I made my first acquaintance with “The Lone Woman of the Cave” a few years ago as I hurried out of the backcountry with the sun setting behind the hills. Though it was a pleasant enough evening there was a fall chill in the air and a day of exploring made my limbs heavy. It was a good time to be leaving the desert for the comforts of civilization.
The part of the rock shelter that houses the Red Lady pictograph. The alcove at the right also holds pictograph elements.
Admittedly, even when tired or hurrying along I cannot pass up promising rock formations – so when I spotted something interesting I veered over to investigate.
Moments later I unceremoniously ducked into the Lone Woman’s home and stopped in my tracks, even before I saw her. I had seen pictures of her shelter online before, so I immediately knew where I was.
This overview of the site shows the Lone Woman’s home ( the overhang in the background on the left ) the bedrock hosting a mortar and some cupules, and a second overhang with additional pictograph elements on the right. The rightmost boulder in this picture also contains cupules.
In that gloom and with my dinky compact camera my hurried pictures were pitiful and incomplete. The pictures I am presenting here were taken at a later time.
The site is formed by two monolithic boulders leaning towards each other, creating a sheltered space between them. A second shelter exists under the northeast overhang of one of the boulders. This shelter contains a boulder with several cupules.
During archeological investigations at this site midden deposits, projectile points and sherds were found. Analysis of these finds suggested occupation of this site occurred between 1000 AD and 1900. Some of the projectile points were dated to 1300 or later.
The type of sherds as well as the general area of the site suggest it was occupied by the Serrano or Cahuilla tribes.
It is possible, though, that the Red Lady was painted to personify a Chemehuevi legend.
The lone woman pictograph.
The Chemehuevi are the more recent arrival in the vicinity. Their territory is somewhat ill-defined but they are thought to have entered the region shortly before the historic period – some time after Father Garces’ trip through the area in 1776. If this is true, this site is perhaps only a couple of hundred years old.
Enhanced with DStretch. Her fingers are more visible, as well as the two trailing red elements from her left hand. Above and to her right is another such element, which seems made of many fine stripes. Also present is a black abstract element.
The legend referred to is sometimes known as “The Lone Woman of the Cave”.
The details of the legend depends on which source you query.
At its core, it is simple: Tavapëtsi, the Sun, impregnated a woman by projecting rays of sunlight into her ( at sunset or at dawn, specifically referring to the rays of light that can be seen at sunset or dawn if the atmospheric conditions are right ), and she birthed him twin sons.
This legend is linked to the Spring Equinox, an observable solar event occurring near the start of the growing season. Thus a common theory about this site is that in addition to depicting the Lone Woman legend it served as a Spring Equinox marker.
There are three rock art sites in the greater Mojave area thought to depict or be associated with this legend: this one, another that is also in Joshua Tree National Park, and a third that can be found to the north.
Before we look into whether this site truly marks the Spring Equinox, let’s finish examining it first!
On either side of the Red Lady pictograph there are two alcoves. The one on the right contains more pictographs. The other one is blank.
The second alcove, showing black pictographs and a splatter of red pigment.
DStretch applied to the alcove. Now it is clear that there are four black figures ( two pairs ) inside the alcove, and another pair on the right rim. The four inside the alcove are almost anthropomorphic. The two outside the alcove have a starburst shape.
The elements in this alcove are black – three pairings. This might echo the legend, or it might not ( why would there be three pairings referring to her twin sons? ) The fact that they are paired might mean that the twins are depicted at various stages or during various activities.
The colors used at this site are also compelling. Among many tribes red is the female color and black is the male color. The Red Lady is the most dominant “female” pictograph here. The other six ( perhaps depicting her sons ) as well as the black pictograph sharing her rock face with her ( perhaps Tavapëtsi? ) are painted in black, and this might tie into the legend more strongly.
The mortar hole, filled with water after the rain, and its accompanying cupules.
There is also red pigment splattered into this alcove from the right, as well as other scattered red splashes.
The bedrock mortar in front of the Red Lady pictograph is the final link to the legend. Near midday at the spring equinox a spear of sunlight stabs into the mortar. This is theorized to represent the impregnation of the Lone Woman by the Sun.
The mortar rock is also enhanced with shallow cupules around the prominent mortar. This is not the only mortar hole in the area that is adorned with cupules around it. The purpose may have been ceremonial, given how few mortars are found in the area, or it might have been practical, providing a different grinding surface for different materials.
The second rock with cupules. There are pictographs on the overhang behind it. The Lone Woman pictograph is on the rock face visible in the background between the boulder at the right and the large camelback-shaped rock to the upper left.
I believe that the cupules were probably ceremonial, since many of the cupules on the second rock in the picture above are at angles that would have been awkward for processing materials. If the cupules were ceremonial then they may have been created over many years as part of fertility rituals held at the site.
The overhang housing this second cupule-covered rock also has some pictographs on its ceiling.
Before we get to those, there are also some pictographs on the other side of the overhang with the cupule stone, opposite the Red Lady.
These are abstract shapes, somewhat faded and therefore hard to see.
The view into the alcove from the other side. The “two-humped camel” rock is visible towards the bottom of the photograph. The most prominent cupule on the cupule rock faces directly towards the viewer. The rightmost bump on the rock in the lower foreground also has a cupule or perhaps a very shallow mortar hole on it, barely visible in the lower right of this picture.
The pictographs in the alcove facing the Red Lady.
What makes them interesting is that the “two-humped camel” rock that can be seen in the pictures provides easy access to the alcove these are in: this rock is amazingly comfortable, just the right height and shape for tucking a leg under you as you lean forward over the rock to look into the alcove.
Its odd shape makes it almost seem as if its center was ground away to be shaped that way on purpose. If so, that would have been a mighty task! It is quite a large rock.
These are simple abstract shapes, nowhere as elaborate as the Red Lady. They do not have any discernible shape, but are clearly not natural to the rock face either.
In fact, several areas in this shelter looked as if they may have faint patches of pigment but DStretch revealed nothing conclusive.
The second alcove hosting the cupule stone is a different story.
The pictographs in the cupule stone shelter.
There are definitely patches of pigment here. With the naked eye I saw a small grouping of fairly rudimentary shapes, along with an indentation in the rock that showed what I suspected were tally lines.
I took photographs that I later DStretched at home.
Ah! DStretch revealed something that I didn’t see with the naked eye. My “tally lines” were actually the bottom half of a nice sunburst element.
DStretch reveals a nice sunburst element ( slightly below center. ) The little T shape at the top is maybe the easiest to see in natural color. Between these two elements there is enough pigment to suggest some abstract shape was painted there, but it is too faded to see much.
The Red Lady is very well preserved. She is well protected from the elements and she may also be fairly recently drawn.
The elements in the other alcoves are a lot more faded. This could mean they were older, but they are a lot more exposed so it is possible they are contemporary to the Red Lady.
Now that we have looked over the site in detail, what about the spring equinox? Does anything interesting happen here?
The short answer is “yes”.
The longer answer: the spring equinox isn’t that special! I explain why on the left; on the right you can see a series of photos illustrating the interesting way sunlight interacts with this site.
The first indication that something interesting is going to happen is this little sliver of light near the bedrock mortar.
First, keep in mind that the equinoxes ( spring and fall ) mark when day and night are of equal length ( equi, from Latin aequus, means equal, and nox = night ). As the earth orbits the sun, the northern or southern pole tilts towards the sun. This is what gives us our seasons.
During the Northern Hemisphere’s summer solstice, the sun at midday is as far north as it ever gets. This is the day when the earth’s northern pole is tilted directly towards the sun.
The little pencil of sunlight quickly grows into a pointed shape reaching towards the mortar.
Then it starts tilting away from the sun – and the sun at midday is found further and further to the south each day, until the earth’s northern pole is tilted directly away from the sun.
This happens during the winter solstice. In the Northern Hemisphere, this means that the sun at midday is as far south as it ever gets. After the winter solstice the earth’s north pole starts tilting back towards the sun again.
Almost … on one end the ray begins to creep up the bedrock towards the mortar. On the other end it has almost met up with the second patch of sunlight.
Between these two extremes there lies a midway point that comes around twice a year, when the neither pole is tilted toward the sun. On those days the sun at midday is halfway between its north and south extremes. These events occur on the equinoxes.
This means that the sun at midday is at the same spot ( midway between its northernmost and its southernmost rising point ) during either equinox so immediately we know that this site has nothing going on during the spring equinox that doesn’t also happen during the fall equinox.
Moments away from entering the mortar.
Okay, so that makes which equinox we’re talking about a little less special. But how about the fact that it is an equinox? Does that matter?
The answer is again “it depends”. As the earth tilts on its axis, the angle of the sun changes. If you have a fixed location like a boulder, with a small enough gap, you would find that the sun only shines through that gap during certain times of the year.
If the gap is small enough, you might narrow it down to only a few days a year, or even one or two days a year only.
There! One continiuous ray of light stretching into the cave and the bedrock mortar.
As a side note, I have something like this going on in my kitchen! For a couple of weeks around the summer solstice, the late afternoon sun shines in through my laundry room window and lights up the backsplash behind my cooktop. This only happens for a few weeks each year. The rest of the year the sun sets too far to the south to make it past my neighbor’s house and in through the window.
This site is formed by two boulders leaning towards each other. There is a largish gap between them, with the taller of the boulders rising towards the east.
While this means that there is only a relatively small daily window where the sun can shine down in between the boulders and cast a stripe of light on the ground, the boulders are also far enough apart that this stripe of light remains on the ground for a while and the sun’s angle in the sky doesn’t matter that much. You’ll get some sunlight through there many if not most days of the year.
So … is there any time of year, then, when the sun doesn’t align well enough with this gap to cast a ray of light on the ground?
The view from inside the cave as the ray of sunlight approaches.
I would say no. I’ve visited this site on an equinox and a solstice both and my observations on those two days lead me to doubt that even the antipodal solstice would cause the angle of sunlight to worsen enough that no ray of light would be cast at all. And if the interplay of sunlight and mortar happens on both solstices ( in other words, happens at the two most extreme angles at which the sun crosses the sky ), it will happen year round because all other days have a less severe angle.
The moment when the ray of light reaches the mortar. From this angle the various cupules on the bedrock can also be seen.
This seems rather anti-climactic, doesn’t it? A site that has the same thing happening year round? That’s not an equinox marker at all!
Well, there is still hope! I only covered whether the sunlight would shine through the gap between the boulders and into the Lone Woman’s cave. I have said nothing about where that sunlight would go.
There is an important characteristic of this site: the bedrock mortar is immobile.
It isn’t the fact that a ray of light is cast into the cave that is important: it is where that ray is cast. The story goes that this spear of light only enters the mortar on the spring equinox.
We already know this doesn’t quite hold true – it also enters the mortar, at the very least, on the fall equinox as well.
The mortar was placed with great care to interact with the sun in this way on the equinoxes.
How about the rest of the year though?
Well, my observations are incomplete.
While I also visited on the solstice I misjudged when the sun would be highest in the sky and arrived too late to see the beam form. By the time I got to the site the whole mortar stone was bathed in a broad swath of light.
Moments later the stripe of sunlight extends past the mortar.
The angle the beam of light was taking into the cave, when compared with the angle just after it entered the mortar on the solstice, leads me to believe that it probably went right into the mortar on the solstice, too.
Does that make this site any less interesting? Not at all – I think it is even more interesting that the site might be an illustration of the Tavapëtsi legend year round!
Of course, I wasn’t actually there to observe the sun touch the mortar during the solstice but regardless, my incomplete observations led me to believe that the ray of light into the bedrock mortar is not unique to the equinoxes.
Even before the first little finger of sunlight, a wedge of light forms further outside the cave. Its shape incidentally mirrors the profile of the bedrock hosting the mortar. From the far side of the cave the midday light creates a golden glow.
With this in mind, I have a suggestion for you if you visit this site and are interested in watching the beam of sunlight: try to visit it on a day of the year other than the equinoxes.
That way you may get the “unique” display all to yourself and be able to take photos from all angles in peace and quiet.
As you can see from the latter photos in the second series below, which shows more detail than the tightly cropped pictures above, there was quite the crowd hanging out to take a look on the equinox.
This overview shot shows the beginning of the event: a small finger of light closer to the mortar, and the wedge of sunlight forming on the ground in the foreground.
An overview of the ray of light forming.
A nice look into the Lone Woman’s cave right before the ray of sunlight reaches the mortar.
The spear of sunlight hovers on the lip of the mortar.
The moment where the ray of sunlight dips into the bedrock mortar. Unlike the carefully selected photos to this point, I left this one uncropped to show the crowd of unlookers. Looks like folded arms was the pose of the day.
This is the angle most commonly seen in pictures of this event. The ray is already at the bottom of the mortar and creeping up the other side.
The event right at its peak, seen from a different angle.
The ray continues past the mortar, reaching deeper into the cave. On the equinox it climbs out of the mortar on the left side.
After all those pictures of the ray of light on the ground, this shape should be immediately familiar. This is what the gap between the boulders looks like. The sun shines through here to create the ray of light on the ground.
This picture was taken on the summer solstice, some time after the ray of light was level with the mortar. It extends some distance into the cave and crosses right over the bedrock mortar. It favors the left side of the mortar ( viewing it towards the Red Lady’s pictograph ) just like it did on the spring equinox.
An angle that includes the Lone Woman pictograph. This was taken some time after noon on the summer solstice.
Another picture taken on the summer solstice. This shows the mortar bathed in light and the gap between the boulders that the sun shines through to cast this shape on the ground. Not visible in this picture is the ridiculous cloud of midges swarming the author’s head!
If you visit the Lone Woman in her shelter make sure to respect the pictographs. Do not touch them. They are fragile. Your touch can lift the pigment or leave behind pollutants. Instead, admire her and her companions and take their pictures, and then leave the site as you found it.