PETROGLYPHS.US

Sears Point petroglyphs

Sears point is a medium size petroglyph site overlooking the Gila River about 75 miles east of Yuma, Arizona. This section of southern Arizona is part of the Basin and Range formation; where, over the last 15 million years plate tectonics have significantly stretched apart the earth's surface. This stretching has cracked and separated the uppermost brittle rock into blocks that have tilted, skewed and and partially sunk into the softer underlying crust. Over the millennia these newly formed ranges have eroded and their sediment has accumulated in the basins between them. The stretching also allowed underlying magma to burst through the weakened crust and leave volcanic basalt deposits dotting the landscape.

This area is arid desert, receiving about 7" of rain a year. Winter nighttime lows are 40-50° F and daytime summer highs are in the low 100° F.  The Gila River once flowed here on it's way to meet the Colorado at Yuma, but now the water has been drained away to serve urban Phoenix, and the water that now flows seldom rises to the surface. The usually dry Gila water course is sometimes packed with vegetation sending roots down to underground water, but this brush and small trees are often swept away by flash floods. Various snakes, lizards, birds and small mammals are found here, and deer & coyote tracks are sometimes seen in the sand.

Bands of hunter-gatherers passed through here in Archaic times and left some petroglyphs. By AD 900 Hohokam people were living to the East and the Patayan people were living to the west of Sear's Point, and petroglyph evidence shows that both cultures utilized the area. Seen on the basalt boulders are stick figure, round belly lizard/lizard-man petroglyphs typically found at Hohokam sites as well as anthropomorphic figures with big hands and feet more common in Patayan territory to the west. Also seen are light colored (younger) petroglyphs of cattle probably made by the Tohono O'odham as well as cowboy/traveler inscriptions from 1800's.  In abundance are petroglyph  of zoomorphs (deer, bighorn, felines, quadrupeds) depicted in a vertical orientation. The purpose of a vertical orientation is open to speculation.