To our knowlege some of these photos are of petroglyphs never before photographed. We have given you a very brief description of each photo so you can understand its origin. You must understand that some of the Petroglyphs are many thousands of years old and are overlaped by newer ones. The oldest ones may have been put there before the said nation used the site. Known by the people of the nation as the "Old Ones". The newest ones are still well over a century old.

This Piaute site, in North Eastern California, contains hundreds of petroglyphs and covers several square miles. As you will see by the patina (a sort of lacquer laid down by nature over time) and lichen (fungi and algea) on the petroglyphs and the rocks. This site is very old (13,000+/- years) and was used until about 150 years ago. This site was on Piaute land but the Shoshone and Modoc also used part of this area.

Notice the worn spot in the stone, from feet, almost center of the photo. This petroglyph is in the forground of the first photo. The two photos are a excellent example of how the time of day and the time of year effects the appearance of petroglyphs. This particular rock was used by a Medicine Man "Shaman".

This Atlatle petroglyph, at the top of the back rock, is covered with red lichen. The red and yellow is lichen, the white is guano.Before the Bow and Arrow came to be, the hunter used a spear and the Atlatle was used to give it greater thrust.

Here is another site where the rocks are foot worn. The holes in the stones are to small to have been used for the grinding of food. This is another Shaman site where small amounts of herbs were ground for healing or prayer. The rock in the background shows the talking of three nations. One traveled a great distance the other two were closer to each other. The two that were close to each other we the Piaute and Shoshone and shared a common boundry. The ones that traveled the greater distance were probably the Modoc. During the time of the Ghost Dances, Nations would meet that normaly wouldn't. Some of the petroglyphs at this site indicate that the Miadu may have also visited here. Not too many miles from here, on their own land, the Miadu held their great Bear Dance. The Bear Dance was held in that general area at Gladys Mankins Ranch until her death in the 1980's.