Boy, it is a good thing this site is easy to get to because we were tired when we visited it! The previous day was a long one, with about ten miles of 100% cross-country scrambling over terrain that was almost never flat.
The site sits in a wash that is a popular spot for the local ATV riders and you can basically drive right up to it, which we did. Don’t try it in a passenger vehicle though. You’d get stuck within the first ten feet once you leave pavement. I think this is the sandiest wash I’ve ever been to.
Obviously this site will be known to the locals if it is right next to a dirt road. There are quite a few sites around that are well-known and yet not within National Parks for protection. Some of them, like the Golden Hills pictograph site, are kept pristine. Others, like the Coyote Hole Petroglyph site, suffered vandalism and willful damage in the past but are now under the local community’s protection. Yet others were or still are a hotspot for vandalism, graffiti and neglect.
Unfortunately this site is another where a combination of neglect and ignorance has taken a bite out of it. When we visited there were ashes from a fresh campfire right by the pictographs, and scattered evidence of previous campfires. Thanks to the heat from the repeated campfires the granite has exfoliated badly and some of the designs are lost.
Maybe it is an issue of education, and a few small signs will help people understand what they are looking at, and this will be enough to ensure that sites are preserved and respected. People sometimes get the idea that they’re the only ones who know about a site, and therefore they can do as they like with it – it is “theirs”, their little secret, their little discovery. In those cases just putting up a small sign about the site could make it “official” and cause people to think twice.
Sadly there is also a strain in some members of our species that loves nothing better than to stomp and destroy, so I’m not sure if anonymity or publicity is the best hope for sites like this.
All is not doom and gloom though: there’s still a lot left to see, and some very interesting hidden pictographs as well. Let’s take a look!
The pictographs are in the angle between the large boulders in the background, just about right in the middle of the picture. No idea what I’m staring at here – not the site!
Here’s the actual site. The red pictographs are tucked into the corner of the site for the most part, protected from the sun and the rain. In this picture they’re nearly all in the shade.
A fresh campfire right by the pictograph panel. The lighter colored rock is exfoliation damage.
The main panel. You can clearly see the “17” this site was named for in the center of the burst figure. It is a bit of an optical illusion, appearing only when viewing the panel straight on. The lighter areas to the left of the picture, near the campfire, are recent exfoliation damage. Portions of this pictograph panel have been lost because of this.
A DStretch overview of the entire main panel. Unusual, isn’t it? There is a mix of elements more commonly found to the northwest in Yokuts or Chumash territory, and the dominant element, the bifurcated Linear design in the upper part of the panel, is unlike anything else I’ve seen before.
The top part of the large Linear element that dominates the panel. What an odd design! For one thing it extends way above head height, so painting it wouldn’t have been easy. It has a little arrow at the top, and those two strange boxes on its two “legs”. I wonder what it all means.
These two dots of pigment are not a very common element in pictographs. Solid circles are quite common in petroglyphs panels but they don’t show up in pictograph panels very often. Another site where I’ve seen these is the “Sky Cross” or “Hot Cross Buns” site in Joshua Tree National Park. There are some dots in the secondary shelter there.
I DStretch many photos I take just in case there is something hidden, and in this case it shows a faint squiggle line by one of the dots that was very hard to see in the original picture..
Though not as eye-catching as the huge Linear element that dominates this site, this cluster of elements is worth a closer look. It is probably the most detailed set of elements at the site. Let’s take a DStretch look at them too.
The main element is reminiscent of some of the designs at the High Sierras Meadow site, very far removed from this site in terms of climate, tribal territory and geography. There are also some of the bisected circles and lines that can be found much closer, in Serrano territory, at the Hidden Cave site. They seem to be enclosed in a rectangle.
This design is kind of isolated at the top right of the panel. It is also quite faded.
With some DStretch we can see that it is a pretty nicely drawn Rectilinear element. It looks like the little nubs the vertical lines form at the top and bottom are intentional, because the crossbars terminate very precisely.
Remember that I said that the “17” design is an optical illusion? Here, look at it from the side. See how there is a ridge running right through the center of the design? That is what makes it look like a 17, but it is really a small rectangle enclosed in the burst element. If you still have doubts, the DStretch image that follows will show this even more clearly.
There we go! There is definitely pigment throughout the design, forming a rectangle.
There are also some pictographs on the rock that forms the left hand side of the pictograph area. The red pigment is easily visible towards the left of the picture. Look closely and see if you can see anything else before you peek at the DStretch image below.
If we apply a deep red enhancement with DStretch we see another design pop out. Look at that! Do you see the hand print? The symbol close by it ( two circles and an elongated cylinder with a center line ) is very well drawn and not a symbol I’ve seen anywhere else. There is also a small dumbbell-shaped design just below it. The triangle is modern graffiti – someone’s initials.
When we apply an alternate DStretch algorithm to look for black elements, we get a little surprise. There are a couple of abstract elements on the boulder too – a circle with a line pointing down, and a simple Rectilinear element.
A close-up of the two black elements at the site. They’re easily visible with the naked eye if you lean in close.
Maybe the smudges to the left of these are elements too, but the Rectilinear element and the circle and line above it are really the only definitive black elements at this site.
This is an extreme close-up of a section on the second wall. Do you see the faint splash of pigment that drew my attention to this part of the boulder?
It is very, very faint, but DStretch shows a Linear element with what looks like a burst element just above it.
I found this site very interesting. The elements feel out-of-place. Pictographs in the close-by Serrano territory of Joshua Tree National Park look quite different from these. Some of the elements are akin to the pictographs I’ve seen to the north of here, in the foothills of the Sierras – Tübatulabal, Yokuts, and perhaps also some Chumash elements. This site is nowhere near those tribes’ territories though. A vast expanse of hard-to-cross desert separates them.
Despite the damage done to it, this site is still worthwhile to visit. If you stop by, please respect it. Don’t do anything that might damage the pictographs. That means no touching them, and no fires!