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By - The Herald-Dispatch    July 6, 2005
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/2005/July/06/LNlist2.htm

/The Herald-Dispatch

Ironton resident Steve Shaffer locates a site in the Ohio River near Greenbottom where an American Indian petroglyph is revealed.

GREENBOTTOM, W.Va. - With the evening’s sun glowing orange, Steve Shaffer wades out barefoot into the clear, shallow water of the Ohio River.

His feet, with suntan stripes left by his sandals, move across the sandstone to a carving of a foot etched into the stone.

"I think these are a lot more exciting than even Indian mounds because this is specific communication," Shaffer said one evening last week while looking down at the giant foot carving now visible in the river.

Here in a horseshoe bend in the Ohio River between Huntington and Point Pleasant lies just one of more than half a dozen known Native American rock art or petroglyph sites located along the Ohio River. A geometric design also lies here, as does animal drawings on the sandstone.

The lack of rainfall this spring and summer is letting Shaffer get a good look at these petroglyphs for the first time in more than three years, Shaffer said of the ones near Greenbottom.

"If we are going to find anything else, this is going to be the summer," said Shaffer, who wiped away the silt from the ancient etchings. "They will be in and out for the rest of the summer."

This is just one of dozens of sites in the area believed to have been left by ancestors of the Shawnee.

The most famous perhaps is the petroglyph in Salt Rock about 100 yards from the northeast bank of the Guyandotte River. That site was first documented in 1848 in the Smithsonian Institute’s publication "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley."

Although many of the petroglyphs in the area are documented, Shaffer said some that were not documented have been found by accident.
 

A giant rock covered with art of birds, human and animal stick-figures - as well as geometric designs - was found in Ceredo in 1975 about 40 feet from shore. At the time, it was covered with about 15 feet of silt kicked up when a crew was dredging for a barge mooring.

That petroglyph, thought to be one of the largest and best preserved in the United States, now is tucked away at the Ceredo Historical Museum, 501 Main St., Ceredo. More information about it is available by calling (304) 453-3025.

A forty-something Ironton resident and author, Shaffer has spent the past five years - and plenty of his own money - researching and writing in preparation for his first documentary film, "Written in Stone: A Documentary Exploring the Prehistoric Native American Rock Art of the Ohio River Valley."

Like the falling river, Shaffer said his spirits are ebbing after finding few folks, even Native American groups, who want to help fund the telling of this story.

"I’ve written 170 grants (applications) and have gotten one," Shaffer said. "There’s telemarketers that do better. I just think that people don’t know what they are."

/The Herald-Dispatch

Petroglyphs are carvings in stone. Many such carvings north of Huntington are visible now, while the Ohio River is lower than usual.

Shaffer’s work already has unearthed video documentation of the once-famous Indian’s Head Rock, a landmark for steamboaters that had not been seen since 1920, when the Ohio River was dammed.

Like the Indian’s Head dives, which took three summers to find the treasure 14 feet below the river’s surface, Shaffer hopes to persevere and find folks who can help him fund his dream of seeing his documentary come to life and to help protect and preserve the best petrogylphs that are being slowly eaten away acid rain and vandalism.

"We have all of this art 400, 500 and 600 years old," Shaffer said. "What kind of value can we put on it? I think it’s priceless, and I want to save the best of these so your grandkids and my grandkids can come and see them."