along with the white/reddish brown plaster, there are geometric
motifs, probably in the form of several triangles that might symbolize
mountains. The rock shelter where the Two Story House site is located faces
directly south to the highest summit in the area (Sleeping Ute Mountain), which
rises to a height of around 3000 m above sea level, and is 3–4 km away from the
site. It is a sacred mountain for the contemporary Ute Indians, who have a
reservation there today, and it almost certainly had special significance for
the ancient Pueblo Indians (modern Pueblo groups, like the Hopi, claim that
this mountain certainly had a sacred
meaning for their ancestors, who built stone settlements in rock niches). This
may be just one example of the relationship of architecture, settlement location
and rock art iconography to the surrounding landscape and probably religious
practices associated with it – an aspect that is still being studied by our project.” (Palonka 2019:251) I think that the
archeoastronomical conclusions have to wait for considerably more research.
Sand Canyon petroglyph panel. Photograph from the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland.
“The
chronological and cultural associations of the Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs are
well established, based on style, content and associated archaeological data by
previous research in the region. The oldest Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs (c. 1000–1300
AD) include pecked and/or incised human figures
with upraised arms and a few abstract motifs. They are located on the lowest
section of the wall and have endured rough treatment by wind, soil deposits,
sheep and cattle. Older Ancestral Pueblo petroglyphs may well be buried
underground: our geophysics and test-pit excavations revealed the possibility
that some structures are located approximately 1.6–2.0m
deep (such accumulation of soil is probably due to catastrophic floods
that occurred in the past).”
(Palonka 2023:6)
Sand Canyon, Montezuma County, Colorado. Photograph by Radoslaw Polonka, 2019. - Listed as two "serpentine forms" these are probably rabbit sticks or fending sticks for fending off atlatl darts.
All in all this work provides considerable
new data on an area that still has a great deal to tell us. Good work Radislaw
Palonka. I’ll bet you can tell that I am jealous.
NOTE:
Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for
public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public
domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner
will contact me with them. For further information on these reports you should
read the original reports at the sites listed below.
REFERENCE:
Faris, Peter, 2018, Public Access/Public
Servants/Responsiveness/and Responsibility, 1 October 2018,
https://rockartblog.blogspot.com.
Milligan, Mark, 2023, Archaeologists have
discovered Pueblo astronomical carvings and paintings in Colorado, 13 December
2023, https://www.heritagedaily.com.
Accessed 16 December 2023.
Palonka, Radoslaw,
et al., 2023, Digital documentation and analysis of Native American rock art and
Euro-American historical inscriptions from the Canyons of the Ancients National
Monument, Colorado, Antiquity, Vol. 97 (393), 1-9. Accessed online 16
December 2023.
Palonka, Radoslaw, 2019, Rock Art
from the Lower Sand Canyon in the Mesa Verde Region, Southwestern Colorado, USA,
KIVA, 85:3, 232-256, DOI:10.1080/00231940.2019.1643071
Palonka, Radoslaw,
et al., 2020, Ancestral Pueblo settlement structure and sacred landscape at Castle
Rock Community, Colorado, Antiquity, Vol. 94 (374), 491-511. Accessed
online 16 December 2023.