Petroglyphs

[JohnRich 4]

I'm heading out for a three-day weekend of digging in the dirt to attempt to uncover some 2,000-year-old petroglyphs!

Petroglyphs are images chiseled into rock, created by ancient civilizations. In this case, I'll be in southwest Texas, at a site occupied by hunter-gatherer Indians.

The site is a large slab of exposed flat limestone, on top of a mesa, at the edge of a river canyon. Some petroglyphs were discovered on the exposed portion of rock. An expedition last year removed dirt from around the edge of the rock, uncovering yet more petroglyphs, which had not been seen by human eyes for 2,000 years.

This weekend is a new attempt to unearth some more mysteries. Some of these are recognizable figures, such as hands and feet, animal tracks, animal figures, and such. Others are weird geometric shapes that are a complete mystery.

It should be fun, and hard work...

In the following photos, the darker images are the ones that were already exposed and are weathered. The tan-colored ones are some of the newly exposed petroglyphs.

Photos:
1) Right: Workers removing dirt. Left: Newly exposed images.
2) Left: Rattlesnake? Right: Deer
3) A pair of unknowns.
4) Left: An alien in a spaceship? Right: Unknown.
5) Left: Human figure. Right: Deer tracks

[headoverheels 292]

3R -- funky birdman suit
4R -- Boobies!
5L -- Freakflyer


Anywhere near Hueco Tanks? I visited that area about 15 years ago.

[SkiD_PL8 0]

Dude hate to bust your bubble but I totally drew those in that rock.

Greenie in training.

[JohnRich 4]

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3R -- funky birdman suit
4R -- Boobies!
5L -- Freakflyer

Um, er, good interpretation!

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Anywhere near Hueco Tanks? I visited that area about 15 years ago.

These are west of Del Rio, down near the Mexican border.

For the readers:
Heuco Tanks is another neat site east of El Paso, TX, with a lot of pictographs (painted images), unusual for all the detailed "face mask" images. It's just three small mountains comprised of huge piles of boulders, and poking your nose into all the cracks and crevices reveals lots of pictographs. I love that place. So do rock climbers.

1) One of the "mask" figures.
2) Homer Simpson? Doh! Notice the complex geometric pattern drawn with a continuous line.
3) A series of dancers!
4) A nice deer.

These paintings are much more sophisticated than the petroglyphs seen in the previous message.

[Candy 0]

Skid PL8 you Smart Ass, you trying to cause trouble again?

John,
Thats really cool, have fun and dig hard.
I've run into quite a few Petroglyphs while hiking in the Mohave Desert in California. One time I had an Old Man turn me on to a secret place at a natural spring, there were thousands of them carved into the rocks, made my hair stand up on end. Wish we knew more about them and what they meant. There were even some names carved into the rocks by some guys who had found it in 1911, Dip Shits.

Have fun and let us know what you find.
Candy

[JohnRich 4]

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Wish we knew more about them and what they meant. There were even some names carved into the rocks by some guys who had found it in 1911, Dip Shits.

That Mojave place sounds really neat. I love this stuff - I guess the mystery of it all is what intrigues me. It's the only thing these people left behind for us to try and understand them. But it's impossible for us in the 21st century, to comprehend what those symbols meant to an ancient people with a different lifestyle and different customs and beliefs.

Nevertheless, the anthropologists say that there are certain basic beliefs that keep popping up over and over again, no matter what culture you study. Things like god, afterlife, and so forth. So maybe some of these symbols represent such beliefs.

One theory about the weird symbols: the shaman, or medicine man, would take peyote, a small cactus with hallucinigenic (sp?) properties. Today, it would be like taking LSD and going on a "trip". But to those people, such a trip would have been seen as a view of a strange "spirit world", perhaps where they travel when they die. So some of those symbols may be things that they saw in their mind while they were high on peyote.

There is frequently modern vandalism at such sites, which is a real shame. And anything after about 1900 is considered to be "vandalism".

There is a place called "El Morro" in northern New Mexico, where a cliff contains markings from about a 1,000 years of history. It starts with Indian pictographs, then carvings from Spanish explorers as far back as the 1600's, next, U.S. cavalry patrols starting about 1870, then railroad men in 1880, and finally, western wagon train travelers. That one cliff is like a giant history book of the people who lived in and moved through the land.

Neat stuff.

[marcandalysse 0]

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It's the only thing these people left behind for us to try and understand them. But it's impossible for us in the 21st century, to comprehend what those symbols meant to an ancient people with a different lifestyle and different customs and beliefs.

Not really so difficult or impossible. They left behind their descendents who still live all around that area and can explain them. Some are designs of Katchinas, others are pointers for initiation rituals when youth do a walkabout through the desert, etc.

Many of those designs are similar to what you see around the four corners area, from albuquerque and santa fe, west to northern arizona and up to utah....
but all the ones I am familiar with are only 1000 years old or even more recent.

you say:

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But to those people, such a trip would have been seen as a view of a strange "spirit world", perhaps where they travel when they die. So some of those symbols may be things that they saw in their mind while they were high on peyote.

That 'strange spirit world' is all around you. It is our world, seen with more open eyes and heart. Peyote religion treats the cactus not as a mind drug, but as a HEART medicine. So with an open heart, they look at you and see the inner spirit. The spaceman looking helmets are the halos around us....etc

But yeah, it is shockingly weird and a jolt to our normal consciousness when we run across these petroglyphs.....thanks for sharing!

PS: wear a hat, use lots of sunscreen and drink lots of water, or you may start hallucinating yourself!!

Regards,
Marc

"The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly." --GK Chesterton

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Very cool stuff John, how are they being dated to 2,000 years ago, thats pretty recent for this sort of thing isn't it?

The continuous line, geometric pattern reminds me of Celtic/Norse type knot patterns.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[freefal 0]

Every year at Dollar Daze up in Ft. Dodge, IA most of us in Zoomeeland always end up running around naked. It's like this cosmic force or something that we could never figure out until one year when we dug around the annual campsite and found this.

Now we know the reason for all that drunken mayhem!

"Ignorance is bliss" and "Patience is a virtue"... So if you're stupid and don't mind waiting around for a while, I guess you can have a pretty good life!

[Candy 0]

O'kay......I know how to spell Mojave, Opps.
And maybe there weren't thousands of them, but there were a lot, hundreds maybe (guess I get a little excited).

C. Ferrari

[JohnRich 4]

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They left behind their descendents who still live all around that area and can explain them. Some are designs of Katchinas, others are pointers for initiation rituals when youth do a walkabout through the desert, etc.

Well, in the case of the prehistoric west Texas Indians, they're all gone. These were pre-Apache/Commanche. Other Indian tribes killed them, and they sometimes lived on top of precipitous mesas for lookout and defense. Eventually, they migrated south to escape the mayhem, and assimilated with the Mexican Indians.

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Many of those designs are similar to what you see around the four corners area, from albuquerque and santa fe, west to northern arizona and up to utah...

Yes, I've seen a lot of those too. There are some similarities to be found. And also vast differences. Even within 50 miles or so of each other, different sites reveal distinct "personalities". A few weeks ago I visited a site with what seems to be a duplicate of a unique cave painting of a "white shaman", matched with a different cave 50 miles away. This leads to the interesting question: "Did the same Indian paint both images?"

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but all the ones I am familiar with are only 1000 years old or even more recent.

Occupation at the site where I was this weekend goes back 8,000 years. The petroglyphs may not be that old, however. There have been estimates done based upon weathering of the exposed rock, but I don't recall those numbers.

I've returned from my 3-day weekend archeological dig to uncover petroglyphs in the southwest Texas desert. We had success, with about a dozen new images uncovered, unseen for a thousand years. And there were also about a dozen arrowheads found, dating back 8,000 years. Woohoo!

See if you can find the nut in the attached photo...

This was just for pure scare-factor. That little protruding tongue of rock was about a foot thick, and two feet wide. I was okay until I looked up for the camera, and got vertigo from the lack of any reference points for balance. Ack!

[JohnRich 4]

Photo #1: the best arrowhead find - a tiny little fellow, but a beautiful little gem of a point.

I figured it was for use on birds and/or fish. But to my surprise, one of the archeologists there said they even used these tiny points on buffalo. I met that claim with skepticism. But he's supposed to know what he's talking about. It seems to me that it would take a direct hit on the heart or a major artery though.

Photo #2: a spiral rattlesnake emerges from under the dirt. This was the first find by my little team.

I worked with two girls, and a roving archeologist who wasn't there most of the time. I did most of the heavy topsoil removal, and *all* of the wheelbarrowing. Ugh. The girls did the delicate final layer work with dustpans and brooms. Most of the limestone rock was covered with about 3"-4" of dirt and gravel. The top was a solid layer of mossy-like stuff that you had to cut into squares, like sod, for removal. Then it was shovel-work for the underlying dirt. I'll bet I removed a freaking half-acre of freakin' dirt. Ugh. Oh, I already said that... Ugh!

[JohnRich 4]

Photo #1: These petroglyphs may tell the story of an ancient bear hunt! You see several bear footprints, along a dashed line, with an atlatl nearby. The atlatl is a special stick, weighted with a stone, used to throw a spear with more velocity and distance. These images may well portray the story of a band of ancient Indians, tracking, closing in on, and killing a bear, a thousand years ago!

Photo #2: The work scene. The large slab of exposed limestone, about four acres worth on top of a mesa, is covered with petroglyphs. Our mission was to remove some of the areas of overlying dirt, to try and expose unseen 'glyphs hidden underneath. One of the things that makes this sight unusual is that they are carved on horizontal ground rock - most 'glyphs are carved on vertical rock walls, or on the sides of boulders.

[efs4ever 3]

Are those TIRE tracks above the petroglyph?

Russell M. Webb D 7014
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[JohnRich 4]

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Are those TIRE tracks above the petroglyph?

Those would be wheelbarrow tracks in the dirt, where we were hauling the topsoil off site.

[JohnRich 4]

More petroglyph photos:

1) Newly uncovered. Mystery stuff.

2) Parallel wavy lines. The theory is that this represents water. And I like that theory, because this is probably the most commonly seen image. And that fits with the important role that water would play for people surviving in the desert.

3) Some arrowheads discovered in a dirt pit.

4) The Pecos River, in the canyon at the base of the mesa. We would hike down there at the end of each day to bathe and swim in the frigid blue-green water.