One of the things that keeps amazing me is that while we do have a lot of exploring yet to do, there is still many things that are found in the existing areas that we study thoroughly. Some wonderful examples are this past Summer when a 10 year old boy named Zaid found a human face petroglyph on a Altar Rock. We had studied this rock and thought we knew its secrets. Until the eyes of a child saw something we completely missed. And now, thanks to his gift we have a new petroglyph. We named this rock Zaid's Rock in honor of his astute find.
Yesterday, my dear friend Dave Miller found this new petroglyph (shown in the photos) in a well traveled area near the sacred stone circles.
This is a outline glyph of a Short Faced Cave Bear (Arctodus Simus). It has not been recorded yet and I still need to clean it up the next time I visit our site. I'll post new photos when this is completed.
This was an amazing predator of the Pleistocene Period. Ice age short-faced bears were the largest mammalian land carnivore to ever have walked in North America. They lived during the Pleistocene-Modern (800,000-10,000 years ago). These bears were nearly five feet high when walking normally, but stood about eleven feet tall when on their hind legs. They could have had a vertical reach of more than fourteen feet. This Bear is about one and a half times the size of a present-day Kodiak grizzly bear and weighed in at a full ton! And you can imagine the respect that they commanded from our Ancestors.
Presently at our site we have located several glyphs of Short Faced Cave Bears. One of the boulders that makes up the second sacred stone circle is a outline glyph of a Cave Bear Face. It is the size of a small car. At the Three Sister site we have a petroglyph of a running Cave Bear.
While Lions are the most numerous glyphs we find we are certain that the people that created Bear Spirit Mountain had tremendous respect and fear for this magnificent animal and it is well represented in the form of art.
Bear Spirit Mountain is a place where not only do I see and find new things. I am absolutely overjoyed when my friends also make new discoveries. You see my Ancestors will choose people who come there with an open mind and reveal to them their creations. It has happened several times and it will happen again. Who knows, you may be the next one to find an amazing piece of art at Bear Spirit Mountain!
A'Ho Short Faced Cave Bear, you were truly a amazing predator!