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| You could see these petroglyphs from the helicopter - look closely in the dead center |
On Tuesday I went on another petroglyph documentation survey by helicopter. On this trip we went to places I already knew quite well. But we did draw 2 sets of petroglyphs that we had not been formally documented prior to our visit.
Both sets consisted of small holes pecked into the local bedrock. Sometimes these ones are really hard to judge - especially if they have been weathered and partially eroded away. Are they pecked or natural? But sometimes they are really obvious too - and on this trip we got to see some pecked holes and ground slash lines that have barely been weathered and are clearly man made.
The face pictured at the bottom of this post I first saw in 1995 - 26 years ago! What's cool is that in the intervening 26 years that particular petroglyph has moved up in the intertidal zone. Ever since the land on south Afognak sank around 5 feet in the Great Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 it has been rebounding back out of the water. Prior to 1964 the face was barely below the waves at high tide. When I examined it in 1995 it was covered with blue mussels at the bottom of the low tide zone (we only knew where it was because Don Clark who first found it in 1964 knew exactly where to look and scrape the mussels away). Today there are far fewer mussels and the face is getting back to where it was prior to the earthquake.
We hope that by carefully documenting them we will start to better understand their meaning and better recognize them too. Patrick
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| A porcelain pig eroding out of a nearby late 19th century site - we did not collect it |
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| Molly documenting some pit petroglyphs on an outcrop |
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| Some pit and star petroglyphs that are very clear |
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| More pit petroglyphs in front of a late prehistoric village - Molly was a little skeptical of these ones |
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| Because of the 'barnacle debris' this one is hard to see but there is a face with a chin tattoo in there! |
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