We’re on the prowl in piles of granite we haven’t visited before, peering in under overhangs and outcroppings, scrambling up to interesting-looking shelters, and walking down washes with our eyes on the ground, looking for anything interesting on the ground. Since we know that sometimes a shelter is hidden around the back of a boulder and you won’t know if you don’t go look, every boulder we pass gets a good circling. Good thing it is a cool, breezy spring morning, so making slow progress through the desert is no problem at all!
As it turns out, the shelter we found was in plain sight. And it is a really nice shelter, too! There was a stiff breeze from the south-west when we visited but the shelter itself was warm and wind still. I can see why it got plenty of use in the past, judging by the multiple sherds and lithic scatter we found.
Prior visitors have put the pottery sherds and debitage they collected in the shelter on display on this little rock at the entrance to the shelter.While sitting in the shelter I notice another little sherd sticking up.It has a slight wave to it. I added it to the little exhibition. I also found a tiny obsidian chip in the shelter as I crawled out. It was very muddy and very thin – only when I rubbed it did I find it was obsidian. I added that to the exhibition as well but forgot to take a picture.There are a couple of wavy, very faded pictographs way at the back of the shelter. The roof slopes down sharply here, so you have to get down on your elbows for a closer look. Which is a bit of a problem since the shelter floor is cover in prickly bits of brush. Getting in close is a delicate process!They remind me a little bit of handprints, though they’re too spindly. Time to see if DStretch can help us see these better.Two sets of four lines each, apparently! I wonder why these are so faded. This shelter is pretty low, but it is really cozy. Like I said, it was breezy when we visited but the shelter itself was well-protected and snug, so I don’t know quite how the elements could have gotten in here to fade the pigment.The leftmost element.The rightmost element. Maybe these are actually connected – there seems to be two faint lines between them, a horizontal one at the bottom and a curved line above.Up on the lip, inside the drip line, is another indistinct smudge of pigment. There’s a pretty clear streak of black pigment close by it, too.DStretch look. This may have been a grouping of three elements at one point, though it is hard to make them out now. It looks like the black line was superimposed on the elements later.Let’s finish of by looking at what is by far the brightest element in the shelter – a single, fresh-looking streak of pigment up on the ceiling. For reference, the two faded elements are visible in the background – lower left, towards top of the darker section if you’re having trouble locating them. How come the other elements are so faded, but this one is not? It looks authentic, it just stands out for being so well-preserved. I’ve seen this single streak on a shelter roof before, in Joshua Tree National Park.
So, I never did take an overview shot of this shelter! Oops! You’ll just have to imagine it: a snug shelter formed by a rather thin, slightly curved slab of granite jutting up from the sand, flanked on one side by a much larger boulder that provides shelter from the westerly side. It’s obviously attracted people to it for a long time, judging by the pictographs and the sherds and lithic scatter found on its floor.
If you happen by, pause and think about the meaning this place held for people over the years. Look at the view and think about how long human eyes have gazed out at it, and how finding these old places help connect us back to a long past of humans caring for this land. Don’t be the one to break the chain.
