BajaNomad - visiting cave paintings

visiting cave paintings

tripledigitken - 3-24-2013 at 09:50 AM

On our last trip south we decided to visit some cave paintings. We decided on the area around El Arco. We ended up spending about 6 hours off the pavement enjoying the scenery. Sitting in front of paintings some 600+ years old is humbling. Like many sites in Baja much of these paintings are well overhead and required some type of scaffolding to create, unless you are in the camp that believes they were created by giants. This site is fairly exposed to the east and is incredibly well preserved considering the location, and orientation to the sun. A twenty minute hike up the side of the canyon and you are there………….

our first peek at the site

hiking back to the car

El Arco

We didn't go to the mission this trip

[Edited on 3-24-2013 by tripledigitken]

woody with a view - 3-24-2013 at 10:02 AM

very nice!

elgatoloco - 3-24-2013 at 10:04 AM

way cool :cool:

DianaT - 3-24-2013 at 10:08 AM

Good ones, Ken. I like the second one best.

bufeo - 3-24-2013 at 10:33 AM

Excellent photos, Ken. We haven't been to that site since 1967. Glad to see that they are still in such good shape. The trail looks well-worn, so there must be substantial traffic to view them. As I remember we were viciously attacked by those aggressive, man-eating, leaping chollas during our hike.

Allen R

tripledigitken - 3-24-2013 at 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by bufeo
Excellent photos, Ken. We haven't been to that site since 1967. Glad to see that they are still in such good shape. The trail looks well-worn, so there must be substantial traffic to view them. As I remember we were viciously attacked by those aggressive, man-eating, leaping chollas during our hike.

Allen R

Allen,

Thanks for the comment. Good eye re the trail. Yes, it is obvious from the trail and the parking area that this site does get regular visitors. The murals are in very good condition, we didn't see any defacing at the site.

Ken

Osprey - 3-24-2013 at 02:59 PM

Ken, since Crosby and other investigators visited those sites and rudimentary age dating was done, there has been much more in-depth study. That first 600 year old figure was from a piece of wood stuck in a cliffside hole.

Now, some pigment samples have shown some of the paintings to be as old as 7,500 years. There are several sites (some around Chapala) without paintings that have been age dated for human occupation (visitation) for 10,000 years.

The Yumans like Cochimis, Guaycura, etc. only had the run of the place over the last few hundred years. Not likely they were the painters because if they were Great Basin walk-downs one would think they would have left evidence of the painting rituals elsewhere. It would also call into question the over-arching motif of sea creatures to all other characters.

[Edited on 3-24-2013 by Osprey]

[Edited on 3-25-2013 by Osprey]

tripledigitken - 3-24-2013 at 04:17 PM

Osprey,

As old as 7500 years makes them all the more special that they have survived. It also makes them unique compared to the vast paintings remaining throughout the 4 corners which, last time I checked, were believed to have originated back to 1000-1400 AD. In the case of Chaco Canyon it is theorized that it was a trading hub that extended south well into Mexico, as they have found artifacts which are that age and are of Mexican origin. I have been to close to a 100 sites in the 4 corners and the oldest, as stated at the sites, was around 1000 AD.

I'm not an Anthropologist so I better stop here.

Thanks for the info.

Ken

monoloco - 3-24-2013 at 04:33 PM

Does anyone know what they used for pigment?

David K - 3-24-2013 at 05:06 PM

The site was missed by Crosby but was one of the top sites listed over 100 years ago. Thanks for posting Ken, your photography is much finer than mine. Hope you are spared the wrath I was served for posting them! LOL :rolleyes:

BajaBlanca - 3-24-2013 at 06:41 PM

absolutely fabulous photos -thanks so much for sharing.

when we went to the village next to CUEVA DEL RATON, one of the villagers had a painted rock that imitated the painting in the Cueva. The colors are from plants, is what he told us. I gave the rock away, but the color is an exact replica of the red one sees in the caves.

Osprey - 3-25-2013 at 08:33 AM

Monoloco: several field study papers on the cave paintings point to evidence that the pigments used were ground minerals from rocks (Hematite) mixed with water, urine and sap from cactus. They have used more than a dozen systems of age dating (some overlapping to bolster results of others). The oldest tested to 7,500 YBP at the San Borjitas cave.

Don't know what the future finds will hold but I think the paint places were places of worship visited by ancient pilgrims who only camped there. So if I'm right, one would expect to find the things usual to a campground: toilet middens, kitchen middens, campfire evidence, things they ate and used on their visits before they went home. Very intriguing stuff because the cave figures were painted at different times; 7,500, 3,000, 2,000, YBP, etc so similar style artists painted over the work of their forbears with 1000s of years in between. I just can't see any group of people able to survive continuously in that very hostile environment for thousands of years -- I think the painters were from Japan and came here quite often in large groups putting ashore all along the coast and spending lots of time in Vizciano.

David K - 3-25-2013 at 08:36 AM

Also, it was a cooler, wetter period, closer to the last Ice Age, when the land bridge allowed the Asians to walk to Alaska and then south.

monoloco - 3-25-2013 at 08:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Monoloco: several field study papers on the cave paintings point to evidence that the pigments used were ground minerals from rocks (Hematite) mixed with water, urine and sap from cactus. They have used more than a dozen systems of age dating (some overlapping to bolster results of others). The oldest tested to 7,500 YBP at the San Borjitas cave.

Don't know what the future finds will hold but I think the paint places were places of worship visited by ancient pilgrims who only camped there. So if I'm right, one would expect to find the things usual to a campground: toilet middens, kitchen middens, campfire evidence, things they ate and used on their visits before they went home. Very intriguing stuff because the cave figures were painted at different times; 7,500, 3,000, 2,000, YBP, etc so similar style artists painted over the work of their forbears with 1000s of years in between. I just can't see any group of people able to survive continuously in that very hostile environment for thousands of years -- I think the painters were from Japan and came here quite often in large groups putting ashore all along the coast and spending lots of time in Vizciano.

Thanks Osprey, Interesting theory about the Japan connection, I believe that it's highly unlikely, given the many ancient seafaring cultures that existed in the Pacific rim and oceana, that north America wasn't visited and populated by many different groups at various times.

Osprey - 3-25-2013 at 08:48 AM

David, you and I will disagree on that ancient weather thing until or unless we both find new and better evidence. On my end I have Desert Varnish -- takes about 10,000 years for rocks to varnish with bacteria. That bacteria CANNOT compete with lichens so a very wet central Baja that long ago makes no sense -- the carvings are all in the varnish.

BajaBlanca - 3-25-2013 at 08:53 AM

fascinating.

David K - 3-25-2013 at 11:39 AM

I never said 'very wet', just wetter/ cooler than recent times... I mean that's what the global warming crowd even says,... Since we began warming long before there were fossil fuels burned or aerosol sprays, the cause wasn't from man. More animals to hunt and more pitayas to pick, it would seem?

Desert varnish can form in just several hundred years, I thought? We see it on walls at Las Animas... unless those are thousands of years old and not from Jesuit times?

Here are nice papers on Desert Varnish... Seems that it can only happen in semi-arid areas, not too wet nor not too dry!:

http://ismanual.voices.wooster.edu/files/2012/12/Meredith.pd...

http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos462/14rockvarnish....

[Edited on 3-25-2013 by David K]

Osprey - 3-25-2013 at 12:05 PM

David, looks like you and I have now, maybe forever, absolutely nothing to agree upon. Wet, wetter, wettest? That the best you got?

That region now receives about 3.5 inches of WETNESS. Now paint me a 7,000 year old rainforest in the San Franciscos, back it up and we can talk.

David K - 3-25-2013 at 12:08 PM

I am sorry, but I am not trying to be argumentative at all... Just seeking the truth... Can we just discuss the findings?

Are you saying that climate is static, that it wasn't cooler and wetter in central Baja thousands of years ago?

mtgoat666 - 3-25-2013 at 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Ken, since Crosby and other investigators visited those sites and rudimentary age dating was done, there has been much more in-depth study. That first 600 year old figure was from a piece of wood stuck in a cliffside hole.

Now, some pigment samples have shown some of the paintings to be as old as 7,500 years. There are several sites (some around Chapala) without paintings that have been age dated for human occupation (visitation) for 10,000 years.

The Yumans like Cochimis, Guaycura, etc. only had the run of the place over the last few hundred years. Not likely they were the painters because if they were Great Basin walk-downs one would think they would have left evidence of the painting rituals elsewhere. It would also call into question the over-arching motif of sea creatures to all other characters.

[Edited on 3-24-2013 by Osprey]

[Edited on 3-25-2013 by Osprey]

i thought paintings were no older than about 2,000 years old, but am interested to read about older dating...

do you have citations for any recent studies that might summarize other age dating throughout penninsula?

Bajaboy - 3-25-2013 at 12:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by David K
I am sorry, but I am not trying to be argumentative at all... Just seeking the truth... Can we just discuss the findings?

Are you saying that climate is static, that it wasn't cooler and wetter in central Baja thousands of years ago?

David, this is a pretty good watch:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

mtgoat666 - 3-25-2013 at 12:43 PM

Quote:

data indicate climate did vary in past 10K years, but it was always warm and dry in human terms,... no rain forests and perennial streams -- you go back to a "cool" period, and you would not see much difference, still desert/cactus and normally dry stream beds.

life would have been harsh in the old days, nomadic hunter gatherers moving between inland and coast, following the seasonal food/water supplies.

Bajaboy - 3-25-2013 at 01:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by David K

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajaboy

Quote:

David, this is a pretty good watch:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Seriously, a pro-Obama PBS campaign-like video shown just a couple weeks before the election is a "good watch"?

Oh okay, Zac... if you think so amoigo!

There you go again getting political..... :barf:

Osprey - 3-25-2013 at 01:27 PM

Here's the PDF of the Ritter study by University of California but there have been scores of age studies with every imaginable kind of device and theory. In and around the painting sites artifacts have been dated from NOW back to 7,500 ybp -- that is, some of the samples are 500 years old, some are 2,800, some are 6,000, etc. etc., about what scientists would expect in a place that was host to human visitors for about 50,000 years.

http://scahome.org/publications/proceedings/Proceedings.25Ri...

Bajaboy - 3-25-2013 at 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by David K
It was YOUR link amigo! :light:

And your point? Have you ever watched Frontline?

It's an investigative reporting show that actually uses facts and explores multiple perspectives of an issue. Then it is up to the viewer to interpret and make a judgement.

I know that might be hard for you to digest....but you should try it sometime. :biggrin:

David K - 3-25-2013 at 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Here's the PDF of the Ritter study by University of California but there have been scores of age studies with every imaginable kind of device and theory. In and around the painting sites artifacts have been dated from NOW back to 7,500 ybp -- that is, some of the samples are 500 years old, some are 2,800, some are 6,000, etc. etc., about what scientists would expect in a place that was host to human visitors for about 50,000 years.

http://scahome.org/publications/proceedings/Proceedings.25Ri...

Great link! I spoke with Dr. Ritter over the phone following my visit to the mystery walls at Las Animas, first reported in Desert Magazine by Choral Pepper, in July, 1966. Ritter had written many papers on the Las Animas area findings. I wanted to make sure the site was known, not specifically unique, and not in any danger if I shared the location.

Osprey - 3-25-2013 at 02:12 PM

So you actually met my uncle doctor Ritter! What a small world.

David K - 3-25-2013 at 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
So you actually met my uncle doctor Ritter! What a small world.

"I spoke with Dr. Ritter over the phone"

Very nice chat... I have some of his papers on the Baja archaeology digs.

tripledigitken - 3-25-2013 at 03:47 PM

Quote:

Thanks for providing this referenced work. The age of the sites are indeed all over the board. Whilst some (paintings not artifacts) were created 7500 years ago many (100's) were created from 400 to 2000 years ago as well.

What has led you to believe that the originators were from Japan and arrived by boat? We know that Asians crossed the land bridge over the Bering Straight and settled in what is now Alaska and Canada.

" The history of Alaska dates back to the Upper Paleolithic period (around 14,000 BC), when Siberian groups crossed the Bering land bridge into what is now western Alaska." wikipedia

Ken

Osprey - 3-25-2013 at 04:42 PM

There is growing evidence sea hunters could have made voyages north from Japan coast hopping across the Aleutians and down the west coast of what is now the U.S. and Baja. Some scientists who study early man movement gave me the idea that large groups of such boat people might have used Viscaino as a base, returned many times to do the painting.

No other similar large figure groups appear anywhere (as far as we know) on walk down travel paths. Proto-Ainu bear rituals, art, etc. mirror the cave figures.

Dichlocephalic skulls, new DNA studies suggest many groups of early man visited the peninsula by sea as far back as 10,000 ybp. Google up the Channel Islands to learn of early man who stopped and lived there in sustainable groups for extended periods of time.

I didn't count the sea creatures in the paintings that appear in Crosby's book and others but in some areas of study they greatly outnumber all other figures. I think the painters were sea voyages, fishermen, whalers.

Skipjack Joe - 3-25-2013 at 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
So you actually met my uncle doctor Ritter! What a small world.

... and my classmate in high school, John Ritter.

DK, I can inflate myself with the best of them.

Bug - 3-29-2013 at 08:14 PM

I would like to go to the El Arco painting. Can some give me directions to it from Hwy 1.. or a GPS spot.

bkbend - 3-30-2013 at 10:24 AM

They could, but probably shouldn't. There is enough information available online already to get you there, you just need to connect the dots. That will make the trip more rewarding and help keep the spoilers at bay.

David K - 3-30-2013 at 02:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bug
I would like to go to the El Arco painting. Can some give me directions to it from Hwy 1.. or a GPS spot.

This should do it:

http://www.bajabound.com/bajatravel/painted_cave_of_el_carme...

If you need more details, send me a u2u... Baja is a gift to appreciate, not some private place to be selfish with... But, that's just my opinion, after all...

jeans - 3-31-2013 at 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by monoloco
Does anyone know what they used for pigment?

When I took the 3-day mule trip into San Pablo Canyon a few years back, one of the guides took a rock and whacked the trunk of one of the many large bushs growing there to show us the red sap. Obviously they thought the tree sap contributed.

wessongroup - 3-31-2013 at 02:04 PM

Thanks very nice

Ateo - 3-31-2013 at 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Bajaboy

Quote:

David, this is a pretty good watch:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/climate-of-doubt/

Bajaboy, Thanks for the link. Gonna stream to my apple TV tonight.

Osprey - 3-31-2013 at 02:37 PM

Jeans, I'll venture a guess that the plant was the specie of Lomboy that has a very distinctive red sap -- here that plant weeps red sap down the trunk and around the base of the plant.

Lomboy is perhaps the most prominent scrub in south and central Baja -- the plant that gives the airline tourist that lovely green view out the window of the plane for more than half the flight from the border to the cape (given the season and the rainfall) --- said another way, if and when the rains come, the green from that perspective is all lomboy.

I have no clue how long the pigment, the sap lingers once it leaves the plant. The Pericue and others used the red iron found naturally in the rocks where they lived to die their funereal wrappings and the bones of the dead.

jeans - 3-31-2013 at 10:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Osprey
Jeans, I'll venture a guess that the plant was the specie of Lomboy that has a very distinctive red sap -- here that plant weeps red sap down the trunk and around the base of the plant.

Lomboy is perhaps the most prominent scrub in south and central Baja -.....

My books are packed away right now or I would be getting out my Baja Plant Guide right about now. It was a wet year and that plant was everywhere.

Sounds like you know your baja vegetation!

wilderone - 4-3-2013 at 06:37 PM

"... Channel Islands to learn of early man who stopped and lived there in sustainable groups for extended periods of time"
There have been spear points found and other artifacts (huge midden piles, charcoal from habitation sites, etc. remain today unobscured) that suggest mankind lived there 8,000 - 12,000 years ago, along with pigmy mammoths. It is also believed that the ocean channel between the islands and mainland California was much more narrow. Ample evidence points to boats being used to go back and forth from the islands and the mainland and to hunt whales and pinnipeds (the largest population exists at the Channel Islands). Point being that rather than being populated by wayfaring groups from the northern continents, the inhabitants were from California and whoever they were at the time. Yes, possible that those coastal populations were Asian, but I believe DNA evidence done in the past decade indicates ancient migration to the US came from Europe. Also, the Channel Islanders weren't all that sustainable as evidenced by the telling midden piles, where large abalone and clam shells are found at the bottom of the 30 ft. piles, and much smaller shells at the top. They were forced to relocate due to depletion of marine species and decimated plant and animal life on the island.