Near Craig, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.
You know how sometimes you see a rock art panel, or image, or something that you do not understand, but just cannot get out of your mind? One of mine is this boulder from northwestern Colorado, visited on one of the field trips after the 2007 Colorado Rock Art Association Rock Art Symposium and Annual Meeting in Craig, Colorado.
Near Craig, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.
Our guide led us to a site that looked down on this large boulder with a series of apparently perfect holes abraded or drilled into it in roughly two concentric circles. To the best of my memory there were 28 holes, roughly a lunar cycle. Additionally, many of the holes had round stones placed in them although obviously that could have been done at any time. To the best of our ability to judge the holes had smooth walls and showed no overt sign of pecking so they appeared drilled or abraded, and they were a number of inches deep.
Near Craig, Colorado. Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.
The obvious suggestion was the connection to the lunar cycle; a stone could be moved from hole to hole each day to keep track of the cycle. There are a number of problems with that beginning with you do not have to move stones in holes to track the lunar cycle, you only have to look up at the moon. Another problem with that theory is the large scale of the panel, it would be very difficult to reach the holes at the top without a scaffold or a ladder, a smaller scale panel would have worked much better.
Near Craig, Colorado (quarter for scale).
Photograph: Peter Faris, 2007.
Thinking about the total amount of rock removed from all the holes I am tempted to think that modern machinery had to be involved in its creation, but for what reason? All in all I am mystified about this panel – any suggestions?
