Scholar to view local artifacts

The Daily Mining Gazette - Published: Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Scholar to view local artifacts

By STACEY ASHCRAFT, DMG Writer

HOUGHTON — Humans have long marveled over ancient stone carvings, known as petroglyphs, which may showcase the activities and lifestyles of those who lived hundreds, and even thousands, of years ago.

These rare, unique and intricate images, often of people wielding spears and bound animals, are familiar among rock art, each giving a mere glimpse into what the past may have been like.

One Michigan anthropologist has extensively studied these carvings professionally and is bringing his work to the U.P.

John Norder, assistant professor of anthropology at Michigan State University will speak at Michigan Technological University at 4 p.m. Friday in Dow 642 about rock art in the Great Lakes region.

The visit comes shortly after several area residents reported findings and evidence of rock carvings on their property.

“I’m going to talk to the public to educate people about rock art,” he said. “I’ll talk to people who are finding petroglyphs and I’ll attempt to verify them.”

In his speech, titled “Talking to the Spirit, Talking to Each Other: Ancient Pictography of the Great Lakes,” Norder will explain the phenomenon of petroglyphs and communication. Using explanations from his previous research, Norder plans to look in-depth at area sites and attempt to answer the fundamental question of “what does it all mean?”

“Area residents will be able to bring photographs of their findings to me and I’ll examine them," he said.

There are only a few known petroglyph sites in Michigan, one being the Sanilac Petroglyphs the Thumb of the state.

Susan Martin, associate professor of anthropology at Tech, said stone carvings are not common but are occasionally encountered all over the world.

“They aren’t always immediately discernible to an ordinary observer and sometimes they’re covered with lichen or the rocks are weathered so it’s not always apparent what they are,” she said.

Martin said only an expert can determine which findings are valid differing them from older graffiti-type markings.

Recently, she said people have been calling Tech about their findings. In the past 10 years, Martin said she believes to have received about five reports of findings. It isn’t easy to confirm whether the findings are valid because of natural processes, such as differential erosion involving soft and hard rocks, she said.

More likely, findings that appear to be ancient stone carvings may in fact be evidence left behind from historic farmers or 19th century people, for example, she said.

“Before you jump the the greatest conclusion of all — that it reveals something about prehistory — you need to rule out all other possible sources,” she said. “As scientists, we have to rule out all the more likely explanations so the least likely one stands with strength.”

Petroglyphs are made by people pecking away at a soft rock with a harder rock or implement, removing soft stone in a pattern, she said.

Though visually descriptive, petroglyphs are often hard to depict because of the different types of ethnicity groups who make them and what that picture represents in their culture, Martin said.

“They can represent incredible time spans and they can also represent lots of different people — different language groups, different ethnicities,” she said.

Martin said, for example, if a person saw a carving of a man with a spear in his hand, it’s easy to make the judgment that the picture is about someone hunting, and that’s not always true.

Finding stone carvings in the area may not change history, but more so act as puzzle pieces that give insight as to how people lived in the past.

“They are unusual because they are deliberate, they’re deliberately made,” she said. “Unlike finding a piece of pottery or finding an arrowhead, something that was accidentally discarded or broken, these things were intentionally made.”