Petroglyphs at the White Tank Mountains

The Hohokam left  pictures carved in the granite when they disappeared over 600 hundred years ago but we are not sure what they mean. Today we hiked off-trail in the White Tank Mountains with a ranger in search of celestial petroglyphs from long ago. We observed stars, suns, moons, snakes, arrows, goats, waterfalls, and spirals. Some of these shapes are found as far away as China. We were walking on some of the oldest exposed rocks on the planet!

No problem hopping over boulders!

This "double sun" could be a depiction
of a super nova from the year 1046!

Interesting saguaro!

Our ranger describes these "tanks" of water
and how these mountains got their name.

Petroglyphs are made by chipping away the patina,
or "varnish", on granite one dot at a time.
This is a very time consuming job.

Most archaeologists think that the shape on the left represents
a star, but we think it looks like a sea star ready for dissection!
The arrow in the middle points to the north star. Most petroglyphs
are carved on east facing rocks.

We learned that the Teddy bear cholla has barbs to attach onto
 passing animals so the cactus can spread its seeds.