ROCK ART OF EL MORRO, NEW MEXICO:

 

El Morro, Cibola County, NM.

Photograph: Peter Faris, June 1993.

I have formerly posted some columns on historic inscriptions found at Morro Rock, in Cibola County, New Mexico. This interesting site has a permanent water tank at its base, a huge premium in this arid landscape, and the ruins of an ancestral Puebloan village on its summit. Long known for the large number of historic inscriptions carved into the rock face which record many episodes from the history of New Mexico and the southwest, it is less well known for Native American ancestral Puebloan rock art left carved into its surface by early inhabitants. Much of this ancestral Puebloan rock art has been defaced and overcarved by later inscriptions which are now considered to be historic. Those inscriptions record much of the history of the Spanish and American periods in the American southwest by providing a ledger of who was passing by Morro Rock, and often why they were there, and they provide an interesting historic resource in their own right. But, in this posting, I intend to look at the prehistoric rock art that can still be seen at Morro Rock.

 

 

Atsinna pueblo, El Morro, Cibola County, NM.

Photograph: Peter Faris, June 1993.

"Atsinna Pueblo, the largest of the pueblos atop El Morro, dates from about 1275. Its builders made use of what they had around them: flat sedimentary rock easily cut up as slabs they could pile one on top of another and cement with clay and pebbles. The pueblo was about 200 by 300 feet, and it housed between 1,000 and 1,500 people. Multiple stories of interconnected rooms - 875 have been counted -- surrounded an open courtyard. Corn and other crops were grown in irrigated fields, down on the plain; the surplus was stored in well-sealed rooms in the pueblo against times of need. The grinding bins and fire pits remain today. Cisterns on top of the mesa collected rainwater. The pool at its base was often used too, as hand-and-toe steps on the cliff face attest. An alternate trail for the residents may have followed the one that is still in use." (http://www.nps.gov/elmo/learn/historyculture/atsinna.htm)

 

 

Petroglyphs, El Morro, Cibola County, NM.

Photograph: Peter Faris, June 1993.

 The subjects that can be seen in the remaining rock art around the base of Morro Rock seem to be fairly common ancestral Pueblo themes. Human figures, animals, hand and foot prints, concentric circles, etc.
 

 

Petroglyphs, El Morro, Cibola County, NM.

Photograph: Peter Faris, June 1993.
 

Note the lovely row of bighorn sheep crossing the middle of this panel. Deeply carved and of excellent preservation, they are familiar to many as one of the most photographed petroglyph groups at El Morro.

Petroglyphs, El Morro, Cibola County, NM.

Photograph: Peter Faris, June 1993.

And above is my favorite, a roadrunner. Note the topknot projecting from the back of his head. This is a very common animal in this environment in the desert southwest.

 

Petroglyphs, El Morro, Cibola County, NM.
 

Spread-legged human  figures that are so familiar in ancestral Puebloan rock art. The dates for occupation of Asinna on top of Morro Rock fall in the late Pueblo III to early Pueblo IV periods, and Shaafsma puts the style of rock art at El Morro as "Plateau Anasazi mixed with Rio Grande Style." (Schaafsma 1992:25)

Given the historic importance of the Spanish and American inscriptions, it is perhaps understandable that the rock art of El Morro is not better known, but it is a shame. It fully deserves as much attention as other rock art sites. Stop in if you are ever in that part of New Mexico, it is well worth a visit. 

REFERENCES:

http://www.nps.gov/elmo/learn/historyculture/atsinna.htm

Schaafsma,Polly

1992      Rock Art in New Mexico, Museum of New Mexico Press, Santa Fe.

 

 

 

 

HOPI CLAN SYMBOLS AS A LEXICON FOR ROCK ART IN THE SOUTHWEST - THE SNAKE:

 

Naturalistic rattlesnake petroglyph, Brown's Park,

Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris 1987.

Naturalistic serpent petroglyphs, Galisteo Dike,

New Mexico. Photograph: Peter Faris, 1988.

One aspect of viewing rock art in the field in the West is the ever present awareness that one might run into a rattlesnake, or perhaps the proper phrase is step into a rattlesnake. Walking through an arid landscape with one eye looking up at cliff faces and boulders, you have to keep the other eye on the ground a few feet ahead of where you are stepping. It can give one a headache. What is the opposite of cross-eyed – divergent eyed? In an Internet search the most common opinion held that this term was wall-eyed, and the proper medical term for it is strabisums exotropia, although that is sort of beside the point. The point I am trying to get at here is that there is an interesting reinforcement of the concept of rattlesnake in environment as well as in rock art, and there are lots of rattlesnakes in the rock art of the Southwest and the West.

 

Horned serpents from caveate room. Mortendad ruin,

Los Alamos, New Mexico. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2003.

 

Horned Serpents, Mesa Prieta, Rio Arriba County,

New Mexico. Photograph: Peter Faris, 1997.

 

Now why would one portray a rattlesnake in rock art (other than the fact that they are an important fact of life in the American West)? Actually I need to differentiate here between a couple of different types of snakes portrayed in the rock art of the Southwest. One type of snake portrayal is the horned or plumed serpent so often associated with the concept of the Quetzalcoatl from Mexico and Mesoamerica. Example of these are seen from all over the American Southwest, and they are assumed to be a result of the influence of Mexican and Mesoamerican cultures upon the peoples of the American Southwest.

 

 

 Snake Clan symbol, Big Falling Snow, Yava - Hopi petition, 1894, #83.

 

 

Snake Clan symbol, Big Falling Snow, Yava - Hopi petition, 1894, #85.



 

The other type of snake portrayal appears as a regular snake; rattlesnake, or other, and this is the type of portrayal that I am suggesting may be associated with a symbol of identity. One of the symbols in the clan register included in the Hopi Petition of 1894 is a wavy line identified as the symbol of the Snake or Serpent Clan. This document “was signed in clan symbols by 123 principals of kiva societies, clan chiefs, and village chiefs of Walpi, Tewa Village, Sichomovi, Mishongnovi, Shongopovi, Shipaulovi and Oraibi.” (Yava 1978:167). The clan symbols illustrated in this document surely provide a useful lexicon for rock art imagery in the Southwest.  

 

Willow Springs clan register, Snake Clan symbols to right

of center. Christensen, Dickey, and Freers, Rock Art of

the Grand Canyon, 2013, Sunbelt Publishers, page 180.

 

On Saturday, October 4, 2014, I posted a column entitled Clan Symbol Rosters – Tallies of Not? In this I looked at the question of whether the Hopi Clan Registers at Willow Springs, Arizona, where some 40 boulders contain 2,178 images of Hopi Clan symbols, might provide a lexicon of possible meaning for similar symbols throughout the American Southwest. Both of the above sources; the clan register in the Hopi Petition of 1894, and the clan registers at Willow Springs, include the images of snakes without horns or feathers, and thus demonstrably not meant to be Quetzalcoatl. I believe that this suggests that one possible interpretation of snake or serpent portrayals in rock art of the American Southwest is as a reference to such a symbol - a clan marking. This might have been intended as sort of a "Kilroy was here" by the ancestral Native Americans that left the image.

 REFERENCES:

 Christensen, Don D., Jerry Dickey, and Steven M. Freers,

2013    Rock Art of the Glen Canyon Region, Sunbelt Publications, San Diego

Yava, Albert

1978    Big Falling Snow: A Tewa-Hopi Indian’s Life and Times and the History and Traditions of His People, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.

EARLY ROCK ART RECORDS - THE PIASA MONSTER, ALTON, ILLINOIS:

 

Re-imagined Piasa painted on the cliff at

Alton, IL. Public domain.

 

One of the early records of rock art from North America was recorded by the French explorer Father Jacques Marquette during his exploration of the Mississippi River.

"In 1673, Father Jacques Marquette saw the painting on a limestone bluff overlooking the Mississippi River while exploring the area. He recorded the following description:

"While Skirting some rocks, which by Their height and length inspired awe, We saw upon one of them two painted monsters which at first made Us afraid, and upon Which the boldest savages dare not Long rest their eyes. They are as large As a calf; they have Horns on their heads Like those of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard Like a tiger's, a face somewhat like a man's, a body Covered with scales, and so Long A tail that it winds all around the Body, passing above the head and going back between the legs, ending in a Fish's tail. Green, red, and black are the three Colors composing the Picture. Moreover, these 2 monsters are so well painted that we cannot believe that any savage is their author; for good painters in France would find it difficult to reach that place Conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately The shape of these monsters, As we have faithfully Copied It."" (Wikipedia)

 

German illustration, 1839. From Mallery,

1889, fig. 41, p.79.

Variously referring to the Piasa monster or the Piasa Bird, such reports almost tell us more about the state of mind of the western observer than they do any Native Americans who were involved in the episode. One of the earliest illustrations of the Piasa was taken from an 1839 publication in Germany and is illustrated in Mallery (1889:79)

“Unfortunately, the Alton Bluff paintings were destroyed by quarrying activities during the first half of the nineteenth century and have been replaced through the years by modern versions on a nearby bluff facade. For many years the piasa figure was painted and repainted on the bluffs. Later a painted steel plaque depicting a piasa was erected and more recently taken down and once again painted directly on the bluffs in yet another location. A piasa, or an underwater spirit much like it, was an important figure in the traditions of the region’s Native American groups.” (Diaz-Granados et al. 2005:118) 

It is necessary to keep in mind that the present representation of the Piasa is based on imagination with an eye to possibly unreliable early sketches. It is touched up periodically and exists much more as Chamber of Commerce advertising for Alton than as an artifact of previous people in that area. In fact, it is not even in the same place as the original. 

“Although destruction of the famous Piasa in Alton, Illinois makes reconstruction of that petroglyph questionable , the recent description of another petroglyph Piasa in Illinois shows bird-like wings on the back of a serpent. Unfortunately, the Piasa as a motif in the Southeast is such an unpredictable mixture of human, feline, deer, bird, serpent, and other characteristics that it is difficult to equate it with the well-known Quetzalcoatl representation. Many of the serpents, such as rattlesnakes occurring on shell gorgets, are obviously native to the Southeast. The snakes frequently have antlers, which also seems to be unique to the Southeast (Howard 1968)” (Cobb et. al. 1999:175)

 Winnebago Medicine Animal, eastern Nebraska.

Photograph: Nebraska State Hist. Soc.

 

 

Winnebago medicine animal.

Although we do not have the original to view any longer, the present reconstruction shows a creature which bears a strong resemblance to the drawings of Winnebago "medicine animals" from other sources. This creature seems to be a variation of Michi-Peshu, the "Water Panther" of the eastern Woodlands, and I would think, provides a reasonable model for our speculations of the appearance of the Piasa.

 

Piasa illustrated in Mallery, fig. 40,p. 78.

 

The modern so-called reconstruction is based upon the 1825 drawing by William Dennis and illustrated in Mallery (p. 78) with colors added imaginatively based upon the description by Marquette. One thing I am sure of is that it probably does not come close to the original pictograph. Sadly, this is often the case with older records as the portrayals are often improved upon by western observers.

REFERENCES:

Cobb, Charles R., Jeffrey Maymon, and Randall H. McGuire,

1999    Feathered, Horned, and Antlered Serpents, pages 165-181, in Great Towns and Regional Polities in the Prehistoric American Southwest and Southeast, edited by Jill E. Neitzel, An Amerind Foundation Publication, Dragoon, Arizona.

Diaz-Granados, Carol, and James R. Duncan

2005    Rock Art of the Central Mississippi River Valley, pages 114 – 130, in Discovering North American Rock Art, Loendorf, Lawrence L., Christopher Chippindale, and David S. Whitley, editors, University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Mallery, Garrick

1889    Picture Writing of the American Indians, in the Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1888-1889, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.

Wikipedia

THE EARLIEST ART – HOMO ERECTUS ENGRAVED SHELL:

Mussel shell with scratch markings made by Homo erectus,

Trinil Site, Solo River, Java, Indonesia. Photograph Wim

Lustenhouwer, VU University Amsterdam. 

No matter what your particular interest is in the field of rock art you cannot avoid questions about the art produced by early cultures. Much has been published about the cave art of Cro Magnon peoples in Europe. Even before Cro Magnon there are items from Neanderthal contexts that show the beginnings of artistic sensibility. Now that horizon has apparently been pushed back almost a half millennia. On December 4, 2014, Nature published an article on a decorated shell recovered from Homo erectus material in Java, Indonesia, and this was mirrored by a publication on the same discovery in Smithsonian.com.

The shell is one that had been recovered along with fossil bones by the 19^th-century Dutch physician Eugene Dubois, along the Solo River on the island of Java. Dubois named his discovery Java Man but it is now known as Homo erectus.

“Dubois collected 11 species of freshwater shells at the site, called Trinil. Most of them belong to the sub-species Pseudodon vondembuschianus trinilensis, a now extinct freshwater mussel he described in 1908.” (Thompson)  The excavated shells represented at least 166 individual Pseudodon mussels, but scientists initially were unsure that they had any connection to Homo erectus.

Now a new study of those shells at Naturalis Biodiversity Center, in Leiden, Netherlands, under the lead of Josephine Joordens from Leiden University has discovered that a number of the shells had been modified by Homo erectus.

Slash marks on mussel shell. Photograph Wim

Lustenhouwer, VU University Amsterdam.

Archaeologist Stephen Munro, working with Joordens, first noticed the lines engraved into the one shell. The lines appear as a series of slash marks with four of them assembled into a shape like the capital letter “M.” On this carved shell the lines had originally been deeply engraved into the calcium carbonate shell. This enabled the carving to survive for so long. “The shell with the engraving, was likely carved with a sharp object, such as a shark tooth. At the time of its carving, the shell likely had a dark covering, and the marks would have appeared as white lines, Joordens said.” (Geggel) Researchers hypothesizing that the engraving on the shell had also have been done by a Homo erectus wielding a shark’s tooth to scratch the lines, tested this with a modern mussel shell and used sharks teeth to make marks on it.

“The researchers used two dating techniques on preserved sediment in the shells to determine their age: between 540,000 and 430,000 years. They team also used x-rays to examine the Homo erectus bones and confirm that they came from the same rock layer as the shells. The results suggest that the Homo erectus fossils on Java aren’t quite as old as we thought they were.” (Thompson)

Mussel shell with sharpened and polished edge.
Photograph: Francesco d’Errico, Bordeaux University. 

One of the shells has a smooth and polished edge, suggesting it may have been used as a tool for cutting or scraping. “We found at least one that was very clearly and deliberately modified so that a sharp edge was produced that could be used like a knife,” Joordens said. ”There are other shells in the collection that have this tool-like appearance.” (Geggel) 

Pierced mussel shell, presumable by opening it

for food. Photograph Henk Caspers, Naturalis.

“Additionally, a large percentage of the shells were pierced in a certain location. “About one-third of the shells have a small hole that does not appear to be made by an animal, such as an otter, rat, bird, monkey, or snail. About 80 percent of the holes are made in the same location – near the shell’s hinges, and measure about 0.2 to 0.4 inches (0.5 to 1 centimeter) across.

It’s a clever way to get a snack, “without smashing the shell, so that you have all kinds of debris and breakage in the meat of the animal.” Joordens said. Perhaps Homo erectus pierced the shells with sharp points, such as the shark teeth that were found at Trinil, the archaeological site in Java, Joordens said.” (Geggel)  Modern experimentation has shown that once a mussel is pierced there the animal loses strength in it muscle and the shell can be easily opened. This also indicated to the researchers that the mussels were eaten raw as the shell of a cooked mussel opens naturally by itself, suggesting that the Trinil site on the Solo River on the island of Java served as sort of an oyster bar for Homo erectus. But whatever their actual activities and purposes there, one of them, on one occasion, used a hard, sharp point to engrave lines into a mussel shell. A shell that survived until excavated by Eugene Dubois in 1891 and 1892, and then sat on a shelf until recently examined by Stephen Munro. What an amazing day for Munro - and for us.

REFERENCES:
 

Geggel, Laura

2014    540,000-Year-Old Shell Carvings May Be Human Ancestor’s Oldest Art, on December 3, LiveScience.com

Thompson, Helen

2014    Zigzags on a Shell From Java Are the Oldest Human Engravings, on December 3, Smithsonian.com.

WHO MADE IT – ROCK ART BY BEGINNERS:

Westwater Creek, Grand County, Utah.

Photograph Peter Faris, October 8, 2001.

In considering who made the rock art we tend to avoid one inconvenient truth. No matter how beautiful some of our favorite panels are the artist who created them had to start somewhere. Nobody can accomplish a high quality work of art without considerable practice and experience. Back in my early days of art teaching we used to say that a student must make a requisite number of mistakes before they can count on getting it right. As students of rock art I think we all too often ascribe poorly done images to someone rushing, not taking the required time to get it right, instead of admitting that many images were done very poorly because of inexperience, and perhaps youth.

On  February 15, 2015 , I addressed one aspect of this question in a posting entitled A Beginner's Mistake which discussed a petroglyph on McConkie Ranch near Vernal, Utah, which showed drastic changes in scale from top to bottom based on an inexperienced artist's overlooking of the problem of fitting the scale of his image to the size of the available surface (originally posted on June 30, 2013). 

Westwater Creek, Grand County, Utah.

Photograph Peter Faris, October 8, 2001.

The illustrations above, from upper Westwater Creek, in eastern Utah, show some examples of imagery that may have been produced by inexperienced artists. The white equestrian figures in the illustration at top were created by a Ute artist that I assume was quite young, or inexperienced, or both. Equally, the horsemen in the grouping in the second illustration are so crudely done that we may be justified in assuming that their creator was just learning the trade.

Guthrie, in The Nature of Paleolithic Art (2005), presented many examples of Paleolithic art from the caves of Europe that he identified as beginner’s mistakes, and while he may be right or wrong on specific examples he certainly had a great point. Nobody gets to start at the top; you start at the bottom, make your mistakes, and work your way up.

Paleolithic art, perhaps drawn by inexperienced

artists. Guthrie, R. Dale Guthrie, 2005,
The Nature of Paleolithic Art, p. 8.

“Paleolithic art contains the work of many inexperienced artists. Throughout this book I’ll show you quite a few works by artists who are developing their drawing facility. Such works are usually bypassed in popular books on this subject. And they are not easily integrated into most theories explaining Paleolithic art.” (Guthrie 2005:8) This is self-selection bias, they are overlooked and so our whole picture of ancient art is skewed toward what we see as a high level of quality and professionalism.

Paleolithic art, perhaps drawn by inexperienced

artists. Guthrie, R. Dale Guthrie, 2005,
The Nature of Paleolithic Art, p. 12.

“Rather scribbly works by inexperienced Paleolithic drawers who did a lot of redrawing. A, Ibex, Espelugues, Fr. B-C, Horses, Lascaux, Fr. D, Wild cattle or aurochs, Limeuil, Fr. E, A mix of images from Les Combarelles, Fr. Horses in B and C are speared; the one in C is penetrated by a spear in the gut and bleeding profusely (this portrays a botched killing job, as a spear-hunter must hit the thorax for a clean kill).” (Guthrie 2005:12)

As I said above, while Guthrie may be right or wrong on any specific example I believe that he has put his finger on a serious oversight that still affects rock art studies. Instead of looking at what we can learn from all images (including the crudest or least aesthetic), we ignore some to focus on the best and most beautiful. This adds a measure of self-selection bias to our supposedly objective investigations. In the end we may have a one-sided or biased viewpoint on all rock art because of this.

REFERENCE: 

Guthrie, R. Dale

2005    The Nature of Paleolithic Art, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

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

http://adventr.co/201103/dry-fork-mcconkie-ranch.

Among the marvelous Fremont culture rock art at McConkie Ranch outside Vernal, Utah is the figure known as Bigfoot Man. Done in what Polly Schaafsma called the Classic Fremont Style this figure presents us with an example of a beginner’s mistake. I started my working career by teaching art at a few colleges and my curriculum responsibilities usually included life or figure drawing. Anyone who has actually taught art will recognize this panel 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 of 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 not only is this panel pecked, but paint has then been added as well, particularly in his headdress. It is an example of mixed-media. Many of the students in my former classes would actually have been happy to have done so well in their initial attempts. This figure is portrayed with details of clothing and headdress as well as weapons. He has a spear or something on his back projecting up above his right shoulder, and he holds a club or axe in his left hand.

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 as well as providing clues as to how their rock art was produced.

NOTE: This material had originally been posted a couple of years ago but I deleted it in order to update it and add  additional information.

STONE BLINDS AND DRIVELINES - ROLLINS PASS, CO:

Drive line, Rollins Pass, Grand County, CO.

Photograph Peter Faris, 25 July 1987. 

Over the years I have discussed features that we classify as geoglyphs a few times. Under our western cultural classifications of art we have always included architecture so I feel that I can properly include rock constructions under the classification of rock art. In this posting I want to mention the amazing rock alignments and constructions on the top of Rollins Pass in Grand County, Colorado at 11,671’ altitude in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I have had the opportunity to visit there a couple of times, the first in 1987 with Dr. James Benedict who researched high altitude archaeology for many years and was certainly the expert on the Rollins Pass alignments.

A section of the drive line, Rollins Pass, Grand County,

CO. Photograph Peter Faris, 25 July 1987.

These comprise 12 game drives and associated stone hunting blinds and other features. “Several drives are small, perhaps single construction episode walls containing less than 150 meters of rock alignments, while others are large, likely aggraded drives, which contain over 1500 meters of drive features much like other game drives in the Indian Peaks such as Sawtooth Mountain and the Arapaho Pass System.” (Pelton 2012:55)

Close-up of stone construction, Rollins Pass, Grand

County, CO. Photograph Peter Faris, 25 July 1987.

At the time of my first visit to the area in 1987, Dr. Benedict gave a rough estimate of over 1 mi. of fence, 174 pit blinds, and 184 cairns, and gave his date estimates as from ca. 6,000 - 3,000 BC. Obviously people had expended a great deal of time and energy to create these features in the thin air of nearly 12,000 feet above sea level.

“Six of the 12 sites contain less than 500 meters of rock alignments, three contain between 500 meters and one kilometer, two contain between one and two kilometers of rock alignments, and one contains over two kilometers (2,041 meters) of rock alignments. In terms of the total number of pit or hunting blind features, seven sites contain one to ten, two sites contain 11 to 20, two contain between 30 and 40, and one contains over 40.” (Pelton 2012:55)

 Hunting blind, Rollins Pass, Grand County, CO.

Photograph Peter Faris, 25 July 1987.

The hunting blinds may have been partially excavated pit features which were then surrounded by a rock wall that the hunter could conceal behind as the animals were driven toward them. Excavations in hunting blinds have proven that people were indeed in them, at least on occasion, as dropped items and tool sharpening flakes have been reported.

We can only surmise how exactly they were used, but I can easily imagine a group of hunters gathering in some of the blinds on top of the pass while the rest of the clan hikes down to lower altitude in the forest. There they could spread out in a long line and begin a noisy drive up towards the pass on top, driving any animals ahead of them and funneling them toward where the hunters waited. In such a scenario the Rollins Pass complex would function as sort of the reverse of a buffalo jump. In this case instead of driving the game to fall down, they were driving them to climb up, but the results would have been much the same.

A view of the summit of Rollins Pass and the modern road across it seen from within one of the hunting blinds shows a section of drive line couple of the cairns visible as longer rocks standing on end. The landscape in the back ground gives a good idea of the altitude and the conditions found here.

View from within a stone blind of the drive line, Rollins Pass,

Grand County, CO.photograph Peter Faris, 25 July 1987.

Cairns represented by vertical rocks in right center.

“The number of cairns per site is most often related to a specific design element of certain game drives - in which cairn alignments are utilized in the place of rock wall alignments, a construction technique that requires far less labor investment and exhibits no discernible pattern, in terms of cairn quantity, between sites. Based on the numbers from the 12 previously recorded game drives, the “average” game drive at Rollins Pass contains around 670 meters of rock alignments, between 15 to 16 pit or hunting blind features, and between 9 to 10 cairns.” (Pelton 2012:55-56)

These cairns most probably were similar to the inuksuk built by Inuit hunters to help guide the reindeer to a desired hunting ground. How effective could such a complex be? Dr. Benedict stated that one day during one of his recording trips to the site he watched a deer or elk wandering up the slope stop and divert to the side when it came to one of the drive lines, even in there modern broken down and aggraded condition.

As rock alignments, and very impressive ones at that, these drive line complexes certainly classify as a category of geoglyphs, and as we consider architecture to be one component of the arts, I feel completely justified in including these in RockArtBlog.

REFERENCE:

Pelton, Spencer R.

2012    Putting Rollins Pass on the Map: Revitalizing the Research of a High Altitude Archaeological Landscape, pages 54-57, Colorado Archaeology, Spring 2012, Vol. 78, No. 1, Colorado Archaeological Society and Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists.