Burnt Cave, on the shore of ancient Lake Lahontan in southern Nevada, was churned out of the hillside by the lakeshore waves around 7,000 years ago. There are several other caves in this ancient north-facing bay, but Burnt Cave is the only one with visible pictographs. It is an easy stroll from a dirt parking lot to the cave, which is a pity because some fool with a can of spray paint had happened by at some point. Some people are why other people can’t have nice things, I guess.
The pictographs are scattered here and there inside the cave. On the left side are some small figures that could be Representational – zoomorphs perhaps – and at the back of the cave and on the left are some Abstract designs. This isn’t the only tufa cave with pictographs in this area. Even though the tufa may seem like a strange choice for pictographs, being loose and crumbly in places, it actually takes the paint really well because it is so porous. Look closely at the elements in this cave and you’ll see how they were painted with a rather wet medium that soaked into the surface.
There is evidence of this area being settled by the early Desert Archaic culture – 2,000 to 4,000 years ago. The pictographs themselves are likely nowhere near that old. The ethnographic record for the Numic people of this region doesn’t have much to say about the pictographs in the area, which makes interpreting them difficult.
The entrance to Burnt Cave. It is a fairly large cave, actually. The dark area in the center of the photo is about 6-7 feet off the ground. The pictographs are all in the back of the cave, in the light tan colored portion. As you can see from the BLM sign post, this is a publicly accessible site. ( I don’t count the “12” that the powers that be painted on the cave wall as vandalism, but my fingers itched a little … )
The left side of the cave. In the left center there are two elements on a flat outcropping. The pictographs trail towards the right of the picture from there. Note the lines in the bottom right corner.
The lines at the bottom of the cave.
DStretch doesn’t reveal much extra.
An overview of the back and right side of the cave. The element near the center that looks like a sickle will be shown later. The other pictographs are in the lower right quarter of the picture, and are probably the most detailed at this site.
This little panel contains the most detailed pictographs at the site. With the bare eye you can see the squiggle line down in the lower right and some kind of complex arrangement at the top. Let’s use some DStretch and a different angle to get a good look.
Note the trailing dotted lines / hashmarks at the bottom right of the panel. The squiggle / zig-zag line is more prominent now, too. The central element is a complex arrangement of bifurcated lines – vaguely reminiscent of dancers in a line, maybe.
There are two similar-looking Representational figures in the top half of the picture. The one on the left is painted on a rougher surface and thus harder to make out. Down below are some zig-zag lines and some pigment smeared on the edge. of a small outcropping.
With DStretch the left figure appears somewhat bat-like, doesn’t it? The zig-zag lines below the other figure is also more clearly visible, along with some spidery graffiti applied by vandals.
The right-most element is the same one we saw in the previous picture. There is a third zoomorphic figure to the left of it, the most distinct of the three figures. This one has a squiggle line above it.
The leftmost of the three zoomorphs is the only one that has clear hind legs. To modern eyes the figure appears to be ghoulish and lurking, but it is certain that that is not what it was meant to depict. There is also a tightly wound squiggle line above the figure.
Let’s finish off by returning to that sickle-like element, right in the back of the cave.
This is still a nice site to visit, despite the vandalism ( which I mostly don’t show in the pictures I took ). If you visit, enjoy the site, and take a close look at the faded elements. As DStretch showed us, there is still a lot to see here.