We visited this site with Guy Starbuck. Be sure to check out his writeup of it!
This site is really strange: out in the middle of nowhere, not close to any other sites or habitation sites. We looked all over in the area surrounding this site, excited, sure there would be more to see, but – no! We found a whole lot of nothing. Heh heh, sometimes that’s how it goes.
This site is probably Serrano, but it is hard to say. The tribal boundaries are not that clearly defined around JTNP. The complete lack of other artifacts like arrow points or pottery sherds makes it even harder to place. Some of the elements, like the crosses, also occur at some other isolated sites in the region, and sometimes at petroglyph sites too.
The alcove faces generally northerly, which makes sense in the desert. That is the coolest side of the rock! A little bit of scrambling is required to get up into the alcove, which is just a bit too small to stand upright in. The pictographs are somewhat faded – not from sun or water. Most likely from wind-borne sand. The forces that created the alcove are still at work today.
Let’s have a look!
Approaching the site. This is an exciting find!
Such a strange rock. We manage to scramble up towards the alcove from the right. There are two more alcoves in this boulder but they have no pictographs.
It’s huddle room only as we crowd in to take pictures.
The pictographs are up towards the ceiling, which was the only reason they were spotted from below in the first place. This alcove is some distance off the ground!
There’s plenty of room in the alcove that hasn’t been used. The pictographs are in the upper center.
There they are! There’s several Linear elements down the left hand side of the panel that we’ll look at in more detail soon. The most prominent elements are the rainbow-like element and the row of crosses underneath it.
There’s the rainbow and the row of crosses.
Here they are from a different angle, with DStretch, and showing some of the surrounding elements.
The foot of the rainbow is towards the left here, so these elements are below it in the shelter. There’s a diamond pattern right below it, some parallel dashed lines, and a whole row of inverted U elements, now quite faded.
Here’s that view in its natural orientation. Nice focus on those diamond patterns here. They might represent a rattlesnake or a net.
The little cluster of zig-zag elements in the lower left here is the most interesting part of this picture.
Most of the panel is rather faded. Here you can see some pigment in the very upper right half of the picture with the naked eye, but not much else.
There’s still plenty to see with DStretch, though! These are the elements we’ve been looking at. The foot of the rainbow is the part we could see with the naked eye. That shows how much better preserved it is than the rest of the panel.
The row of inverted U-shaped elements. There’s another faint Rectilinear element below it.
Up towards the ceiling.
The rainbow and crosses are much brighter than the faint zig-zag elements. The element in the lower center looks like a rake element. To the right of it is a “ladder” type element with one central horizontal bar.
These are really the centerpiece elements at the site. They are beautiful and striking.
With DStretch. There’s some faint smudges above them that I can’t make out.
This was a great site to visit! Scenic surrounds, too. I’m very, very curious about this site’s history and the lack of any artifacts or other sites in the vicinity. It is really unlikely that we’d ever know more about it than we know now, though. The people who created this site are not around anymore.
If you visit, be sure to be respectful and don’t damage the site in any way. It is a precious part of the region’s history.
Thank you for sharing!
That is a new one for me. Very nice!
It’s an unusual site, isn’t it? I haven’t seen this kind of pictographs anywhere else in Joshua Tree yet!