A PETROGLYPH OF BIGHORN SHEEP PLAYING PATTICAKE AT NINE-MILE CANYON:

 Column for 1 April, 2025.

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep, lambs playing. Internet image, public domain.

We have all seen photographs of lambs playing, we have probably all seen photographs of bighorn sheep lambs playing at head-butting. Now, from Nine-Mile Canyon in Utah we have photographic proof of adult bighorn sheep playing, not head-butting, but patticake.

Petroglyph panel, Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

I took the photograph in 1993, of the entire panel in question in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah.

Close-up of bighorn sheep playing patticake, petroglyph panel, Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

In this close-up you can see it more clearly. Now, I know this seems a little far-fetched, but the only other possible explanation is that they are Siamese Twins with two grown sheep sharing the same hoofs, and that seems really a bridge too far.

So, now I find it encouraging that with the state of the world as it is we can still learn something new about the animals that share the planet with us – at least on April First.

A PAINTED DINOSAUR FOOTPRINT IN LESOTHO, AFRICA:

Flag Point track site, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Internet photo public domain.

Painted track at Flag Point track site, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah. Internet photo public domain.

Chirotherium track, Joseph City, New Mexico. Photograph from Mayor and Sergeant, 2001.

Petroglyph of chirotherium track, Joseph City, New Mexico. Photograph from Mayor and Sergeant, 2001.

I think that my two favorite things in the world may be rock art and dinosaur tracks. And I would imagine that we all know about the red pictograph of the nearby dinosaur track at Flag Point in Grand Staircase – Escalante National Monument in Utah. RockArtBlog published a column about that marvel on 21 November 2015 in a column titled “A Painted Dinosaur Track in Utah.” Also, on 13 June 2014 I wrote a column titled “A Dinosaur Track Petroglyph” on a report by Adrienne Mayor and William Sarjeant of a petroglyph they believe was inspired by a nearby dinosaur track. Now, I have seen a report about a site in Lesotho, a sovereign enclave in South Africa, painted by a San bushman a artist that not only records a dinosaur track, but apparently includes a couple of images of the creature that the artist imagined to have made the track (Helm et al. 2012)

Mokhali Cave, Lesotho. Photograph Helm et al. Fig. 3.

The pictographs at this site were first recorded by one Paul Ellenberger, the son and grandsonof two generations of missionaries and ministers in Lesotho. “Swiss-born D. Frédéric Ellenberger (1835-1910) came to Lesotho in 1861. He spent the next 44 years in this work, first in Morija and then in Masitise, where he created temporary accommodation by building a stone wall in front of a massive rock overhang. He lived with his family in this Cave House for 13 years.” (Helm et al. 2012) One of Ellenberger’s children, Victor, later visited the site with his own son, Paul, who recorded the pictographs. “Victor Ellenberger (1879-1972) was born in this Cave House while a war raged outside. He excelled as a student and went to France for his secondary education, then worked as a minister from 1917 to 1934 in Lesotho (mainly at Leribe) and then in Paris. He became an expert on Lesotho’s flowering plants, changing environmental conditions and the tragic end of the San, and published books on these topics. With the help of his son Paul he copied over 400 San paintings.” (Helm et al. 2012)

San painted track image, Photograph Helm et al. Fig. 4.

Victor and Paul visited the site accompanied by Frederic Christol (1850-1933), a Lutheran minister and artist. “Armed with this knowledge of the Ellenbergers, we can imagine a 1930 visit to a rock overhang 10 km north-east of Leribe (Hlotse) known as Mokhali Cave. Victor was the minister in Leribe and likely the orchestrator. Present were Victor’s father-in-law, the artist Christol, and 12-year-old Paul, who was given the task of tracing the paintings. While his grandfather sketched the cave, Paul traced the wonderful images, which were unlike anything he or his father had seen before. Beside a painting in red ochre of a three-toed dinosaur footprint, there were three graceful figures of the imagined track-maker.” (Helm et al. 2012) Since the footprint is three-toed made by an ornithopod, the San artist had recognized its resemblance to a bird track and created the three imaginary figures which are very birdlike.

San painted track image enhanced, Photograph Helm et al. Fig. 5.

As is so often the case, the original drawings had been filed away and essentially forgotten. “The tracings had languished in obscurity in Lesotho and then in Montpellier (Montpellier University in France). But in 1989 David Mossman, a Canadian paleontologist on sabbatical in France, met Ellenberger and learned about them. In 2004 he lectured in South Africa and visited Mokhali Cave with his son Alex. They located it after an exhaustive two-day search, finally identifying it with the use of a copy of Christol’s sketch. Unfortunately the paintings had faded badly – the footprint (resembling that of an ornithopod) was just discernible, but the track-maker images were no longer visible. Ellenberger and the Mossmans then collaborated with renowned ichnologist Martin Lockley in submitting the article to Ichnos.” (Helm et al. 2012)

The claim by Ellenberger et al. (2005) that the track-maker images predate European attempts was based on the estimated latest possible occupation of Mokhali Cave by the San (1810-20), before it was occupied by the son of the Basotho king and before the San were killed or driven from the region. Implicit in such an estimate is the possibility that they may have been made even earlier. This report assumes that the San were the artists. (Helm et al. 2012)

Drawing of San painted track image and imagined track makers, image courtesy David Mossman, from Helm et al. Fig. 2.

“Employing technologies developed in astronomy, forensics and medicine, and applying them specifically to rock art, Kevin Crause has developed the CPED Toolset – Capture, Processing, Enhancement, Display. After obtaining high-resolution images, data is colour-balanced and processed to remove lens distortion. Designed enhancement algorithms resolve imagery details that cannot be resolved under normal light conditions as perceived by the human visual system. By using this technology, images often result of rock art that are no longer visible to the naked eye. We wondered what the CPED Toolset could offer regarding the faded footprint and track-maker images. Kevin and Charles Helm revisited Mokhali Cave to test this in 2011. The cave, which we found without difficulty thanks to excellent directions from the Mossmans, is 75 m wide, 10 m high and 5 m deep. It provides a magnificent north-facing view over the Caledon Valley and its level floor is wide and deep enough to encourage habitation, as in Christol’s sketch, which depicts three Basotho huts. However, it is exposed to the elements. Northerly winds, winter snow and freeze-thaw events damage the paintings on its walls, which are prone to flaking off. The chances of rock art surviving seemed remote. However, the footprint, 2 m from the eastern end of the cave, was recognizable. Midway along the floor were the remains of a circular hut. In addition to analysing the footprint and surrounding area, all promising surfaces in the cave were photographed. This yielded a few images of so-called Late White paintings by Bantu-speaking agriculturalists (Lewis-Williams 2006), likely representing Basotho rock art, but also suggesting the possibility of Basotho artists creating the dinosaur images. Rock art shelters 200mfurther east yielded numerous San paintings. In the valley of the Subeng Stream below, 3 km from Mokhali Cave, we visited a dinosaur tracksite that was recorded by Ellenberger in the 1950s. From here Mokhali Cave was visible."
(Helm et al. 2012)

“Computer programs have enhanced the image quality at this site, confirming the accuracy of Paul Ellenberger’s 1930 tracing and the relation of the footprint to the track-maker images. However, for details on the track-maker images, the efforts over 80 years ago of a remarkable pre-teenager remain the sole source. Future work is required to resolve the origin of this rock art and, if possible, its age.” (Helm et al. 2012)  This may be a reference to their CPED toolset or possibly they finished it up with D-Stretch, in any case they now have provided a great image of the painted footprint that was previously hard to see.

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.

REFERENCES:

Faris, Peter, 2015, A Painted Dinosaur Track in Utah, 21 November 2015, rockartblog.blogspot.com.

Faris, Peter, 2014, A Dinosaur Track Petroglyph, 13 June 2014, rockartblog.blogspotcom.

Helm, Charles, Kevin Crause and Richard McCrea, 2012, Mokhali Cave Revisited, Dinosaur Rock Art in Lesotho, April 2012, The Digging Stick, Vol. 29, No. 1. Accessed from Researchgate.net.

Mayor, Adrienne and William A. S. Serjeant, 2001, The Folklore of Footprints in Stone: From Classical Antiquity to the Present, Ichnos, Vol. 8, No. 2, 143-163.

SECONDARY REFERENCES:

Ellenberger, P, Mossman, DJ, Mossman, AD, & Lockley, MG. 2005. Bushmen cave paintings of ornithopod dinosaurs: paleolithic trackers interpret Early Jurassic footprints. Ichnos, Vol. 12 No. 3, 223-226.

HIGHEST ALTITUDE PETROGLYPHS IN EUROPE:

Stelvio National Park, Lombardy, Italy. Image from  arkeonews.net.

I have written a few previous columns on high altitude rock art (see ‘highest elevation’ in the cloud index at bottom). Now we have learned of the discovery of petroglyphs in Lombardy, Italy that are acclaimed as the highest in Europe.

Spiral and anthropomorph with possible quadruped. Image from archaeology.org.

Image from  arkeonews.net.

“The discovery of a series of petroglyphs over 3,000 meters high in the Valtellina Orobie mountain range in Lombardy has made them the highest petroglyphs found in Europe and provided new clues to human presence in mountainous areas since ancient times. Tommaso Malinverno, a Como hiker, informed the Soprintendenza in the summer of 2017 that he had noticed odd carvings on a rock at the base of the Pizzo Tresero glacier. After receiving this report, scientists and archaeologists conducted thorough research and determined that the petroglyphs dated to between 3,600 and 3,200 years ago (1600 -1200 BCE), during the Middle Bronze Age.” (arkeonews 2025) Now 3,000 meters is 9,842 feet so this is not up in rarified air. It does, however, prove that some people of the Middle Bronze Age traveled in the high mountains for some reason, shades of Otzi. 

Image from Regione Lombardia. 

The location of the newly found rock art is not all that isolated archeologically. “The petroglyphs are located near the Gavia Pass, a region already renowned for its rich archaeological heritage. The site connects with other significant tock art locations in Lombardy, including Val Camonica, recognized as Italy’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Valtellina region, home to the famed Rupe Magna in Grosio and the stele statues of Teglio.” (Radley 2024)

Quadruped. Image from Regione Lombardia. 

As you will see below they have suffered damage from a source that we usually do not consider to be a threat to rock art – glacial activity. This threat would seem to be reducing, however, given climate change and global warming. What new threats will show up now? “Stefano Rossi, and archaeologist from the Superintendence, remarked, ‘The Tresero petroglyphs are an exceptional research opportunity. They raise crucial questions about the complex relationship between humans and mountains over millennia. High-altitude exploration is often associated with modern mountaineering, but these engravings demonstrate long-term human presence starting in prehistory.’ However, glacial activity over thousands of years has eroded many of the carvings, leaving striations on the rocks and potentially obliterating many portions of a once larger rock art complex.” (Radley 2024) The fact that their rock face shows glacial erosion means that the petroglyphs would have been obscured by ice for part of their history. The news stories do not state how far from glacial ice they are now but they have obviously been covered at some point suggesting climatic changes over history.

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.

REFERENCES:

Arkeonews, 2025, The Highest Prehistoric Petroglyphs in Europe Discovered at 3000 Meters in the Italian Alps, https://arkeonews.net. Accessed online 5 January 2025.

Radley, Dario, 2024, Europe’s highest petroglyphs unearthed in Lombardy’s mountains, 21 November 2024, https://archaeologymag.com. Accessed online 21 November 2024.

GEOGLYPHS – A SERPENT INTAGLIO IN KANSAS:

The Great Serpent Mound, Peebles, Ohio. Gettyimages.

Most people know of the Great Serpent Mound at Peebles, Ohio. Less well known is a smaller serpent intaglio in Rice County, near Lyons, Kansas. Like the Ohio serpent mound, the Kansas serpent is portrayed as swallowing an egg.

Rice County Serpent Intaglio. The Wichita Eagle, November 11, 2014.

“This manmade curiosity represents an enormous serpent in the act of swallowing an egg. It is one of the best-preserved Indian carvings still around. In Kansas, there are only two, said Janel Cook, the director of Lyons’ Coronado Quivira Museum. They call it the Serpent Intaglio.” (Bickel 2008) The Quivira people were believed to be the predecessors of the Wichita tribe.

“Ancestors of the Wichita tribe cut this 160-foot-long image of a serpent into the sod of Rice County roughly 600 years ago. This photo was taken in the 1980s when an archaeologist poured biodegradable lime into the cut to highlight the shape. In Gary Miller’s Rice County cow pasture, miles from anywhere, there’s a long depression in the prairie grass that zig-zags along the western slope of a ridge. It’s a faint image, only inches deep. But in springtime, wild onions grow in an egg-shaped circle at one end. And in 1983, a scientist named Clark Mallam poured lime into the zig-zag and had an airplane fly over to take a photo. The yellow lime contrasted with the pasture grass and revealed the image of a serpent, 160 feet long, jaws closing around an egg.” (Wenzl 2014) The fact that different vegetation grows there than in the untouched ground around it suggests that the soil is different, or has perhaps been treated some way to give it different properties. “Apparently a different kind of soil was put into the snake,' said Kermit Hayes, a neighboring farmer. 'Short buffalo grass is about all that will grow there. Grasses such as bluestem and western wheat grass cover the pasture around the trench.”(Blosser 1982) So the modified soil is affecting growing conditions and make the serpent detectable.

Close-up of the serpent intaglio and vegetation differences. Online image, public domain.

This geoglyph or intaglio has been visited by archaeologists, but apparently it has not yet been studies in detail. “Dr. Clark Mallam, a visiting archeologist, says the jaws of the serpent point northwest toward the remains of ancient Quivira Indian villages two miles away. 'Dr. Mallam isn't saying positively, but it looks like the Indian villages were all under the influence of the serpent,' Ernst said. 'Dr. Mallam says, 'Here is the serpent and here is the Garden of Eden,'' Ernst said, pointing to a map of the villages in a fertile valley of the Little Arkansas River. The consensus is the hilltop discovery, which local residents refer to as 'the snake' or by its technical name, 'the intaglio,' which means a design or figure carved or engraved into a hard material, is one more Quivira relic which has withstood the elements.” (Blosser 1982) Dr. Mallam was a professor of anthropology at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, who specialized in studying Native American mounds and geoglyphs.

The curator of the Lyons, Kansas museum, Clyde Ernst, has reported that the members of the Wichita tribe have not provided any insight into the meaning of the serpent in their beliefs (BLosser 1982). The image of a serpent swallowing an egg must have had spiritual significance to all these people, possibly portraying an eclipse.

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.

REFERENCES:

Bickel, Amy, 2008, LYONS – On a hill amid the pasture, something mysterious emerges from mixed-grass prairie, 9 August 2008, The Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, Kansas. Accessed online 3 January 2025.

Blosser, J.B., 1982, Apparent ancient Indian symbol snakes across Kansas pasture, 17 September 1982, UPI Archives online. https://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/09/17/Apparent-ancient-Indian-symbol-snakes-across-Kansas-pasture/4598401083200/. Accessed online 3 January 2025.

Wenzl, Roy, 2014, Wichita State anthropologist hopes to unearth a Plains people’s lost story, 11 November 2014, The Wichita Eagle. Accessed online 3 January 2025.

IS A MODIFIED CAVE FLOOR IN FRANCE THE EARLIEST KNOWN MAP?

View out of the Ségognole 3 rock shelter, Fontainbleu, in the Paris Basin, France. Online image, public domain.

Readers of RockArtBlog may remember that I have been a skeptic of many claims of ancient maps in various rock art media. This one, however, might actually be real. An apparent carved stone map has been discovered at Fontainbleu, outside of Paris. “Researchers have unearthed what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located in the Paris Basin. Found within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast at the Ségognole 3 rock shelter.” (Science News Today 2025)

Geophysicists Medard Thiry of Mines Paris – PSL Centre of Geosciences,  and Anthony Milnes from the Adelaide School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences noticed signs of carving on the cave floor and, after investigating further recognized two features apparently produced by humans. Thiry and Milnes surveyed water courses in the cave and found a pattern of human manipulation and modification. (Cassella 2025)

Supposed map carved into the floor of the cave. Photograph by Pascal Crapet, Fontainebleau, Courtesy of Médard Thiry.

“Around 20,000 years ago, the prehistoric people who sheltered in this cave carved and smoothed the stone floors to create what looks like a miniature model of the surrounding valley, according to geoscientists Medard Thiry and Anthony Milnes. As water from the outside world trickled through carefully laid-out channels, basins and depressions in the cave, the surface would have come alive with rivers, deltas, ponds, and hills.” (Cassella 2025)

Along with this landscape another set of grooves seem to illustrate a portion of the torso of a female figure with pelvis, groin, thighs and hips.

"Thanks to his extensive research on the origins of Fontainebleau sandstone, Dr. Thiry recognized several fine-scale morphological features that could not have formed naturally, suggesting that they were modified by early humans. 'Our research showed that Paleolithic humans sculpted the sandstone to promote specific flow paths for infiltrating and directing rainwater, which is something that had never been recognized by archaeologists,' Thiry says. 'The fittings probably have a much deeper, mythical meaning, related to water. The two hydraulic installations - - that of the sexual figuration and that of the miniature landscape - - are two the three meters from each other and are sure to relay a profound meaning of conception of life and nature, which will never be accessible to us.'" (Pacillo 2025)

Carved female torso inside the cave opening. Photograph by Médard Thiry.

Rainfall seeping into the cavern through fractures runs across the cave floor where is pools in low points. The largest and most elevated of these pools shows indications of having been enlarged and deepened by humans, and it functions as the source of water for the features. Water from this basin runs further into the cave, splitting into two streams with one running through the carved pelvis where it runs out of the ‘vulva,’ and the other running into the carved map. The hills or mounds in the carved landscape are rounded and some are encircled by deep grooves. (Cassella 2025)

Previously, the oldest known three-dimensional map was a rock slab carved with a local river network and landscape features about 3,000 years ago in the Bronze Age. The Segognole 3 map provides a new view of these prehistoric people's perception of the world around them. (Science News Today) 

These reports certainly seem credible and may, indeed, represent the oldest map in the world. I, however, am more interested in the female representation and the purposeful way the water reportedly interacts with it, providing animation of a biological process. In any case, the two features provide some insight into the cognitive processes of people in that distant age.

NOTE: One or more 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.

PRIMARY REFERENCES:

Cassella, Carly, 2025, Earliest Known 3D Map Found in Prehistoric French Cavern, Say Experts, 7 January 2025, https://www.yahoo.com/news/. Accessed online 14 January 2025.

Pacillo, Lara, 2025, World’s oldest 3D map discovered, 13 January 2025, University of Adelaide, https://www.sciencedaily.com. Accessed online 14 January 2025.

Science News Today, 2025, World’s Oldest 3D Map Unearthed in French Cave, 17 January 2025, https://www.sciencenewstoday.org. Accessed online 22 January 2025.

SECONDARY REFERENCE:

Thiry, Médard et al, 2024, Palaeolithic map engraved for staging water flows in a Paris Basin shelter, Oxford Journal of Archaeology. DOI: 10.1111/ojoa.12316.