Evidence for a Prehistoric Petroglyph Trail Map in the Sierra Nevada

Abstract

A single petroglyph site in the North-Central Sierra Nevada in the upper watershed of the North Fork of the American River has a unique glyph with meandering and connecting wavy lines that are now proposed as trail maps. A tracing of this glyph was made from a photograph, and this was then placed with the same compass alignment on a topographic map showing all petrographic sites along the North Fork watershed. The ability to superimpose and accurately orient the glyph tracing over a map of these petroglyph sites, and the presence of petroglyphs on seventy-seven individual rock outcroppings mostly within 50 m of the presumed trails, support the trail map interpretation of this rock carving. It is suggested that a hunt shaman may have incised this glyph for ritualistic use.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Elsasser

A. B.

1960 The Archaeology of the Sierra Nevada in California and Nevada, University of California Archaeological Survey Report, 51.

Elston

R. G.

1971 A Contribution to Washo Archaeology, Nevada Archaeological Survey Research Paper No. 2.

Elston

R. G.

Davis

J. O.

Leventhal

, and Covington

1977 The Archaeology of the Tahoe Reach of the Truckee River, Report to the Tahoe-Truckee Sanitation Agency.

Gortner

W. A.

1984 Ancient Rock Carvings of the Central Sierra: The North Fork Indian Petroglyphs, Portola Press, Woodside, California.

Gortner

W. A.

1986 The Martis Indians: Ancient Tribe of the Sierra Nevada, Portola Press, Woodside, California.

Heizer

R. F.

and Baumhoff

M. A.

1962 Prehistoric Rock Art of Nevada and Eastern California, University California Press, Berkeley.

Heizer

R. F.

and Elsasser

A. B.

1953 Some Archaeological Sites and Cultures of the Central Sierra Nevada, University California Archaeological Survey Report, 21.

Mallery

Garrick

1972 Picture-Writing of the American Indians, Dover Publications, New York. [Tenth Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Smithsonian Institution, 1888–89.]

Ritter

E. W.

and Matson

R. G.

1972 Form Categories, Cluster Analysis and Multidimensional Scaling: A Case Study of Projectile Points, Southwestern Lore, 37, pp. 102–116.