Over the summer we bid farewell to the low country for a day and went roaming around the toes of the Sierra, looking for traces of the past. The drive in was my favorite kind, changing from blacktop to graded dirt to bumpy two-track to a place to park.
Once we started hoofing it – a meandering hike to explore the high country, going from outcropping to outcropping under the forest canopy, looking for any signs of prior habitation – our efforts were rewarded when we found a pictograph shelter a little ways upslope from a small seasonal creek.
This shelter unfortunately suffered modern occupation and vandalism. Low walls of stacked stone were added as a windbreak around the overhang, and pipes were run to a nearby creek in an attempt to bring water into the shelter. On top of that somebody added a few crude designs to the overhang with modern paint.
What’s interesting is that the pictographs are enduring since their nature-based paint soaked right into the granite while the modern, latex- or oil-based paint only coated the top of the rock. This thin layer of paint is now slowly eroding away. Eventually, this shelter will return to its pre-modern state, with only the pictographs holding on, and after that … well, eventually all traces of man will be gone from this place.
It was a very hot summer day down below when we visited, and still a pretty hot day up at elevation. We were at about 7000 feet but in midsummer that only made the thought of spending the day roaming outside tolerable instead of unimaginable. The trouble with mountain peaks is that the thinner air gives the sun a much better shot at broiling anything that ventures out and we sure felt it in the patches of sunlight! Fortunately, this site, while at a high elevation, is below the tree line so we had shade for much of our exploring. I loved walking on the soft duff and breathing in the arid, sharp pine scent. With the shade and the pine trees came some blowdowns and from time to time we had to find a path around a big tree trunk or pick our way through the chaparral that dotted the clearings.
It was all worth it, not just for the shelter and pictographs we found but also for the stillness and beauty of nature we enjoyed. Let’s look.
Up in the pines, walking across the soft forest duff under a clear blue sky. What’s not to like?
The day gets even better when we find an isolated outcropping, perched above a small seasonal creek. The overhang has some interesting pictographs. Also, look closely at the bedrock in front of shelter. See the darker area towards the left? Bedrock mortars!
Three bedrock mortars, in fact. These are pretty narrow, as mortars go. I didn’t excavate them but they don’t seem to be too deep. They’re now slowly weathering as the winter rains collects, freezes and expands in the mortar.
The mortars are evenly spaced, close together. The Tübatulabal, indigenous to this area, considered three a ritual number. These mortars may well be associated with this site for ritual purposes.
A look at the shelter itself. The ethnographic record mentions this site as “tu’rabit” or “turnabit” – a word meaning “small rock shelter”. I have a feeling this particular site was important, since it was mentioned specifically.
This is the main panel as you look into the shelter. Impossible to miss is the life-size human outline with outstretched arms, looming over the observer.
Here is a DStretch view of the figure. Note the fingers on the hands. Parts of the figure are a bit more eroded. The pictographs on the left of the picture have unfortunately suffered a lot of weathering over the years.
Here is a DStretch view of the lower portion of the figure. There is another small figure below it. You can also see that the left side ( from the observer’s perspective ) of the large figure is hashmarked.
A natural color look at the lower panel. Apart from the other “pelt” style figure, there are some traces of burst elements to be seen as well.
As always, DStretch can help us see these elements more clearly. There’s a burst figure towards the upper left quadrant of the picture, and another in the right center, next to the pelt figure.
After some careful DStretch work, I tease out an interesting detail on the smaller figure. In addition to also having digitate upper appendages it looks like it has a tail! there is a definite “M” shape to the line between its lower legs.
The pictographs to the left of the large main figure. These are very weathered. The weathering pattern is similar to the weathering seen on one of the panels at the “Double Sun” site.
Not even DStretch can show much more detail.
There’s another small grouping of elements in the far left of the shelter.
Most of the red coloring in this picture is natural, but you can tell that the red pigment towards the lower left are some small red pictographs.
Over on the far right, beyond some vandalism, is a small protrusion that looks like it might have some pictographs as well.
Boy, it is hard to tell! Maybe? In the background we can see a few parallel lines as well.
All too soon, it is time to leave the shelter behind. I gaze out across the bedrock and the three mortars. The stones resting atop the bedrock aren’t manos – they’ve been placed there by someone at some point, I suppose, but they are just stones. I leave them where I found them.
One last DStretch look at the main figure. The detailed hash marks on the left side are clearly visible.
Goodbye for now. We bid the figure farewell and strike out for our vehicle. There is still a long drive back home.
Despite the three mortars and a stream close by I found no midden and no obsidian flakes or other debitage at the site. It doesn’t appear to have been a habitation site. We looked around the countryside surrounding it and found no other evidence of occupation, so this site might have been an isolated ritual site. The three mortars may have been for processing materials for a ceremony, not for preparing food. Regardless, visiting this quiet little corner of the world was a great experience. If you visit, make sure to leave it as you found it.
I am going to search for these next. October