Few pictographs were found in the immediate neighborhood of the cavate
dwellings; indeed the rock in their vicinity is too soft to preserve
for any considerable time any great number of these rock etchings.
Examples of ancient paleography were, however, discovered a short
distance higher up the river on malpais rock, which is harder and less
rapidly eroded. A half-buried bowlder (plate XCIII) near Wood's ranch
was found to be covered with the well-known spirals with zigzag
attachments, horned animals resembling antelopes, growing corn, rain
clouds, and similar figures. These pictographs occur on a black,
superficial layer of lava rock, or upon lighter stone with a malpais
layer, which had been pecked through, showing a lighter color beneath.
There is little doubt that many examples of aboriginal pictography
exist in this neighborhood, which would reward exploration with
interesting data. The Verde pictographs can not be distinguished, so
far as designs are concerned, from many found elsewhere in Colorado,
Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.
An instructive pictograph, different from any which I have elsewhere
seen, was discovered on the upturned side of a bowlder not far from
Hance's ranch, near the road from Camp Verde to the cavate dwellings.
The bowlder upon which they occur lies on top of a low hill, to the
left of the road, near the river. It consists of a rectangular network
of lines, with attached key extensions, crooks, and triangles, all
pecked in the surface. This dædalus of lines arises from grooves,
which originate in two small, rounded depressions in the rock, near
which is depicted the figure of a mountain lion. The whole pictograph
is 3-1/2 feet square, and legible in all its parts.
The intent of the ancient scribe is not wholly clear, but it has been
suggested that he sought to represent the nexus of irrigating ditches
in the plain below. It might have been intended as a chart of the
neighboring fields of corn, and it is highly suggestive, if we adopt
either of these explanations or interpretations, that a figure of the
mountain lion is found near the depressions, which may provisionally
be regarded as representing ancient reservoirs. Among the Tusayan
Indians the mountain lion is looked on as a guardian of cultivated
fields, which he is said to protect, and his stone image is sometimes
placed there for the same purpose.
In the vicinity of the pictograph last described other bowlders, of
which there are many, were found to be covered with smaller rock
etchings in no respect characteristic, and there is a remnant of an
ancient shrine a few yards away from the bowlder upon which they
occur.