Over the winter we found a small site with some unusual imagery out in Joshua Tree. Some of the elements are reminiscent of the pictographs at Counsel Rocks, which lies many miles to the north. This site seems like it was part of a habitation site at some point because there is a pretty big patch of midden a short distance away, but I didn’t find any grinding slicks adjacent to it.
A couple of years ago I was in the area and went to visit the “Tale Of Years” site again, since my pictures from my first visit to this site were not that great. The site was still in good condition back then, and now, more than two years later, I finally get around to posting the pictures.
For a complete overview of the site, see the original post I linked to above. Here I’m just going to touch on a handful of highlights that are better shown with this set of pictures.
Okay, so this little site was a complete surprise, and is a bit of a mystery to me!
Backing up a bit: the summer heat had baked us clean out of the high desert, so we fled for the Sierra foothills, only to find that we brought the heat along with us. I was plodding up a slope, head down, thinking thoughts about being another few thousand feet higher up where maybe, finally, the summer heat would let up, and wondering why it felt like I just couldn’t reach that nice-looking rock I wanted to check out … when I lifted my head, saw the rock right in front of me, and … stared blankly at what seemed like a blank rock face.