We made a couple of visits to this sprawling petroglyph site in the Owens Valley over the last three years. The first time we visited was late on an early summer day, and the desert varnish was awfully reflective so a lot of photos did not turn out. The second time was mid-morning on a late fall day, so at least the shadows and lighting were very different!
Really, any petroglyph site on darkly varnished boulders presents many photography challenges – some elements are barely visible unless the light catches them and shows them in relief, others are drowned out by glare off of the varnish, and so on.
Despite the challenges of getting good photographs this site was a really good visit. It has multiple clusters of wonderful petroglyphs in addition to numerous obsidian flakes and several housing rings and grinding slicks. This was a notable habitation area.
The outcroppings housing the petroglyphs are rough and weathered, and the petroglyphs themselves seem to be of different styles. Some are shallowly pecked, others deeply incised. The outcroppings they are on form a rough horseshoe shape. Since the site features hundreds of petroglyphs I will devote several entries to it. The petroglyphs are dated from about 3000 BC to the early 1800’s, which seems reflected in the variety of styles and weathering.
In the span of several blog entries we’ll be moving around the site in a flipped figure Z, starting in the south-westerly corner and working our way south down one side of the outcropping and back north up the other side before jumping up to the north-westerly end of the horseshoe and traversing the northern arm back towards the center.
Let’s get started!
This is the first panel you see if you approach the site from a south-westerly direction. On the rock face closest to us we have a Rectilinear element and a Representational depiction of a right hand. Atop this boulder is another panel featuring more Abstract designs.Closeup of the hand and Rectilinear element. These elements are finely and shallowly pecked, removing the desert varnish to create contrast.Another overview of the boulder before we look at the top panel. In the background you can see the outcropping that forms the northerly end of the “horseshoe” site layout.The top of the boulder feature an assortment of Rectilinear, circular, and meander line elements.Let’s take a step back from that first boulder. We’ll be following this outcropping roughly left to right. There are a lot of scattered small elements along the top and sides of it, along with some larger panels. Also out of view to the right is a large, free-standing boulder with some elements, and a housing circle. Let’s move along and look at all of these. As you can tell by the background, this is taken from high up in the outcropping, looking down at a boulder with several small elements on it. To the left is a series of three circles connected by a bar, in the top center is a bisected circle, and a couple of other small elements are also visible.A close look at the three circles and the bar connecting them.Here’s another boulder with several small elements. In the background is a larger freestanding boulder that we will have a look at next.Here’s a look in the opposite direction, looking from the back of that boulder towards the outcropping. There’s a small boulder with petroglyphs by the foot of the boulder. Let’s look closer!The designs are finely pecked and seem to be mostly small shield designs, but I really like how the contours of the boulder were incorporated into the design. The long line running through the center of the image follows an edge on the boulder. These petroglyphs are on a protected boulder, so the varnish would only build up slowly over the elements. Thus, the lighter color doesn’t necessarily tell us whether these elements are old or newer.Around the side of the boulder, these three petroglyphs reminds me of the Faded Sentinels site I visited in the Sierra south of here.Like many of the petroglyphs in this part of the site, this design is very hard to see. This side of the site faces westerly, into the prevailing wind, and therefore is more eroded.Here’s an overview of this side of the boulder. In addition to the three “sentinels” there’s another similar design below them, and one more over on the right side of the boulder.
We have to go further round that side of the boulder to see where that last design described above is located ( underneath the dark shadow at the top of the boulder ).
There are some faint designs on this boulder. The more easily seen ones are two circles split in quarters.The site sits on what is now a pretty desolate plain. In the lower right, you can see stacked stones – a housing circle that once formed the basis for a wickiup. There are also several obsidian flakes scattered on the ground here.These circular shield designs are ubiquitous in the Great Basin. In this case they are incised into the rock, as seen on the rightmost design, as well as pecked, as seen lower left. This boulder is high up in the outcropping. Another shield design, shallowly pecked on one of the boulders making up the jumbled outcropping. It takes some careful climbing among the rough, sometimes loose boulders to have a look at these.Two more circular designs. The boulders show a lot of natural weathering as well. Sometimes the designs make use of existing features, enhancing them into petroglyph designs. These designs are near perfect circles.An overview shot to show where we’ve been clambering. In upper left is the free standing boulder we look at earlier. In the picture you can see some more circular designs, including a nice little spiral shape in the lower right that almost looks natural. Possibly water pools there when it rains, and over the years the outline of the puddle was incised in the rock several times, enhancing any natural mineral stains that evaporation may have caused.Another incised design, so heavily re-patinated by desert varnish that you need the light to be right in order to see it in relief.Often, the designs look pretty small when viewed in photos. This picture, which happens to have my foot showing, shows how large these petroglyphs actually are.A long meander line with a forked end atop one of the boulders. This design is very deeply pecked. Keep an eye out for that forked, bird-print like design in this entry and others about this site.You need to keep your footing up here! Look at those large gaps you can fall into. On the left hand side of the large boulder you can see the spiral design I talked about earlier. Over towards the right, there are several more of those bird-print designs I just mentioned.The circular design to the left seems to be enhancing a natural rock fissure, and in the lower left there might be a handprint petroglyph as well.A close-up at one of the smaller elements, carved around a natural indentation in the rock.A nice shallowly pecked Rectilinear design.Before moving on down the outcropping, a close look at that pecked spiral design.An isolated and shallowly pecked circle design high up on the outcropping.Let’s step back beyond the isolated boulder for a moment to get a good view of where we’ll be next. We’ve been over on the left-hand side of the outcropping in the background and the isolated circle design we just saw was over on the leftmost “peak” of the large outcropping in the center of the design.There are some deeply carved designs on the low boulder in the center of the picture, as well as several designs pecked into the light-colored tufa on the boulders behind.A close look at the densely clustered abstract designs on the boulder.The largest petroglyph panels in this area are at the top of the outcropping, on the darker panels. It is difficult to get a good look at them though – the top boulders are steeply sloped and flaking away, so footing is uncertain and climbing on certain sections could damage the outcropping so some of the panels are best admired from the ground. We’ll look at these panels right to left, starting with two deeply incised petroglyphs on the lower light-colored section.This Rectilinear element is very deeply incised and very intricate. Let’s look more closely.This element is hard to photograph since it faces west, so it is either in full sun or in shade. A deeply carved element like this really shows up best in relief with slanted light.The other petroglyph on this lower level is a quartered circle.Time to have a good look at those two panels up there. Over on the right we have some meander lines, little barbell shapes, and other elements that are hard to make out. Over on the left it is really hard to see what’s going on, but it looks like there are some long lines up there, and a shield design. We’ll have to try and climb up on an adjacent boulder to see what’s up there. The petroglyph we looked at above is just visible in the lower right corner.This is as good a look as we’ll get at that rightmost panel – standing back, zoom lens at full zoom. It’s a pretty good look though, showing us the small barbell elements, some circles, and a nice little looped design at the bottom of the panel. Looks like exfoliation took a chunk of this panel with it.This picture of the leftmost panel is taken with a wide-angle lens held overhead. It was possible to climb up behind the slanted boulder and lean over to take a few blind photos. There really is a shield design up here – it was barely visible in the overview shot, towards the bottom of the panel. Here it is at the top. along with some meander lines and a squiggle line, and additional shield elements.Another shot, taken slightly to the right of the one above. We see the squiggle line, and the meander line ending in a nice little concentric circle design around a natural indentation in the rock. It’s a good ways down, so watch your step!Here’s another shot. You can tell by the extreme tilt of the horizon that the camera was held at a crazy angle by a crazy photographer. What was down in the previous shot is now up. This is a pretty nice view of the panel actually, and I just have to look at it to remember what it was like to cling to the sun-warmed outcropping with one hand, leaning over, holding up a heavy camera with an increasingly tired arm. Fun times.All the way over to the left is this nice little panel.The designs are shallowly pecked and unlike some of the other circular elements, these are not particularly close to perfect circles. I don’t blame the artist though – that’s a precarious spot. The other elements were probably made with the aid of a string held in the center, but these elements were probably more of a one-handed job, the other hand needed to hold on with. I like the little forked designs, too. More of that bird print-like imagery.The boulder below has some pecked elements ( left ) and incised ( the spiral shape to the right ). There’s another squiggle line between the two.The boulder we just saw, from the side. This angle shows that there really isn’t anywhere much to sit in front of the panel ( visible in the background ) On the rock face closest to the viewer is a deeply pecked bird-print design.There’s one more really interesting design element here – deeply incised handprints, both right handed.Another look at the handprint, taken from straight above.A second, stylistically very similar handprint close by. This one is not as deeply varnished as the other one but their similar style suggests they are contemporary. A good cautionary tale in using only the amount of varnish to date elements. Varnish rates can vary greatly across a single site depending on whether rock faces are sheltered, facing into the prevailing wind, etc.A more zoomed out look at the second handprint, which faces down on its boulder.
That concludes our look at the first section of this site. Stay tuned, the next entry will feature peeks at housing circles, cupules, and flocks of bird prints.
