A COSMIC HOAX:

Station #16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

Close-up of panel at Station

#16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

In this column I am presenting another egregious mistake from the book Odyssey of the Pueblo Indians by William Eaton. On page 145 he presents a petroglyph panel that he calls a "Pueblo (Fremont) Star Chart". That is his identification of the well-known petroglyph panel from Station 16, in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah.

Bighorn sheep from Station #16,

Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

One identification that I take exception to is what he calls the two-headed mountain sheep. Upon careful examination of the petroglyph Eaton's second head at the back of the animal is actually a conglomeration composed of its tail and a couple of curved lines descending from an unknown mark that has been destroyed by the impact of a large caliber bullet. The remains of this mark can be seen circling around to the upper right of the bullet crater.

Anthropomorph on left of panel,

Station #16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Photograph Peter Faris, 1993.

On the left of this panel is a figure that Eaton calls an "anthropomorph with a six-ball bola weapon." Now this is a very interesting figure and does, in fact, remind one of a figure holding a bola. This figure along with numbers of carefully rounded stone balls found at Fremont sites have prompted this same identification by many other rock art researchers. It is an interesting speculation, but one that has not been proven. For some reason, and absolutely without any evidence at all Eaton has claimed that "the three balls may possibly refer to the three stars now called Orion's Belt." Which three balls Mr. Eaton? As you pointed out there are six.

Eaton's analysis of panel (p. 39), 

Station #16, Nine-Mile Canyon, UT.

Then Eaton went on to identify the constellations Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, and Serpens, as well as a few other stars including Polaris in additional marks on the cliff face. Unfortunately, the majority of the stars that Eaton identifies in this panel are, in reality, bullet holes put there by Anglos much later than the petroglyphs. In many places, we find that petroglyphs and pictographs provided seemingly irresistible targets to gun-toting vandals. These unfortunate marks have never had anything to do with Fremont or Pueblo Native American groups. Additionally, to make the constellation Serpens out of those bullet holes Eaton had to flip the constellation entirely as can be seen in the star chart below.

Star chart of the summer sky showing

Serpens to the left of center. From

Howard, The Telescope Handbook

and Star Atlas, 1967, p. 39.

This so-called "Pueblo (Fremont) Star Chart" is just another mistaken example of someone who feels compelled to try to force the facts to fit a theory that they bear no relation to in the real world. While I applaud Mr. Eaton's enthusiasm, I do have to deplore his methods and results.

REFERENCES:

Eaton, William M.

1999    Odyssey of the Pueblo Indians, Turner Publishing Co., Paducah, KY.

Howard, Neale E.

1967    The Telescope Handbook and Star Atlas, Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York. 

EXTINCT PREHISTORIC GIRAFFES PICTURED IN NINE-MILE CANYON, UTAH:

 

 

Mile-36, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph:

Peter Faris, August 1993. The arrows point

to the images in question #1 and #2.

Petroglyphs of Aepycamelus, an extinct giraffe/camel relative have been identified in Nine-Mile Canyon, Utah. The creature lived during the Miocene epoch, between 23 and 5.3 million years ago.

 

 

Long-necked quadruped #1 in upper left.

Mile-36, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph:

Peter Faris, August 1993.

 

Long-necked quadruped #2 on left side.

Mile-36, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah. Photograph:

Peter Faris, August 1993.

 

“Aepycamelus was a prairie dweller of North America (Colorado, etc.). It was a highly specialized animal. Its head was relatively small compared with the rest of its body, its neck was long, as a result of giraffe-like lengthening of the cervical vertebrae, and its legs were long and stilt-like, with the elbow and knee joints on the same level. The top of its head would have been about 3 meters (9.8 ft) above the ground“. (Wikipedia)

 

Aepycamelus, formerly called Alticamelus,

Wikipedia

 

 

Aepycamelus, formerly called Alticamelus,

Wikipedia

“Its strange body structure gives us plenty of information on its mode of life and habits. Aepycamelus obviously inhabited dry grasslands with groups of trees. It is presumed to have moved about singly or in small groups, like today's giraffes, and like them, browsed high up in the trees. In this respect it had no competitors. It survived a relatively long time, through most of the Miocene epoch, and died out prior to the start of the Pliocene, possibly due to climatic changes.” (Wikipedia)

The Miocene epoch covered the period of roughly 23 to 5.3 million years ago. So, could there have possibly been a rock artist back in the Miocene who carved these images of Aepycamelus at that time? Perhaps there was a relic population of Aepycamelus that lasted longer in northeastern Utah, until the great extinction of North American megafauna at the end of the Pleistocene period 13,000 years ago. How else can we explain these pictures?

 

Well, we could explain them by pointing to the fact that it is April 1^st – APRIL FOOL’S DAY!

(NOTE: The rock art is real, it is the explanation that is bogus.)

SOURCE:  Wikipedia

 

VANDALISM CASE SETTLED WITH FINE AND (HOPEFULLY) A LESSON:

The Pregnant-buffalo petroglyph, Nine-Mile

Canyon, Carbon County, UT. From Ogden

Standard-Examiner, July 29, 2014.

A recent case of rock art vandalism has been settled with a fine, and (hopefully) a lesson learned. According to the Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner (July 29, 2014), the families of two juveniles responsible for defacing a rock art panel in Nine-Mile Canyon have agreed to pay $1,500 for the damage. 

"In May, Bureau of Land Management Utah Price Field Office law enforcement officers and archaeological staff investigated citizen-reported damage to the Nine Mile Canyon Pregnant Buffalo rock art panel in Carbon County." 

A local property owner had reportedly visited the site on May 25, 2014, and found the initials J.M.N. and the date scratched into the rock near the image, and saw two individuals hurrying from the site.

The vandalism found at the site. From the 

Ogden Standard-Examiner, July 29, 2014.

"One of the youths stated that he was sorry for his thoughtless actions and hoped that others would learn from his mistake. "I hope people try to think about the consequences and the effect their actions have on history," he said."

"Cultural resources like rock art are protected under various federal laws and regulations, including the Archaeological Resources Protection Act (ARPA). In ARPA, Congress affirmed that cultural and archaeological resources are an irreplaceable part of America's heritage and must be protected. As a result, ARPA prohibits the unauthorized damage to, or excavation and removal, of archaeological resources on federal lands. ARPA also prohibits the unlawful sale, purchase, or exchange of archaeological resources. ARPA violations may result in criminal prosecution or civil penalties based on the cost of restoration and repair."

RockArtBlog applauds the public and officers involved in solving the case of vandalism, and the Ogden Standard-Examiner for bringing it to the public's attention. If education truly is the answer perhaps this case has had some positive outcome. I think that they got off fairly lightly, but I am confident that they will remember the lesson. Hopefully others will also.

REFERENCE:

http://digital.olivesoftware.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?

TIME FACTORED DATA IN ROCK ART:

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.



THE GOLDEN RATIO IN ROCK ART:

Hunt panel, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1985.

On April 17, 1987, I presented a paper at the Rock Art in the Western United States symposium at the Denver Museum of Natural History, co-sponsored by the museum and by the Colorado Archaeological Society. My presentation was titled Aspects of Design in Uintah and San Rafael Fremont Rock Art. In this I focused on analyzing rock art in terms of traditional design concepts in western art. Note that I was discussing rock art that predates any possible contact between cultures. In this I was postulating that preference for certain proportions and ratios are apparently hard-wired into the human brain. One of the design elements that I discussed on that occasion was the golden ratio (AKA: golden mean/golden section).
The golden ratio was of great interest to early mathematicians and has been used intentionally at least since the Renaissance by western artists as a basis for composition. Simply speaking, the golden ratio is a means of subdividing a line or an area in such a way that the ratio of the smaller portion to the larger is the same as ratio of the larger portion to the total. According to Wikipedia “two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.6180339887.”

In 1945, Max Raphael wrote in Prehistoric Cave Paintings that “The first surprise of the spectator who takes measurements is not that he finds proportions in all these lines and surfaces, but that these proportions – largely independent of the various animal species represented – can be reduced to a few recurrent types such as 1:1, 1:2, 2:3, 2:5, 3:5, 3:4, 3:7 and 4:7. The first two require no explanation because they can be achieved with any scale. The next three form the homogeneous group 2:3 = 3:5 which is known as the golden section” (p.28).

Raphael believed that early man had become aware of this ratio by noticing natural relationships of the digits of the human hand. His candidate for this relationship was the that the ratio of the width of the 4th and 5th fingers on one hand compared to the width of the thumb plus the 1st and 2nd fingers closely approximates the ratio of the width of the thumb plus the 1st and 2nd fingers to the width of all five fingers. Raphael also found the golden section in the body proportions of many of the animals portrayed in cave paintings.

Golden ratio proportions drawn on photo,

Hunt panel, 9-Mile Canyon, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, 1985.

The example that I presented for the golden ratio is the famous hunting panel from 9-Mile Canyon in northeastern Utah. In examining this petroglyph panel we first recognize that there are elements from more than one culture included and my analysis was focused on the original Fremont composition. It is obvious that the original composition composed a panel of the type that is sometimes called a “master of the animals” or “master of the hunt” composition. The classic Fremont figure on the upper center of the composition (often assume to be a hunt shaman) is surrounded by a grouping of quadrupeds which appear to be bighorns. These animals are all connected to each other and to the upper human figure by overlapping, and in some instances lines. Six or seven figures have been added later in a different style, predominately on the right side. Four of these are hunters carrying bows and were created at a later date with a more fluid and curving style by another hand and which would not have been part of the original composition. There are also shield figures which may be questioned but their presence does not change the proportions of what I take to be the original composition which consists of the upper central Fremont figure and the grouping of bighorns around him. When I focus on that, the ratio of the width to the height can be seen to be very closely comparable to the golden ratio. I believe that this was probably done subconsciously by the original Fremont artist. These proportions just “felt right” to the creator of the panel. Later figures were probably added to share the supposed spiritual power possessed by the panel. I believe that this ratio represents one of the elements in rock art that is not generally intentional, but comes from a common inherited, subconscious, human sensitivity to that ratio which is hard-wired into the human brain, possibly as a relic of our primate brain’s need to judge distances and proportions in the branches of the trees that housed our early ancestors.

This points toward at least one element that can be recognized in rock art that is attributable to our common humanity rather than cultural influences or stylistic choices, but I believe there are many other such elements.

REFERENCE:

Raphael, Max
1945   Prehistoric Cave Paintings, Pantheon Books, Washington D.C.