Petroglyphs
North of Las Cruces is the Three Rivers Petroglyph site. It has been on my radar for a while, and finally I got my truck back after a lot of needed but expensive repairs. I was thinking of leaving that Saturday, but a fellow HFH volunteer has been there before and suggested a trip, and I needed to test drive the truck , so off we went.
Up over the spectacular Organ mountains, still snowy on top, and then into the vast basin of White Sands. Oh look ! We’re at the beach ! And then north.
Three Rivers Petroglyph site is a small ridge of basalt boulders at the juncture of three dry arroyos. The Jornada Mongollon were the folks who made them, between 700 and 1000 A.D. They were a semi-nomadic tribe, hence “jornada”, but beyond that, we know little. They lived in pit houses, hardly more than animal burrows, and did some crop raising. And, for reasons we will never know, they painstakingly pecked designs and figures on the boulders, chipping off the dark layer of “desert varnish” (an oxidized skin) to expose the lighter rock beneath.
We take the low road, a faint path along the base of the hill; we are hoping to find a certain petroglyph, a large face, that is not on the marked path, so we walk the lower slopes.
We see a carving, then another, and then denser and denser clusters of them, until we are almost giddy with the wonder of these ancient pictures.
There are animals, mountain sheep, roadrunners, quail, ducks, turtles, snakes, cranes, fish, mountain lions, and eagles. Although the bodies are sometimes filled with geometric shapes, these wonderful creatures are recognizable, lively, a realistic bestiary.
The human figures are generally smaller, less deft, and sometimes only part of the body is there. Masks glower at us, often set vertically wrapped over the sharp edge of a rock, sometimes they are realistic, some times more of a cartoon. Hands, life size, and feet, and the foot prints of bears and possibly big cats, wander among the other figures on the rocks.
The sun, or at least a circle surrounded by dots or rays, and what look like comets streak by, but there is no decoding the geometric designs. They are, to our eyes at least, pure abstracts, complex patterns that suggest the pottery, rug or basket designs of the tribes that will come later. Linked circles, boxed symbols, and occasionally a figure that might be a hallucination.
It would take hours to make these, and surely we are wandering among the efforts of years and years of work. It must have been very important to them to devote that time and effort, hunter gatherers don’t have any spare time for hobbies. But we have no idea what they mean, or why they did them. Well, we have lots of ideas. Some see the double circle google eyed figures as like Tlaloc, the Mexican rain god and suppose there was a connection of some sort. What were they saying, and to who? These were humans, like us, and maybe what we are seeing is just art, the need to decorate, to mark a place as our own, or to commemorate some event.
One particular design, on an upright rock, with the Sierra Blanca Mountains in the background, looks to me as though it has something to do with rain and thunderstorms over the mountain. Was there once an epic storm and floods, or was the effort to make this complex image a prayer of sorts that rain would come? Is it recorded history or a hoped for future?
I wondered if anyone has mapped them all, to see if there was a pattern in the location of certain signs. Maybe different family groups had their own particular signs, or had their own rocky area to work on. Maybe many tribes and families gathered here for a while to visit and feast and make these astonishing pictures.
They are to me endlessly fascinating. First is the fun of looking for them among the unmarked boulders, then that first sight of them. This initial look is often as powerful as coming around the corner of a museum and being struck by a “civilized” work of art. As I look longer, trying to decode, to understand, it is at once frustrating, humbling, and mystical. So much of the imagery is easy to recognize, and appreciate on a design level, but the pictures are clearly communications and we have no way of knowing what the message is for sure. Even more mysterious, the rock art world wide is disturbingly similar, providing fodder for all sorts of theories: hard-wired images in our DNA?, evidence of common ancestry? (in the Garden of Eden..) and of course rock carving visitors from outer space.
I want more of these cryptic messages and I want to know more about them, although they appear to defy any theories beyond hopeful speculation.
Read more here: http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind7.html
On Sunday, I sadly pull away from the Habitat for Humanity site in Las Cruces. It was worthwhile on many levels, and now I will fit more builds into my roving plans.
On I-10, whatever angels are on duty paid attention. Apparently, an18 wheeler had rolled on its side and was blocking both westbound lanes, plus spilling fuel. The truckers on the CB were complaining and grousing, and spread the news that we were likely to be here for several hours. The angels saw to it that I stopped right beside the only exit for 20 miles, and so guided by the Border Patrol’s advice I and the rest of the traffic behind me drove around the mess. Unless they backed up, there were at least 2 miles of stopped traffic ahead of me that were stuck.
I navigated my way to friends’ house in Tucson, and will be parked in their driveway for a week or so.
Up over the spectacular Organ mountains, still snowy on top, and then into the vast basin of White Sands. Oh look ! We’re at the beach ! And then north.
Three Rivers Petroglyph site is a small ridge of basalt boulders at the juncture of three dry arroyos. The Jornada Mongollon were the folks who made them, between 700 and 1000 A.D. They were a semi-nomadic tribe, hence “jornada”, but beyond that, we know little. They lived in pit houses, hardly more than animal burrows, and did some crop raising. And, for reasons we will never know, they painstakingly pecked designs and figures on the boulders, chipping off the dark layer of “desert varnish” (an oxidized skin) to expose the lighter rock beneath.
We take the low road, a faint path along the base of the hill; we are hoping to find a certain petroglyph, a large face, that is not on the marked path, so we walk the lower slopes.
We see a carving, then another, and then denser and denser clusters of them, until we are almost giddy with the wonder of these ancient pictures.
There are animals, mountain sheep, roadrunners, quail, ducks, turtles, snakes, cranes, fish, mountain lions, and eagles. Although the bodies are sometimes filled with geometric shapes, these wonderful creatures are recognizable, lively, a realistic bestiary.
The human figures are generally smaller, less deft, and sometimes only part of the body is there. Masks glower at us, often set vertically wrapped over the sharp edge of a rock, sometimes they are realistic, some times more of a cartoon. Hands, life size, and feet, and the foot prints of bears and possibly big cats, wander among the other figures on the rocks.
The sun, or at least a circle surrounded by dots or rays, and what look like comets streak by, but there is no decoding the geometric designs. They are, to our eyes at least, pure abstracts, complex patterns that suggest the pottery, rug or basket designs of the tribes that will come later. Linked circles, boxed symbols, and occasionally a figure that might be a hallucination.
It would take hours to make these, and surely we are wandering among the efforts of years and years of work. It must have been very important to them to devote that time and effort, hunter gatherers don’t have any spare time for hobbies. But we have no idea what they mean, or why they did them. Well, we have lots of ideas. Some see the double circle google eyed figures as like Tlaloc, the Mexican rain god and suppose there was a connection of some sort. What were they saying, and to who? These were humans, like us, and maybe what we are seeing is just art, the need to decorate, to mark a place as our own, or to commemorate some event.
One particular design, on an upright rock, with the Sierra Blanca Mountains in the background, looks to me as though it has something to do with rain and thunderstorms over the mountain. Was there once an epic storm and floods, or was the effort to make this complex image a prayer of sorts that rain would come? Is it recorded history or a hoped for future?
I wondered if anyone has mapped them all, to see if there was a pattern in the location of certain signs. Maybe different family groups had their own particular signs, or had their own rocky area to work on. Maybe many tribes and families gathered here for a while to visit and feast and make these astonishing pictures.
They are to me endlessly fascinating. First is the fun of looking for them among the unmarked boulders, then that first sight of them. This initial look is often as powerful as coming around the corner of a museum and being struck by a “civilized” work of art. As I look longer, trying to decode, to understand, it is at once frustrating, humbling, and mystical. So much of the imagery is easy to recognize, and appreciate on a design level, but the pictures are clearly communications and we have no way of knowing what the message is for sure. Even more mysterious, the rock art world wide is disturbingly similar, providing fodder for all sorts of theories: hard-wired images in our DNA?, evidence of common ancestry? (in the Garden of Eden..) and of course rock carving visitors from outer space.
I want more of these cryptic messages and I want to know more about them, although they appear to defy any theories beyond hopeful speculation.
Read more here: http://www.desertusa.com/ind1/ind_new/ind7.html
On Sunday, I sadly pull away from the Habitat for Humanity site in Las Cruces. It was worthwhile on many levels, and now I will fit more builds into my roving plans.
On I-10, whatever angels are on duty paid attention. Apparently, an18 wheeler had rolled on its side and was blocking both westbound lanes, plus spilling fuel. The truckers on the CB were complaining and grousing, and spread the news that we were likely to be here for several hours. The angels saw to it that I stopped right beside the only exit for 20 miles, and so guided by the Border Patrol’s advice I and the rest of the traffic behind me drove around the mess. Unless they backed up, there were at least 2 miles of stopped traffic ahead of me that were stuck.
I navigated my way to friends’ house in Tucson, and will be parked in their driveway for a week or so.
posted by Thistledown24 at 6:23 PM
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