Paint Rock Project and Pictograph Site
ROCK ART TASK FORCE RECORDING
PAINT ROCK PETROGLYPHS is the site we will be recording. The Campbells, Fred and Kay, invited us to
record Paint Rock site that is located on their ranch. They have protected this site a many years
and have been great advocates of protecting sites.
This site is Plains rock art. The site is a bluff near the Concho River that the Plain Indians
exhibited their art. We will be graph mapping each motif or design. Then color slides and
black-white photographing will be done. Hopefully we will get some watercolors done at this time.
But there are many, many designs to mapping and photograph.
Lodging and camping will be at the Concho Park at Lake Ivy. There is a small restaurant with a
selected menu. When you register at the Park inform the person that you are with the rock art
recording group.
Campbells Receive Award from Texas Historical Commission
We recently received word of the following: At the annual meeting of the Texas Historical Commission
in San Antonio, May 6, 2000 Fred and Kay Campbell were presented the annual award for excellence in
archeological preservation. It's a beautiful award and well deserved
The text of the speech made during the presentation of the award last Saturday to the Campbells is available by clicking on the link above.
Paint Rock Test Excavation
Test excavations at the Paint Rock site, in an area below the limestone bluffs where the pictographs are located, are now complete. Thanks to a dedicated group of CVAS members, the tests were completed in three days.
On Saturday, February 26, 25 members of the CVAS began testing of 41CC295, a site below the bluffs of the painted rocks. Two areas were tested along an arroyo which was formed by erosional waters
from the uplands above the bluff and a spring which originates in the bluff. A 1 x 1 meter unit (2S1E) was established near the base of the limestone bluff and a 1 x 2 meter unit (11S6E, 11S7E) was established across the arroyo.
The units were excavated in 10 cm levels and the matrix was screened through 1/8 and 1/4 inch screens. Unit 2S1E was
excavated to a depth of 50 cm below the surface (bs) and units 11S6E and 11S7E were excavated to a depth of 30 cm below the surface. Cultural material was noted at 25 cm bs in 11S6E and 11S7E and continued to the end of the level. No cultural material was noted in 2S1E.
On Wednesday, March 1, 16 members of the CVAS continued testing of units 11S6E and 11S7E. The two units were excavated to 60 cm
below the surface. Cultural material continued to a depth of 35 cm bs. Below 35 cm no cultural material was noted.
On Wednesday, March 8, 18 members of the CVAS continued testing of the site. A backhoe test (BHT 1) was placed ten meters to
the south of test units 11S6E, 11S7E. Since cultural material was noted from 25-36 cm bs in test units 11S6E and 11S7E, all of the matrix from BHT 1 was screened from the surface to 50 cm below the surface. No cultural deposits were noted in the profile of BHT 1 below the 35 cm level. BHT 1 was tested to a depth of 3.6 meters below the surface.
Initial Analysis of the Test Sites
A cultural zone was noted in the controlled tests of units 11S6E
and 11S7E. The zone was between 25-36 cm below the surface. In this zone the cultural materials included:
- 1 Guerrero arrow point at 25 cm bs,
- 1 Perdiz arrow point at 31 cm bs
- 1 uni-face Perdiz preform,
- uni-face and bi-face flint tools, scrapers, primary, secondary and tertiary flint flakes,
- 1 Leon Plain pottery sherd,
- bone fragments, mussel shell fragments,
- fire cracked rock, and
- pieces of charcoal.
Screened matrix of BHT 1 included the following cultural
materials:
- 1 Guerrero arrow point,
- 1 Perdiz arrow point,
- 1 unidentified arrow point,
- uni-face and bi-face flint tools, scrapers, primary,
secondary and tertiary flint flakes,
- distal and medial fragments,
- 6 Leon Plain pottery sherds,
- 1 small ground stone (hammerstone),
- bone fragments, mussel shell fragments,
- fire cracked rock, and
- small pieces of charcoal.
Trip to Paint Rock
CVAS went to Paint Rock May 1, 1999, for a tour of the pictographs, the largest concentration of prehistoric drawings in Texas, with well over 1,500 brightly colored images covering a limestone bluff over the Concho River. These images, which are on private land, also explain the name of the tiny town of Paint Rock, a mile south where US-83 crosses the Concho River. In town, the first building you come to (there are only two or three all told) holds Paint Rock Excursions (Mon.-Sat. 9 am-4 pm; 915/732-4418), which offers hour-long guided tours-sometimes by boat, when the river is high enough-of the pictographs, the only way to see them. The site is briefly discussed at Paint Rock, Texas site. We've posted a newspaper article on the Paint Rock Archeoastronomy as well.
Rock art paints picture of ancients attuned to heavens
By Alexandra Witze
AUSTIN-Rock art from places as widespread as Texas and Guam captures the astronomical significance of the sky.
Native American petroglyphs near Paint Rock, Texas, were created so that sunlight would fall on specific figures on the winter and summer solstices, a University of Texas astronomer thinks. And on the Pacific island of Guam, ground cave paintings may depict a 16- month calendar based on the stars rather than the moon.
Together, the studies suggest that more ancient groups than previously thought were able to understand the clocklike properties of the celestial sky, scientists said last week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society
At Paint Rock, about 30 miles east of San Angelo, scientists have long known about the petroglyphs, or rock art, that decorate a half-mile-long bluff. The petroglyphs lie on private property, but the owners have worked to preserve the art, which includes figures of animals and scrawled names of some of the Native Americans who passed through. Some of the paintings are as old as 6,000 years; several groups used this area, including the Tonkawa and the Jumano at first, followed by the Apache, Kiowa and Comanche
Two years ago, the current owners asked Robert Robbins, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin, to investigate some strange light movements they had seen along the bluff. A dagger-shaped wedge of sunlight appeared to move across a large petroglyph of a shield during the winter solstice, they said.
Such "solar markers" have been found elsewhere in Western rock art. They can range from light striking a circular glyph, to represent the sun, to light dancing across images of people and animals.
So it makes sense to think that the "sundagger" at Paint Rock may have had cultural significance, Dr. Robbins said. Maybe the Native Americans noticed the unusual dagger of light-formed as light slipped between nearby boulders-and placed a shield painting there to mark the solstice, he thinks. The shield may have commemorated an annual gathering of neighboring tribes.
"They paid attention to the sunlight that they had and placed the paintings according to that," he said.
He reasoned that a similar dagger of light might mark a painting significant to the summer solstice-perhaps the turtle, whose slow movement symbolized the solstice for many Native Americans. So Dr. Robbins found the most elaborate turtle painting on the Paint Rock bluff, then stood there on June 21 and waited.
He was rewarded with a slim spear of light that appeared right on time, around 1:40 p.m., pointing directly at the turtle glyph. The light marking the particular paintings appeared only during the solstices, meaning that the spectacles probably weren't coincidence, he said.
"It seems very clear that they had noted this behavior by marking it with that kind of accuracy," he said.
Such ties between the cultural symbolism of paintings and the astronomical significance of sunlight aren't surprising, said David Iadevaia, an archaeoastronomer at Pima College in Tucson.
"If you're passing by this place and cool. you want to mark it and make it something special," he "almost like a kid doing graffiti."
In Guam, the ancient paintings are less well-understood, partly because scientists don't know how old they are. Cave paintings from the ancient Chamorro people appear in several places across the island, but the most interesting ones are at Ritidian Point, on the north coast, said astronomer Rosina Iping of the University of Guam. Dr. Iping stumbled across these paintings a few months ago while hiking; so far they have not been dated.
The cave sketches include rows of 16 dots, placed horizontally and vertically, which Dr. Iping thinks represent a 16-month calendar based on the stars. Oral histories from the area suggest that the Chamorro may have divided the year into 16 unequal periods based on the rising of a particular group of stars. The rising of Antares, around the winter solstice, began the Chamorro year.
Nearby sketches appear to show a human figure looking at the Southern Cross, and another at the constellation Cassiopeia, she said. The juxtaposition of the dots with the constellations suggests that the two are both astronomically significant.
"There is no way of knowing for sure, but it's clear to me that this is a calendar," she said.
In both Guam and Paint Rock, scientists hope to find other examples of astronomy in the rock art, and also to better date the paintings. But Dr. Robbins is confident that he'll be able to find more. "I'm sure there's more astronomy out there, but it's just hiding until a trained eye can find it."
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Links
The San Antonio Astronomical Society has a page about Archeoastronomy
Also see Archaeoastronomy at this site.
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