Yesterday we visited a National Forest site, the V-V (pronounced Vee Bar Vee) ranch, for an archeology fair. We missed the Hopi dancers because of time zone differences. Arizona as a whole does not observe daylight savings, but the Native American reservations do. We turned up in time for the dancers Arizona time, and they had performed at reservation time, so we were an hour late.

Even so we had a great time. There were a number of exhibits by local archeological groups. It’s not an easy task gathering archaeological evidence from people with very little metallurgy or pottery, especially if they had the annoying habit of reusing tools and projectile heads from previous inhabitants of the land. We might find an old arrowhead and stick it in a museum collection, but they would find an old arrowhead and stick it in an arrow, thus confusing the archaeological record by hundreds of years.

The site contains the best Native American petroglyphs in Arizona…

…on a rock face that also acts an a solar calendar.

As the sun crosses the line of the rock face, the two rocks that project from the crack in the rock cast shadows with a beam of sunlight between them. It’s been suggested that when the beam crosses certain petroglyphs that indicates solstices, equinoxes, the best time to plant and harvest corn, and the time to perform ritual dances. This is the corn petroglyph.

These are the ritual dancers.

While many of the other petroglyphs are obscure in meaning, some are obvious. The bighorn sheep…

… heron…

… tortoise…

… and Doctor Who being pursued by a dalek.

I though this one was a snake, but apparently it is a map of the River Verde as it was eight hundred years ago.

Perhaps it is a snake disguised as the River Verde.