Imagine Four-Wheeling with the Ancient Ones, Part II

A Jeeping into History Lifestyle Story, cont’d.

In Part I we covered ways to find rock art and the excitement of using your jeep to get to one of the many forms: Petroglyphs, Pictographs or Geoglyphs.  Remember that petroglyphs are etched in rock; pictographs are painted on rock; and geoglyphs are rock alignments on the ground. Now let’s see what rock art might mean and how to enjoy it.

What Does Rock Art Mean?

Careful now because here we might delve into the X-Files.  I will tell you up front that there is no agreement among experts as to what it all means.  There is agreement on some basic concepts and that’s what I’ll share with you here.  No matter how you look at it, no one is certain what happened on these rocks and their stories in stone ions ago.  The coolest thing is just finding them.

Author Del and wife Stacie enjoy photographing pictographs (ancient paintings) in the back country of the Death Valley National Park.

Growing numbers of experts say that the rock art and cave drawings are merely the outburst of medicine men who were under the influence; trance-induced supernatural journeys of shamans.  Other experts say they represent real maps, water supplies, depictions of the stars for navigation, or tribal boundaries.  I guess you can imagine someone 2000 years from now finding your list from today of “things to do to my Jeep.”   Ancient rock art probably make about as much sense.

Part of the lure of jeeping to find rock art comes from the mysteries surrounding the ancient Anasazi people of the southwest deserts of our country.  They existed from about 100 B.C. to 1300 A.D., surviving in the dry desert lands, living many times in adobe huts/buildings, sometimes called pueblos by the Spanish.  You can visit some of these pueblos still today, just do a search for Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Cliff Palace of Mesa Verde where you can see first-hand the “cliff dwellers” and their homes.

Some Native American experts will point out that these people of the cliffs and pueblos were Ancestral Puebloans to the Navajo.  However you enjoy it, just do that; enjoy every image and try to imagine wheeling with these ancient ones maybe watching over you.

Facts, speculation and rumors abound concerning the ancient ones, but I have found certain agreement in the books I’ve studied, and I’ll offer them to you for a starter.   I warn you though that different areas throughout the country where different tribes of early humans existed had different ways of communicating.  So again, back to doing your homework for your area of interest.  I will give you some generic examples to start with.

Critters:  Most critter representations seem pretty obvious.  Typically, mountain sheep (four legged with horns) look like sheep in side view.  Lizards and salamanders also look life like.  Bears are unusual, but I have found bear like, clawed figurines.  Snakes (coiled lines) sometimes are easy to confuse with directional maps and even springs (water).

What appears to be a big horn sheep petroglyph from the Nevada desert. These were hunted profusely by the ancient ones.

Maps/Terrain: Squiggly lines, seeming ending at a point can be maps to water or a hunting spot.  Sometimes you can find a celestial (star) map, showing well-known astronomy formations.

Some say lines and circles represent maps and boundaries; one way for a tribe or clan to claim an area of hunting.

Boundaries:  Tribal shields, lines that look like fences, and repeated diagrams in the corner of a petroglyph display are sometimes indications of ownership and tribal/family boundaries.

Hidden Treasure: Just kidding.  I will leave that to your imagination, because for me, every new rock art site is a treasure.

Families:  People holding hands, hunting, birthing and family growth are all represented quite often in rock art.  In Moab there is a famous panel called the “birthing scene.”

Universally proclaimed a “birthing scene” petroglyph. The only one the author has ever seen.

Events:  Floods, moon phases, drought, death, marriage and many other events, man-made and natural are common rock art themes.

The stories in this stone are up for interpretation. Moon, stars, families, footprints; and who knows?

I’m convinced that some geoglyphs (ground rock alignments) were game fields.  I know of one in Death Valley where there’s a nice hill over looking the game field where I suspect the tribal elders sat and watched the kids play some sort of energetic game requiring boundaries (foot ball?).  Now that’s just my interpretation, but I believe it’s a good as any.

Of course, you’ve seen the television shows that depict the geoglyphs that can only be distinguished from high altitude (air ship of some sort).  I love Muldar and the X-Files, but our distinguished Editor would really take his red pencil to this story if we started elaborating on space ships landing on 10,000-year-old rock-delineated landing strips.  I’ll leave it to your imagination – which is also part of the fun of wheeling to find rock art.

Enjoy Don’t Destroy

Please remember to enjoy our great outdoors and not destroy what it is we most enjoy wheeling to see.  Be cautious where you step (not only for the sake of snakes but also possible artifacts that may be around).  Try to leave a historic area the same way (or better if there’s trash around) than you found it.  Take all the pictures you want; and be sure to take pictures from different angles, with and without flash, so you capture the rock art in its best light.

Never allow anyone in your group to doodle or mark up rock art sites.  In fact, I personally do not hesitate to stop anyone from doing that on public lands.  I’ll make a citizen’s arrest if necessary.  Our heritage, and our right to access it, is just too precious to me to allow someone to damage it.

Looks more like vandalism than a real rock art “man” to me.

Vertebrate fossils, such as fish or dinosaur bones, are protected by law and may not be removed without a special research permit issued by the BLM.   Rock art on public lands is also protected and should not be disturbed.  Photograph all you want though.  And leave “cool stuff” like manos and metates (pronounced mah-TAY-tay-EE) for the next modern jeeper to find.

Mano and metate still on the ground by a pile of black dirt, centuries of camp fires.

Most of us realize that it goes without saying that vandalism ruins it for everyone.  Just like someone who drives off the trail/track, he/she is jeopardizing the enjoyment of the adventure for the rest of us.  So, rule number one is when you find a historical representation of our past, please leave it the way you found it so someone else can gain a similar enjoyment.

Back country adventuring to find rock art sites and dinosaur remains/tracks, is a safe, exciting and rewarding activity for the whole family.  Competition may develop in your group over who can find the best fossil or the best petroglyph (to admire).  It’s fun.  Photographs shared with your non-wheeling friends are sure to be crowd-pleasers. And while you’re out wheeling, finding new, exciting things, you’re learning about our history and imagining what it was like long before us.

Oh, and one more image for you to think about.  I once discovered a cave near Death Valley California, hidden in a remote canyon, while out by myself, miles from anyone – I later named it “The Bear Cave.”

The “Bear Cave” with this creature painted on the ceiling of a low hanging cliff cave. You have to lie on your back to really see the whole thing. Amazing.

The way it went down haunts me to this day (nicely). The desert air was dead still.  Nothing was stirring.  No sounds carried to my ears.  I was alone on a dry, quiet desert mesa, hiking my tail off, until I got within good viewing distance of the cave entrance, nestled on a cliff hollow.  Sweat ringed my hat brim and the sun burned my eyes.

As I lifted my camera to take a camera image, I saw dust rise from the floor just outside the mouth of the cave on what we might consider the patio area.  There were no birds; no wind; no bats; no nothing.  Yet, something stirred that dust cloud as I approached.  My imagination labeled it a “spirit cave” which later turned to Bear Cave.

As I smoothed the ruffled hair on the back of my neck I whispered out loud: “I came to only take pictures.”

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