|
About 55 miles east of Bishop, California and in the mountains a few miles south of Gold Point, Nevada is the petroglyph site at Hanging Mesa. This site is located above 7400 feet elevation and near a trail that descends the far side of the mountain. This trail is not the easiest way to cross the mountains and people must have passed by this site for reasons other than migration. In the spring and summer months the area is rich in plants, flowers and small game. This is a small site with only a few dozen petroglyphs pecked and scratched on a basalt boulder outcrop near the crest of a hill. There are two styles of
petroglyphs represented at Hanging Mesa. The first, Great Basin Abstract with
occasional representational bighorn sheep, simple stick figure anthropomorphs
and snakes are often, but not always superimposed by Great Basin Scratched style
petroglyphs. The Abstract images were probably placed there by Archaic
hunter/gatherer people between 2000 and 4000 years ago while the more recent
Scratch Style petroglyphs were probably made by Shoshone people within the last
2000 years. The Shoshone would scratch their designs over the petroglyph
images of earlier people to dispel the magic of the earlier petroglyphs. |
|
|
|
|
|
Once the center of local mining activity, the town Gold Point is now just a ghost town. Only a few hardy residents remain. |
The petroglyph concentration is found on a basalt outcrop at the top of a hill. A few isolated petroglyphs occur to the north. |
|
|
|
| Abstract designs and a bighorn sheep petroglyph are superimposed by patterned Numic scratching. |
A sun sign petroglyph. |
|
|
|
|
Patterned Scratched Style petroglyphs also occur on boulders not containing earlier petroglyphs. |
Some earlier archaic petroglyphs have not been scratched over. I wonder why some earlier images are scratched over and others are not. |
 |
 |
| A snake bite at this location, alone, and a 4 hour drive from help would probably have proved fatal. | Some of the petroglyphs are very small and easy to miss. |
|
See...
Petroglyph Replicas Carved in Stone
opens a new window |
Learn More... |
Petroglyph CDs & Books |
 click image |
|
©2005 All rights reserved. Reproduction, distribution or other use of images without permission from the artist is prohibited. |
|||