Along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska, First Nations Peoples have been migrating and building seasonal and permanent settlements for at least 14,000 years. The same is true in many other corners of the world.
Why Were Petroglyphs Created / Made?
When the south moving migrants established a permanent village, as residents they were able to focus on necessary survival skills: hunting, fishing, food preservation, house construction. Beyond necessary survival skills, personal talents / skills became expressed: dancers, drummers, weavers, carvers.
Most carvers worked in wood. A very few worked in stone (petroglyph).
Scholars have written hundreds of books translating the meanings of Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Translations describe crop harvests, foreign invasions, royal families, local animals and many more themes. Some interpretations suggest stellar maps and possible flying objects, suggesting inter-planetary travellers, thousands of years ago.
Ironically, archeologists do not share consensus about interpretations of petroglyphs between Alaska / British Columbia Coastal. Some glyphs suggest a human face. Others might be a representation of marine life. Others just appear to be a random collection of round dimples in the rock.
When were the earliest Petroglphys created?
Migrations, down the coast have been dated back 13,500 years (Prof. Dr. Daryle Fedge, 2018). We do have a few artifacts: hammer stones, spear points, adze for carving canoes and masks, dating back 500 to 7,000 years BP.
To date, “when” even with Carbon Dating, is a calculated guess, consensus suggesting 1,000 – 5,000 BP.
Ultra Modern Petroglyphs
There have been a very few quasi-success scrapings and poundings
The face was done sometime in the 1920 – 30’s. It is accredited to an unknown etcher. The artist, was most likely employed at the Limestone Quarry, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the face. We do not know his motivation, other than to leave his mark, his artistic endeavour to an unknown future audience.
He would have had a basic hammer and a metal spike to peck at the rock face. The material being pecked is Limestone, which is very soft, compared to Granite. The face would have only taken a few hours to reach this stage.
This Limestone ‘glyph’ will likely erode away in a few hundred years due to the stones softness and reaction to chemicals in sea water.
In trying to experience, first hand, what it might take to replicate a simple 3,000 year old ‘glyph dimple, many of my friends and tourists have chosen different types of rocks: igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. Twenty (20) minutes is about the longest any participant has lasted in trying to make even a small peck or dent in any of the Coastal Rocks.
The scratched images (see photo) were gone within a few days. The rock dust was washed away by the tide waters.
Unique Conditions For A Carving Location?
Individual stones were migrants to the coast, much the same as with the humans. Like the people, they are relatively recent arrivals to our landscape, having been carried here in glacial ice flows, between 8,000 and 12,000 years ago.
While migrating people floated down the coast in 10m long canoes, the stones boulders were carried down coastal mountain valleys and inlets, settling on islands. These boulders, are often referred to as “Glacial Erratics.”
The ice-transported boulders which hold the petroglyphs are all Granite Rock. This rock type is many times harder than both Limestone and Sandstone, the most common materials holding island glyphs.
Coastal Petroglyphs are found mostly along existing ocean shorelines. They are not carved into rock faces, like well known Petroglyphs, far inland.
A second unique aspect here on the Islands is a condition known as Glacial Rebound. 10,000 years ago, the glaciers were over 4 km ( 2 1/2 miles) deep. As the glaciers melted, the weight of the ice decreased by millions of tonnes which enabled the islands to rebound (rise up) approximately 80 m / 250 ft. The melt water from the 4 km high ice fields has raised ocean levels by about 50 m. / 150 feet.
Unique Human Conditions To Making A ‘Glyph’
Known coastal petroglyphs get submerged by rising tidal waters every 6 hours. Our petroglyphs are underwater 1 m. / 3 feet, or more, twice per day. The high / low tidal change times shift about 20 minutes per daily cycle and month to month.
The water temperature itself ranges from 1C to 15C ( 35 F – 60 F). At such cold temperatures the carver, sometimes standing in or being splashed by rising waters, would have only 5 – 8 hours per day, before getting exceptionally cold and wet!
Possibly, ‘glyph etching was more of a summer job. In our area, the ‘glyphs generally all face south – southwest. The orientation would maximize summer warmer waters and longer day light hours.
Unique Base Materials
In many websites, we learn that the Petroglyphs were made by repeated pecking through an iron-oxide patina (sort of a varnish) which has coated parent rock over hundreds to thousands of years. Contemporary artists etch / peck directly into very soft Sandstone.
Coastal ‘glyhs are pounded into Granite Stone, which is many times harder than Sandstone and Limestone.
How Long Did It Take To Carve A Face Or A Single Dimple?
I’ve read how, pecking through the patina, with a hammer stone against a stone awl, that in a few hours you can somewhat replicate the likes of a multi-thousand year old image.
With our Granite Stones, being many times harder than limestone, I’m not convinced by the simple answer “just peck away”.
The structure of the Coastal petroglyphs are NOT the tiny pecks through the layer of iron oxide patina. Patina pecked holes go to a depth of approximately (1) mm / 1/16th inch. The Granite dimples and the width of features making the face or animal image are much larger and consistent in dimensions: 5 cm(+/-) wide by 0.5 cm (+/-) deep. The coastal petroglyphs are 4 times deeper than the pecked flat rock faced petroglyphs.
An interesting addition to the prominent images, is that many are surrounded by dimples. One ‘glyph rock has in excess of 75 dimples. Each dimple is a duplicate of the others in size and shape.
It remains, open guessing how the grooves were actually created. They do not show the expected straight lines and pecked indentations.
Petroglyphs made from Granite Rock took unknown hours to complete. No artist today seems to work in Granite, unless they are using ultra modern powered grinders.
In conclusion:
In writing this article, a very exciting awareness moment came when my very basic geology rock knowledge crossed over into my basic wood and stone carving skills. My wood skills have developed from 25 years of home projects undertaken only after lots of pre-reading, watching and talking with skilled others. I have pounded different types of rocks, trying to make a dent into the rock. NO successes.
Technique, time, place and environmental conditions play against each other.
Another point, needing more research and pondering, involves the motivations for a person to dedicate untold hours to peck, etch, grind. When they are finished, temporarily or permanently, their works spread across small and large areas. Did they ever imagine, thousands of years into their future, people would be marvelling at their creations, pondering their origin? Was there an Ahhhh – a feeling of Success! I want to do another one! Did village members and visitors comment “That is so good, would you do one for us?”
In contemporary times, the “accepted meaning / interpretation” of the single image or collection of images becomes an exercise in convincing the audience. Having academic credentials, gives the writer of the interpretation credibility. Heritage Interpreters are constantly challenged to balance accredited interpretations with decades of field time learning any number of opinions of others and considering their supporting evidence.
A “ Can I Do it” project I leave you with is to make a simple dimple. In your own rocky area, make a dimple in a rock, the size of the bottom of a pop bottle.
Send InterpNews a report / photo of your experiences.
- Rod Burns, B.Ed., CPHI
- Quadra Island, B.C., Canada
- bpc@connected.bc.ca
References
- Joy Inglis: Spirit in the Stone: Petroglyphs of Quadra Island, Horsdal & Schubart Publishers 1998. ISBN: 0 920 663 58 3 No longer in print.
- Internet searches: key words Petroglyphs, Writing on Stone Provincial Park, Ontario, Petroglyphs Canada, Petroglyphs Arizona,
- Youtube videos: key words Stone Carvings: how to make
- Photos: Rod Burns, CP Heritage Interpreter