A sight to make any explorer’s heart beat faster: pigment under an overhang! There’s no real midden or signs of habitation at the site, but three different alcoves under this big boulder hold pictographs. Besides the alcove in the lower center of the picture where the pigment is visible, there are also some designs in the little alcove, off the ground, in the lower left of the picture. And finally, there are more around the corner from that alcove, past the three vertical lichen streaks on the boulder.

First, let’s glance into that initial alcove. It has the best preserved pictographs at this site.

Here’s a nice overview picture, looking up at the ceiling of the shelter and showing all seven elements.

This DStretch algorithm does the best job of showing the pictographs. That is a surprisingly complicated design up at the top center there, isn’t it! It looks a little bit like a a circuit diagram for electronic design. Look closely to its right – there’s a nice fan-shaped rake element there too.

Another look at that “diagram”. There are some of the bisected circle and line motifs that also occur at “Hidden Cave” or “Indian Cave” in the diagram, particularly the left-hand line and towards the lower right of the diagram. The circles joined by lines in the top right show up well here.

This element is really curious. At first glance it looks like some heavily pigmented lines on the ceiling and no more, but when we look closely we can see three almost seal-like elements towards the lower right. These negative-space elements may have been made by erasing the wet pigment with a finger dipped in water. The grid element is also very visible now – another common design in this area.

Looking at the element with the naked eye it seems like there might be traces of white pigment in those seal-like elements, but the underlaying rock face has a lot of white in it so that may be natural coloring, too.

The zigzag elements are very thickly painted. There’s scatterings of white pigment in this design also, most noticeable around the leftmost zigzags. I’d almost say these were first painted in white, and then overpainted with red. See how the three rightmost zigzags are the most thickly painted and looks like they have pinkish outlines, as if the red was painted over the white? The three leftmost zigzags, on the other hand, are not as wetly painted and more of the white pigment shows through. Imagine you are a right-handed artist creating this design right-to-left. I think you might end up with something very like this – first your brush is heavily laden with pigment that drips and smears as your hand move over the design to the paint the final elements at the left, which become progressively less smudged until the leftmost one is the crispest. Very interesting. Note the bit of pigment to the left of this – we’ll look at that with DStretch next.

Here’s a close-up using DStretch. Look at that tiny diamond pattern that is painted just to the left of the zigzags.

To the right of the zigzag elements is this area of red and white pigment.

DStretch doesn’t really improve matters. This element is too smudged to make out. There is a nice little rake element to the right of it, though.

An overview of the circular element makes the ceiling texture more obvious. It is painted inside a natural hollow in the rock.

The concentric circles are nestled in a natural depression in the ceiling of the rock shelter. They are very heavily saturated.

Sorry, I can’t get enough of this strange element. When you look really closely, it also looks like the red may have been deliberately applied to create those circular patterns! Very interesting element. Not sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it in this area.

Time to move on to that second little alcove! Here’s what we can see when we peer in.

There’s some sort of grid-shield design here. ( Tennis racquet! ) The red patches below it could also be faint elements but that swath on the left looks like natural coloring.

A close-up. There’s definitely a net-type design here.

There is one more alcove to investigate. Looks like some red and white pigment over on the right rear wall! Let’s go check it out.

Here is a more direct view into the alcove. Here you can see a band of pictographs extending diagonally from top right to bottom left. Note the light brown mud deposit in the lower part of the alcove. I can’t imagine how it flooded like that given the surrounding terrain. Very interesting.

A rather nice abstract element, in red and pinkish white.

Here’s some more white and red pigment. Looks like it might be a burst type element in red.

Yes, there it is! Not particularly well drawn, but it is interesting that the rays are grouped in sets of two.

Here’s a nice little motif, nestled in an alcove close to ground level. This design is very similar to one at a site on the Volcanic Tablelands, far to the north of here.

DStretch isn’t needed to better see the trailing “tail” of this design – the line of hash marks, one larger than the other, is easy to see – but it does show off that circular element a bit better. On the topic of those hash marks: similar designs of two rows of hash marks on top of each other can be seen elsewhere in the Park, such as at the “Sunny Side Up” and Queen Mountain Pictograph Boulder sites.

This element, a series of nestled lines, is similar, though more elaborate, than an element that occurs at the Sky Cross / Hot Cross Buns site.

It is interesting how this element appears both painted with precision ( the lines are regular and evenly spaced ) and haphazardly ( the lines don’t line up! ).

This white element consists of six parallel lines. There’s also a red chevron below it. These designs are reminiscent of the “Born Again” site.

A little bit of DStretch to pop out the designs.

Here’s a part of the wall with the elements we looked at, and some other minor elements here and there that I didn’t specifically focus on, like the butterfly-like element at the top right.

A bit of DStretch to make matters clearer.

The orange color is natural pigment, but that dusky red in the center looks interesting. Let’s investigate.

Four nice parallel lines in that shallow little recess.

This is just to the right of those parallel lines among the natural pigment, which you can see to the left there. Right under the lip of the shelter is some more pigment. What will we find here? Looks like there’s some lines to the right there.

Ah, those are definitely some zigzag lines! Interesting element. It occurs at a lot of sites. Sometimes it is associated with puberty rituals, sometimes it is associated with shamanistic sites, where the lines represent rattlesnakes.

Some lines.

They’re all wavy, except for the first one which looks like a T.

A grid design in dark red, with some lines in an alcove below.

That’s a clear grid pattern, yes. To the right is just a blob of pigment.

A close look at that looped element, which seems a little out of place at this site.

With DStretch we can see how the left side of the design was probably painted first, since it is heavily loaded with pigment. There’s some interesting gaps in the lines. I’m going to guess a paint brush and a careful hand leading to a light touch, given the uniformity of the lines in this element.