It seems that Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve likes to have one or two community-involved organizations staffing a table each weekend. On March 30, 2024 S’edav Va’aki moved their table outside in the sunshine while the Flood Control District of Maricopa County table and staffers stayed inside.
Brittlebush were in full bloom, but the ironwood tree either had already dropped its seeds or had not blossomed.
Right away, in the parking lot, we learn that ASU plays an important role in this preserve.
The entrance area to the museum (visitors center) and more beautiful yellow brittlebushes.
The two deer greeting each other is the logo for the Preserve.
This gives a better look at the logo. Why are the deer colored yellow and green in this foto and not in the other? It is because the deer are cut out of the rusty sign and when I walked closer to take this foto the angle of the camera changed and a different nature-background showed thru.
The Preserve calls them Kissing Deer. The actual petroglyph is in the lower right corner of the rock in the foto.
For those of you planning to visit.
General$14Seniors (62+), Military, AAA,
AARP ($1 discount)$13Children (7-12) $5Children (6 and younger) FreeMembers, ASU students,
Indigenous Peoples (w/ tribal ID) Free
Trash can made of same rusty metal as other parts of the museum.
I’m not sure why the name has changed since this plate was affixed to the wall of the m,useum.
Some of you may recognize this fellow.
John is a reflection in this picture below. He is not actually painted into the poster.
John explained that the architect for the museum had been a student of a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. This long “hall” is the display portion of the museum. The long, narrow “room” represents funneling visitors thru explanations and out into the world of real petroglyphs.
I have left this full-sized so perhaps you can read all the writing.
Ditto
Adult chuckwallas are large enuf t take a bite out of your foot. But they won’t hurt you if all you do is stare at them.
Informative sign.
Here is my foto of the rock in the sign above. Isn’t my selfie interesting? Interestingly shaped.
What a beautiful reptile!
A bit of the museum’s history.
Petroglyph Mountain top left and colorful lichen lower right.
Musings.
What petroglyph artist could resist this pile of rocks?
I didn’t take any pictures of the tubes themselves but I looked thru a few to see what petroglyphs they were highlighting, then I took pictures of the etched rocks on the hillside.
Wikipedia says: “The Patayan tradition is often divided into three phases. Patayan I (AD 700–1050) witnessed the arrival of pottery-using agricultural communities along the Colorado River. During Patayan II (1050–1500), this material culture spread outward to southern Nevada, western Arizona, and to the Salton Sea.” I wonder what happened during Patayan III?
Archaeologysouthwest.org has written: “Pataya (pah-tah-yáh) is a word of the Pai branch (Hualapai, Havasupai, Yavapai, and Paipai) of the Yuman-Cochimí language family that translates loosely as “old people.”
“As used by archaeologists, Pataya refers to a specific material culture spread throughout western Arizona, southern California, southern Nevada, and Baja California. What makes Patayan material culture a unique archaeological pattern is a series of distinctive pottery forms and wares, specific motifs and embellishments in petroglyphs and pictographs, the creation and use of intaglios and geoglyphs, and a geographic focus on the lower Colorado River.
“Interestingly, the spatial extent of Patayan material culture does map onto the historic distribution of the Yuman languages, which is why many believe this archaeological tradition is ancestral to historic and contemporary Yuman-speaking tribes. Nevertheless, archaeologists have long recognized regional variation, or “branches,” within the Patayan tradition based on differences in settlement patterns, ways of making a living (subsistence practices), and nuances in material culture (what people made and built). This has led to considerable debate and confusion—what archaeologist Harold Colton called “the Patayan problem” 75 years ago.
“Pataya remains one of the least-studied late pre-contact (contact with Europeans) cultural traditions in the American Southwest. One reason for this is the lack of research carried out in this rather remote frontier of western Arizona and southeastern California. Another is the ephemeral nature of many remaining Patayan archaeological sites.”
I’d never heard of the Patayan Tradition. Not even in the erudite books I have been reading in the library at S’edav Va’aki.
I took this picture with the Nikon camera.
(Mis-)interpreting petroglyphs.
Before you leave this foto, look again at the rock in the center. This picture was taken by my cell fone camera. This was the best that camera could do to enlarge the rock, or bring it closer in.
With Nikon camera
After I had walked the trail and taken fotos I hurried back to my SUV and got my good Nikon camera. I only had a few minutes in which to take a very few fotos before we “opened our table to the public.
Cell fone camera.
With Nikon camera.
Cell fone camera. That’s a cute bunch of animals at the top just left of center. At top right are two humans holding hands. Lots of unintelligible squiggles on the rock just left of center.
Cell fone camera. I see at least eight rocks with petroglyphs.
Cell fone camera. Four snakes in a row sunning themselves on a rock.
Good question:
Interesting answer.
Cell fone took a picture of its own volition.
The flat-topped mesa-looking thing in the foto below is Adobe Dam.
Peter Heugel and I helped at the SVM table during the morning. Not too long ago Peter had volunteered for 8 years with DVPP because he only lived/lives two miles away. He explained that Adobe Dam, which was not many yards beyond the DVPP Visitor Center, was built to temporarily catch water when the skies are too ebullient and to let the captured excessive water run away in controlled amounts. He said the water from the “spillway” (at the base of the dam) runs in a conduit underneath the museum building. Before homeless people began living in the conduit when it was dry between rains and leaving a lot of trash in sight, visitors in the visitor center could look thru a transparent panel in the floor and watch dirty brown flood waters happily leaping and bouncing along. There is a video in the visitor center which shows what that used to look like.
How did this petroglyph of an ancient dinosaur turn white? Well, it was dropped by a bird invading the invasive Stink Net plant territory, Oncosiphon pilulifer plants.
Peter said the rock circle below was an agave heart roasting pit. He explained that he and other volunteers would remove the dirt and rocks from the pit and help roast agave hearts. The volunteers got to go along to collect agave hearts from a portion of Yavapai land. Each person involved would receive a blessing and be given some tobacco. Each time they removed an agave heart they sprinkled some tobacco at the site. Before the agave hearts were loaded for travel to DVPP an elder checked each plant carefully. If he found any pups (very young agave plants growing on the parent plant) he removed them.
Relatively small agave hearts were used. Maybe a foot in diameter. I’m wondering if the Yavapai are once again cultivating the Agave Murphyii the ancient Sonoran Desert People brought up from Mexico. Peter said that after roasting, the agave tasted like candy. He said each roasted heart looked like a large hunk of brown sugar.
Peter commented that he had once attended an agave roast at SVM. The heart had been quite large (two-or-more-feet-in-diameter) and tasted awful after roasting. Peter thinks SVM employees said the hearts were from “Blue Agave,.” On the Internet I see there are a number of agave called “blue agave.” At least one species can grow to seven feet tall (unlike Agave murphyii which only grows waist high). I suspect the ancient people did not eat the hearts of that blue agave plant and that they imported Agave murphyii because it was so sweet and delicious. They grew plantations of Agave murphyii.
Peter did not think the manos and metates on display beside the path came from the petroglyph area. They appear to have been set out by the museum to give people an idea of the difficulty of preparing meals at the time the petroglyph drawers lived (people who do art work, not pajama bottoms).
It is a bit difficult to see in the foto but this metate has four raised sides. It is a true artifact, probably from somewhere in southern Arizona.
This metate is missing two ends but it could have been a “trough metate,” ie with raised sides on only two sides.
This appeared to be a trough metate not much used thus the trough is shallow.
As far as I know metates with legs were never made north of the US-Mexico border.
Live things to watch for. You will probably see them slinking, running, or flying away from you. However, Peter said that one year there was a family of five coyotes that would walk on top of a small rise or walk high along the side of the hills, following tour groups walking the path. Each time the guide stopped to talk the coyotes would stop. The leader would put two paws on a rock and pose.
She bought the shirt on Amazon!
Three-fourths of a family making petroglyphs. Someone at SVM makes flat plaster of Paris rock chunks and paints them a red-brown. Long, sharp-pointed nails are provided for visitors to use for etching designs on the “rocks.”
John is full of ideas for improving the museum.
John was briefly education director at BTA. While he was wroking that job he volunteered at S’edav Va’aki by directing the Mudslingers.
Lee's Rambles 