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Petroglyph's are found scattered throughout the world. According to the
magazine Arts &
Activities some places
include Hawaii to New england and North America to as far as
Australia (44). The book Stories
in Stone explained that the canyons of
Coso in California hold more than 100,000
examples of rock art, the most concentrated site in the western
hemisphere. Petroglyph's are the oldest known form of human
expression(7-8).
The magazine of Arts &
Activities stated that the oldest petroglyph's in North America
have only been proved to go
back 4,000 years instead of 35,000. The glyphs have not been truly
studied by archaeologists until about 40 years ago(43). |
About
Petroglyph's petro: rock glyph: carving |
According to the article in Arts
& Activities the
word
petroglyph comes form two German words, "petro" which means
rock and "glyph" which means carving or engraving. So the
word
petroglyph means rock carving or engraving(44). There are other kinds
of
petroglyph's such as petrographs which are drawings on stones but not
engraved. Geoglyphs are huge figures made by scraping pebbles off the
ground. Some of these names get confusing after repeatedly writing them
so some scientist just call all glyphs rock art which was presented in Stories in Stone by
Caroline Arnold(11). |
| ROCK ART |
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As told by Dona Z. Meilach in the article about petroglyph's in Arts & Activities there
are two
main unique styles to making petroglyph's. One of the styles is
abrading
which is a grinding process. The lines may be lightly scratched or
deeply incised. When a large area of the rock is ground up then the
resulting surface is smooth. The other method of making
petroglyph's is called pecking. This is when you hit a soft rock with a
harder rock having a sharpened edge, and striking that with another
rock referred to as a hammer stone. The pecking design has a rough,
pitted surface(44). The book Stories in Stone said that
the main colors of petroglyph's are black, white and red
because those are the colors of berries used to make paint(46). |
Making
Petroglyphs |
Caroline Arnold stated in her book Stories in Stone that
hunters,
deer, snakes, foxes,
lizards, mountain lions,
tortoises and mammoths are just a few of the common symbols of rock
art. Petroglyph's are often made on basalt, sandstone or granite
because
of the surface of the rock(27, 15). Arts & Activities
explained that these old petroglyph's were often used as a
map or trail guide to lead the way to water or other physical feature.
These petroglyph's were not just doodles but motifs, each with a
special
meaning and could be put together with others to form a narrative(44). |