Sometimes you can have a good day by simply pointing the nose of your vehicle off the beaten track.
One spring morning, we were doing just that, leaving one of Nevada’s straight, lonely paved roads and nosing down a dirt track, in search of what lies over the ridge. Think about it: you have a lonely paved road, sparsely travelled … and only a tiny fraction of this road’s sparse travelers ever turn to go beyond the scrubby ridges that make up their horizon as the road they follow winds from basin to ridge to flat to ridge and back down to basin again.
But we wanted to see what the world looked like, and so we followed the dirt road.
For a while we made good time following the dirt road through the sparse landscape. Then we had to slow down to take the rutted track gently, and then we had to carefully bump down an overgrown two-track next to a small wash. Eventually this track climbed up on a shelf above the wash and we could follow a bit of flat, pebbly road along the shelf, until we came upon some basalt boulders of various sizes, many of them with pecked petroglyphs.
We hopped out, gathered our gear, and went to have a look.
Some of the petroglyphs, mostly the ones on some of the most densely carved boulders I’ve ever seen, seem less weathered than others.
The first few boulders closest to where we parked have sparse, lightly pecked elements. This one has some atlatl-like symbols, as well as the connected circles that are so common in the Great Basin.
This boulder seems to show two different styles: a bold pecked style and a curious scratched style, here shown with some hourglass-like elements.
The spindly scratched symbol. It is hard to tell whether these are authentic or not.
What do you think? I can almost imagine the pecked symbol overlaying the scratched symbol in this case. They both seem to be about the same age.
Also at this site is a semi-famous element that serves as the logo for a Nevada archeology association – an anthropomorph with a target shape on its body.
This boulder has two lightly pecked elements that look almost insect-like.
Nearby is a similar motif, this time looking like a fishbone ( or maybe a millipede? ). The spoked circle motif is also interesting because it incorporates a natural hole in the rock.
This is a curious little element – is it abstract, or does it depict a human figure lying down? And if the latter, then what is happening above the figure?
A faint design of pecked concentric circles.
One of the fascinating things you realize over time as you explore these sites is that some common motifs repeat over and over, many hundreds of miles apart. Some of these motifs even appear in other parts of the world as well! This rather unremarkable panel has a dumbbell design, some concentric circles, wavy parallel lines, and a zigzag line. All of those are very common petroglyph elements.
This abstract element is very simple, but it cleverly follows the contours of the rock face.
A short distance upslope, some large boulders beckon. As I get closer I notice petroglyphs! Lots and lots of petroglyphs!
Oh my goodness. What a great find. The downslope surfaces of these boulders are covered with petroglyph designs.
The most prominent element is that thick, lightly colored meander line, but there are so many other details on this boulder as well. Spirals, rake designs, concentric circles, rows of dots, a fishbone pattern, an anthropomorph … wow! Just wow.
The same boulder viewed from the side. The row of pecked dots wraps around the boulder for a bit, and there’s also a faint rake element, tines pointing up, just below it.
The upper part of the boulder, showing the anthropomorphic figure, the row of dots, and more.
A closer view. You can really see the texture of the pecks here. What a great panel of rock art.
Rakes, spirals and meander lines … pay attention to the mostly straight line in the upper right of the panel. Note that it has a small crack running down it. It is unlikely that the panel cracked just there, all along the line, so this line was likely made on top of the crack. That might explain why it is one of the few straight-ish lines in this panel!
Lichen is clustered thickly at the bottom of the boulder. Few petroglyph elements appear overlaid by the lichen though. To the right is a line with a squiggle tail. This element shows up in panels from time to time.
With these big, bold petroglyph panels around it is easy to miss some of the smaller details, such as this interesting design – a semi-circle with triangular elements, almost like a drawing of the sun. This design is found down low to the ground on one of the larger boulders.
Another boulder that has some scratched designs on it.
More so than most other sites, this one features designs that incorporate the shape of the rock beneath them. In this case, this Linear element incorporates a ridge in the rock face as a design element.
Meander lines, and a strange-looking zoomorphic/anthropomorphic design. This is this kind of design that causes UFO conspiracy theories!
A lot to see here as well. There’s a concentric circle symbol overload on a faintly scratched net design – the net design repeats on the lower boulder. There are also anthropomorphs, zoomorphs, what looks like a snake, and other symbols on the large rock face.
A closer look at the upper rock face.
The faint digitate antropomorph in the lower right part of the panel.
Detail of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures in the upper left of the panel. The zoomorph is similar to the motif found at other petroglyph sites like Lizard Lounge, and even some pictograph sites in Tubatulabal or Kawaiisu territory.
The net-like design on the lower boulder. There is a second net-like design in the background as well.
Detail of the figures just above the upper net. Once again we see a figure with a head and many “legs” along a central spine.
After the excitement of those large boulders a boulder like this seem almost mundane, but that anthropomorph with its wavy arms is pretty interesting, I think!
Another boulder has an eye-catching pattern of parallel dots at the top.
Close look. These parallel dots also recur at a lot of petroglyph and pictograph sites.
Some of the elements at the site are hidden almost out of sight, like these elements in a narrow gap between boulders.
Here is another element where the natural shape of the rock was incorporated – a light series of pecks along the rim of a natural hollow in the rock.
Our exploration is at an end. I look down the road we drive in on. How thankful I am that the world still holds places like this, were you can breathe and look around and see just the natural landscape all around you.
This site was a joy to visit – so many interesting elements here! If you visit, be sure to look in the nooks and crannies too … often just as interesting as the big, bold elements out in plain sight.