The Owens Valley is dotted with volcanic outcroppings. These rocks, reasonably soft to carve and typically darkly varnished, proved to be an excellent canvases for petroglyphs. There are many beautiful petroglyph sites scattered throughout the valley.
This photo is taken from the top of the hill. The ring of volcanic rocks is clearly visible.
This particular site is found on a low nondescript hill sitting above a small creek. The hill itself is crowned on one side by a low cliff of volcanic stone, hence the name I gave the site.
This site is close enough to modern civilization to have suffered vandalism – the usual ( people’s names ) and also a few references to the pop culture of the times such as a suggestion to smoke a certain brand of cigarette. Fortunately, only a few of the petroglyphs were damaged – the graffiti is mostly on rock faces that has no petroglyphs.
Rocks stacked to form a hunting blind.
The area atop the low cliff is flat and offers a good vantage point.
The remnants of a hunting blind or possibly a rock circle for a dwelling still sits atop the hill.
It was a known hunting technique to have some hunters hide out atop a hill or outcropping while others targeted bighorn sheep passing by below, often on migration trails.
Bighorn sheep instinctively head for high terrain when threatened, so the hope was to scare them towards the hunters laying in wait in the high places.
This small protected area may have been meant to build a fire in.
That gives a possible reason for the stacked rocks on top of the hill. But does this possible hunting function have anything at all to do with the petroglyphs?
It’s hard to say. Often “hunting magic” is invoked where sites bear images of hunters and prey. At this site there are no bighorn sheep depictions and only one possible atlatl.
The atlatl is interesting, though. This hunting weapon was superseded in the area by the bow and arrow around 2,000 years ago. Archeologists speculate that the design therefore dates sites to the same period. After all, why would artists or shamans keep depicting a defunct object?
We don’t know. You could just as easily argue that the atlatl started as a representation but became a symbol over time – of the hunt, of rituals, of something else entirely – or that newer sites are just copies of older sites and the meaning of the object was lost. Or that maybe the object is not an atlatl at all!
Until a reliable method is developed to somehow date the art itself, we can only guess at the age of petroglyphs and pictographs. This doesn’t make them any less interesting to me!
Now, on to the details of the site.
The photographs that follow are in order going south to north along the portion of the cliff face with petroglyphs. The designs are sometimes high up on the cliff and it is not immediately obvious how the artists reached the surfaces they carved.
There are some jumbled rocks at the base of the low cliff. Many have petroglyphs on them. Here the closer rock shows some of the meandering designs typically associated with vision quests. On the farther rock there is an older, revarnished design as well as an odd rake-like symbol with fanned secondary tines coming off one tine and a circle coming off another.
Here’s a closer look at that rake. The fan on the left side looks a bit like Kokopelli’s headdress, doesn’t it? This symbol is way outside that cultural sphere, though trade has been recorded between the obsidian fields of the Owen Valley and the regions in Arizona where Kokopelli art is found.
This is a pretty typical view of the cliff face. The rocks are covered in multi-hued lichen. The petroglyphs are often also covered with flecks of lichen – for instance, the squiggle line symbol to the left has many specks of red and orange lichen on it. These lichen can help us date the petroglyphs. In an arid environment such as this they may grow a quarter inch a century, so these petroglyphs are at the youngest several centuries old.
I seldom show vandalism at the sites, though I do mention whether it has occurred. In this case I show the picture because the vandalized symbol below is of interest to determining this site’s meaning: it is a clear rake symbol, tines pointed upward. These symbols are associated with entoptic patterns seen during hallucinogenic trances a shaman on a vision quest would experience. There is also some faint bisected circles on this boulder. All these elements show some revarnishing so they are likely among the oldest ones at the site, which makes it that much more of a pity that they have been vandalized.
A weathered petroglyph on a small boulder. This petroglyph is pecked in a much more rudimentary style than most of the others. It is unvarnished so it probably isn’t rudimentary because of age, but rather because it was made by a less skilled artist.
There is something interesting at the top of the cliff.
It looks like an atlatl! There is a second, lightly pecked atlatl to the right, next to the lightly pecked three-tined rake. These two symbols show the typical pecking technique for creating petroglyphs: a small awl is used to carefully create a design with many delicate pecks. The larger atlatl also shows something curious: the lichen seem to be filling in the design! The surrounding rock face is relatively clear as the lichen apparently prefer the exposed surfaces to the varnish.
Some small circles and a squiggle line on a small boulder.
Erratic trailing lines on the side of another boulder.
Sometimes perspective is everything! The previous photo was taken from the top of the cliff and the flattened depth of field made it look as if the boulder in question was pretty small. That is not the case: these petroglyphs are on a flat surface high above ground, just below the top of the cliff. Getting up there to create them would have been an adventure.
The Curvilinear lines and bisected circle on this boulder are both typical of entoptic patterns.
This cross-within-a-circle symbol is very common in Great Basin petroglyphs. In this case it is curious that the symbol was forcefully applied on a surface that seems atypical: the boulder is varnished but not smooth. The surface was scoured at some point and then partially revarnished before this petroglyph was made. Maybe the location of the petroglyph was really important: it had to be here even if the surface was not suited to it? Very interesting. Also visible is what might be a rudimentary anthropomorph to the left of the circle, and some other circular symbols.
Select surfaces bear Rectilinear designs.
A rake symbol with meandering end lines.
For the most part the petroglyphs are sparsely scattered through the site. No single surface is crowded. This is probably the busiest surface: a nicely varnished, smooth rock host petroglyphs that were created at various times and in various styles.
On the left side are some pretty vivid Rectilinear symbols along with a jumble of fainter lines. One symbol is particularly interesting: to the right of the leftmost Rectilinear symbol is what appears to be a pretty clear Representational design of a handprint.
On the right-hand side of this boulder is a complex design with a squiggle-line crossbar and a horizontal bar that has herringbone slants on the right side and two half circles on the left. This symbol reminds me a little bit of the one J.R.R. Tolkien designed from his initials! This design is the most recent. Some well-varnished older designs – simple circles and lines – are also visible.
This is unusual! A Rectilinear grid is folded over the corner of a boulder. Very seldom do we see a petroglyph or pictograph that is not created on a flat surface. There is also a roughly pecked Curvilinear symbol next to it.
Let’s lean in for a closer look. The individual pecks that make up the petroglyphs is clearly visible. Many of them appear misdirected, but from a distance the images nonetheless appear quite crisp.
A very busy panel! There are some diamond patterns which might refer to a rattlesnake – seen as a powerful companion on a spirit quest – and a burst element in the upper right of the main panel. Far right is an interesting squiggle line with crossbars. Similar designs are also found elsewhere at this site.
The panel just discussed in overview. There is another faint panel to the right of it. The whole cliff face is speckled with lichen and the petroglyphs mostly occur on panels that are not covered by the lichen.
This northernmost part of the site has many designs on small rock faces.
A closer look at the center of the previous picture. These designs are all shallowly pecked and somewhat hard to see.
We finish off our look with this final design – a nicely carved fishbone design.
Though I mostly didn’t show it here this site is vandalized. It likely has sunk into obscurity now – it doesn’t look like it has had visitors for a while – but at one time it was well-known and graffiti is now splattered across it.
Apart from the stacked stone shelter on the hilltop there is no signs of habitation remaining in the area. Archeological investigations did find a burial site surrounded by scattered glass trade beads on the northern bank of a nearby creek.
If you do visit this site please be sure to not damage it any further.