Two Rock Art Sites in the Powder River Basin

Mavis Greer and John Greer Paper Presented at the 4th Annual Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Anthropological Association Glenwood Springs, Colorado October 1999 Symposium: Rock Art, Dr. Julie Francis, Chair.

Pictograph and sites occur infrequently in the Powder River Basin of and compared with surrounding mountainous areas. This may be a reflection of site density, but more likely it is a sampling problem as there are many appropriate settings within the Basin that have yet to be checked for rock art. This paper focuses on two sites in the Wyoming portion of the Basin. The northern site, the Daly (48CA58), is on state surface completely surrounded by a large private ranch that controls access to the property. The southern site, Pinnacle Rocks (48NO231), is also on a private ranch with restricted access. The Daly site (photo to left) was first recorded in 1975 by John when he visited the site while working for the Wyoming Recreation Commission. John and I first recorded the Pinnacle Rocks Petroglyphs (photo below) in 1983. Both sites have experienced some vandalism between our first recordings and our 1999 visits, but impacts to the sites were heaviest prior to our initial visits with a noticeable decline in added names and dates during the 1980s and 1990s. The Powder River Basin is defined as that area bordered on the south by the town of Douglas, Wyoming, along the North Platte River, on the west by the Bighorn Mountains, on the east by the Black Hills, and on the north by the Yellowstone River. It contains not only the Powder River and its tributaries, but also the headwaters and upper portions of the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne rivers.

1999 Powder River Basin Rock Art Page 1 Greer and Greer

Rock art settings within this area are characterized primarily as sandstone cliffs or as free- standing sandstone formations. The sites of this study represent one of each setting. The Daly Petroglyphs (photo to upper left) are at the base of a high sandstone cliff formation, while Pinnacle Rocks (photo to upper right) are free-standing sandstone formations.

The Daly site includes several separate panels, but the site is dominated by a south-facing panel with three life-size men overlooking the drainage (photo above). These figures are hard to

Page 2 photograph in almost all lighting conditions, and they were drawn over in the above photo by computer. The three tall men are about 5 feet tall, have round heads with short necks and blocky rectangular bodies. Additionally, all are clearly portrayed as males, and all have sturdy legs with bent knees. The left figure has a small round shield covering his upper body, with a geometric design. He has a tied sash around his hips with the ends hanging to the right. An arrow emerges from the top of his head, and arrows penetrate his lower legs, which end in bear-claw feet. The figure in the center wears a rectangular breast plate with three columns of V-shaped designs topped by circles. A quiver of arrows rests on his back. His feet are lost in the base of the wall and possibly never existed. Like the figure to the left, he has a tied sash around his hips with the ends hanging to the right. Arrows also penetrate his lower legs below bent knees. His arms are similar in design to his legs and have a slight bend at the elbow; the hands, like his feet, cannot be determined. The right figure has a different hair style from the other two. His hair is gathered at the top with an extended pony tail to the right. His rectangular body is the same style as the other two figures, but his torso is shown with a heart in the center rather than a shield or breast plate, and only the bottom line of what was possibly a sash can be seen. His feet have bear claw-like toes, and at least one arrow enters his lower leg. The arms on this figure are different from the other two and are formed with single lines. The arm on the right bends up at the elbow and holds a bow, while the arm on the left bends up at the elbow and holds a decapitated head, which is shown close-up on the left. This head is held at the neck, with the top of the head hanging down. The hairstyle of the head is different from those of the three large figures, and probably indicates a member of a different group. We are currently researching decapitation in Plains rock art and have yet to find a similarly held head. On the lower portion of the wall below a crack in the sandstone and between the central and right men are two small figures about one-third the size of the larger figures. They represent two different kinds of people, and may not be contemporaneous with each other or the large figures, though all were drawn after the introduction of the bow. The figure on the left (photo on top of page 4) is a small shield-bearing warrior. The round head and prominent eyes are similar to the life-size figures, but his shield is large covering the body from the neck to the knees, unlike the small shield of the large man. Like many Plains

Page 3 shields, this one is decorated differently on each half, with the left half plain and the right half covered with vertical parallel lines. The ends of four arrows protrude from the lower left of the shield showing this warrior has been hit. The feet are missing disappearing in the broken bottom of the ledge. The small figure to the right (below) is distinguished from others at this site by its headdress, though it has a round head and rectangular body similar to the large figures, and its single line arms bent up at the elbow are reminiscent of those holding the head. A quiver of arrows rests on its back. The headdress on this figure is similar in form to those at Dinwoody sites of western Wyoming and sites such as Little Petroglyph shown in the photo on the left, in the Coso Range of southeastern California. The figures are side-by-side on the bottom of the photo on the lower right. Even through the forms are similar, the manufacturing techniques are noticeably different. The top figures on the lower right show another example of similarities in form of headdresses between a Daly Petroglyph figure and another at Little Petroglyph Canyon. The relation between Dinwoody Tradition petroglyphs of western Wyoming and Coso Range Petroglyphs was discussed by Larry Loendorf in a 1999 publication. He suggests their similarity has roots in their common Shoshone origins. The Daly figures suggest possible further connections of Rocky Mountain

Page 4 rock art with that of the Powder River Basin. Petroglyphs at Pinnacle Rocks are on several separate panels. The main panel is on the south face of the northeastern island formation, and the concentrated figures on this panel include several examples of superpositioning. The main Pinnacle Rocks panel is dominated by relatively small humans, several of which are portrayed as rectangular bodied figures, some with V-necks, and several as small round-bodied shield figures. The highest figures are a line of rectangular bodied people with no two looking exactly alike, although all have upraised arms (shown in photo to left). Four figures in the row appear to be women, based on holes that appear to be part of their anatomy as opposed to holes resulting from shooting. Two of these figures have parallel lines extending from their arms, which suggests a human/thunderbird-like representation. For purposes of this paper, we concentrated on the shield figures at the Pinnacle Rocks site. Shield designs have attracted the attention of researchers not only because the shield is a common motif in western North American rock art, but also because they have qualities to help with identification of cultural affiliation, site function, and relative figure age based on the change from larger shields for pedestrian warriors to the adoption of smaller shields, about half pedestrian size, for horse-mounted warriors. Ten shield figures are on this panel. Of those, seven are simple circular bodies. These have small round heads and simple straight legs, with bent lines representing feet. All these small figures have large shields relative to their body size. None of them has an attached weapon, though three have adjacent lances or spears that they appear to be walking toward. Two others appear to have large clubs in those same positions. The two figures with the clubs also have distinctive lines coming from their heads, presumably their mouths. The lines from both shield figures circle around to enter the mouth of a bison, one of the few animals represented on this panel. Lines

Page 5 such as these are commonly referred to as speech scrolls and are explained as portrayals of communication. These are not common representations in Montana and Wyoming rock art and not typically associated with shield-bearing warriors. But they are deliberate on this panel, and are also found associated with two other small shield figures. Two larger figures have decorated shields that cover the bodies to below their knees. One of these is in poor condition, but it is possible to discern one leg indicating a human was associated with this shield, which is decorated by radiating lines (see photo to the left). The other decorated shield figure is much more elaborate, though this human has no head but legs and feet (see photo below). Lines surround the edge of the shield indicating feathers or fringe, and a deer completely fills the interior. An arrow protrudes from the base of the shield indicating he has been hit, like several people at the Daly site. The shield figures on a separate pillar to the west are different from those on the main panel. The western shields are drawn in more detail and on a larger scale. They have smaller shields relative to body size than those of the main panel, but they are not the small upper body-only shield as portrayed on the large figure at the Daly site. The two best preserved of the four figures here have half-moon heads at the top of the shields indicating that their necks were covered, which is further supported by a straight line mouth just above the shield (see photo to the right). Both have round eyes, and the figure on the left has an elaborate headdress of closely spaced radiating lines reminiscent of figures in the Rocky Mountains. The arms of both figures are hidden behind the shields, but both have anatomically detailed legs with feet pointing to the southeast. The figures were formed first as petroglyphs, and remnant red indicates the shields were subsequently painted, much like some at the Castle Garden site west of Casper and at Valley of the Shields in southern Montana. Both shields have identical pie-like designs.

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Shield figures have been used to determine cultural affiliation of sites. Because many shields date to the time of horses (early 1700s on the Northern Plains) it is possible to apply the Direct Historical Approach and suggest tribal affiliation for some shields as Linea Sundstrom and Jim Keyser recently did for the Black Hills and Cave Hills of South Dakota. However, shield figures occur early in Wyoming and Montana rock art. Larry Loendorf has dated them as early as 1100 AD in Valley of the Shields, and these do not appear to be the earliest ones in the region. Therefore, the Direct Historical Approach will not work for determining cultural affiliation for all shield figures, but establishing cultural affiliation is a necessary component for many kinds of analysis. For example, when attempting to trace migration routes, it is important to make connections between material cultural remains from one region to another. Rock art can play a significant role in this kind of study, and shield figures have been used in migration studies because of their wide-spread distribution and time depth. Recently Loendorf outlined a set of rock art shield attributes he is tentatively examining in a search to identify Athapaskan migrations. Because the route of the Athapaskans is unconfirmed, but their rock art in the Southwest is quite convincingly established, he has suggested that finding rock art shield figures assignable to the Athapaskans could strengthen the argument for either a route through western Colorado and eastern or through eastern Wyoming and eastern Colorado on their way to New Mexico and Arizona. Because of the similarities between some of the Pinnacle Rocks shield

Page 7 figures to some at Castle Gardens, which he suggests may be Athapaskan, and because if the Athapaskans took the eastern route down the Rocky Mountains the Pinnacle Rocks area could have been passed, we considered the Pinnacle Rocks shields in light of Loendorf’s Athapaskan shield criteria. Only the shields on the western panel have attributes that meet any of the five criteria. Two of these shields have the pie-shaped wedge divisions on the shields, and the figures were first incised in the rock and subsequently painted. We have done only a preliminary examination of these shields both on the ground and through computer enhancement, and it is possible that closer inspections would reveal a color in addition to red. Computer analysis suggests either black and/or white paint may have been used also. Both shields have been damaged, apparently from casting projects, and they deserve more analysis before dismissing them as evidence for the Athapaskan hypothesis. In conclusion, the content of these two Powder River Basin petroglyph sites suggests no uniformity of style, culture, function, or age, although portions of these sites undoubtedly overlap for all of these. Both, taken as a whole, are unmistakably Northern Plains rock art, but it also appears from our initial examination, that both sites have ties toward western Rocky Mountain sites. The decapitation portrayal is uncommon for this area, and at this point we have yet to locate a similar figure in the region, though this kind of representation is found more frequently in the rock art to the west and southwest and into Mexico. The headdress styles of the Daly figures are also not common Plains representations. The shield figures represent more than one style, culture, function, and time. Both sites deserve much more in-depth recording and analysis. Direct dating of the figures would be helpful in comparative studies with other sites as well as in providing a time frame for the use of these sites since relative dating methods indicate both pre and post horse depictions. Of course, survey to increase the rock art data base of the Powder River Basin could greatly change our view of how these two sites relate to one another as well as to this and other regions.

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