California must have been an interesting place in pre-Columbian times. It was the most populated area on the continent and the most diverse ethnically and linguistically. There were nice language families in the Sierra alone.
Native Americans thoughtfully left us a record of their presence in the Donner Summit area: petroglyphs. The pictures to the right are Donner Summit area petroglyphs enhanced in black and white.
You can find the most public ones on Old 40 just below Rainbow Bridge. Look on the flat granite which is just west of the road and just before you get to the Chinese Wall monument marker. They are hard to see but fascinating. There are many others mostly on private property.
Most likely, petroglyphs in our area were made by the Washo who, like all Great Basin indians, were nomadic.
California Native Americans, such as the Nisenan who lived in the American, Yuba, and Bear River drainages, lived in permanent villages gathering and hunting what was at hand although sometimes summering in the Sierra. The Washo traveled all over the Sierra around Donner Summit making use of all of the life zones as one big supermarket. They even commuted as far as the present state capital, Sacramento, 90 miles away.
Adatped to the Great Basin and the Sierra, they made annual rounds following different game, gathering various foodstuffs and taking part in the trans-Sierra trade. That trade was in salt and obsidian. They would have carried trout and pinion nuts to eat and they would have hunted. They left behind their art for us to enjoy and wonder about.
The Great Basin artists incised their pit and groove pictures on the granite by pecking into the rock with stones or bones using larger rocks as mallets. Mostly they made abstract designs as opposed to mnenomics, records or events, clan symbols, etc. that are found in our areas.
The drawings are possibly related to communal hunts for deer. Much of it might also just be doodles (there wasn't much on TV in those days). Granite is so hard to carve though that the doodlers had to have been dedicated.
The natural process of exfoliation is at work on Sierra granite (peeling away of layers due to water expansion). Someday the petroglyphs will be gone and along with them will go the tangible record of the first visitors to Donner Summit.
There are many good sources for information about the earliest visitors to Donner Summit as well as the rock carvings. A particularly good source is Ancient Rock Carvings of the Central Sierra by Willis Gortner. You have to be really lucky to see a copy since it's out of print - but you may run into someone with a copy.
Bill Oudegeest
Native Americans thoughtfully left us a record of their presence in the Donner Summit area: petroglyphs. The pictures to the right are Donner Summit area petroglyphs enhanced in black and white.
You can find the most public ones on Old 40 just below Rainbow Bridge. Look on the flat granite which is just west of the road and just before you get to the Chinese Wall monument marker. They are hard to see but fascinating. There are many others mostly on private property.
Most likely, petroglyphs in our area were made by the Washo who, like all Great Basin indians, were nomadic.
California Native Americans, such as the Nisenan who lived in the American, Yuba, and Bear River drainages, lived in permanent villages gathering and hunting what was at hand although sometimes summering in the Sierra. The Washo traveled all over the Sierra around Donner Summit making use of all of the life zones as one big supermarket. They even commuted as far as the present state capital, Sacramento, 90 miles away.
Adatped to the Great Basin and the Sierra, they made annual rounds following different game, gathering various foodstuffs and taking part in the trans-Sierra trade. That trade was in salt and obsidian. They would have carried trout and pinion nuts to eat and they would have hunted. They left behind their art for us to enjoy and wonder about.
The Great Basin artists incised their pit and groove pictures on the granite by pecking into the rock with stones or bones using larger rocks as mallets. Mostly they made abstract designs as opposed to mnenomics, records or events, clan symbols, etc. that are found in our areas.
The drawings are possibly related to communal hunts for deer. Much of it might also just be doodles (there wasn't much on TV in those days). Granite is so hard to carve though that the doodlers had to have been dedicated.
The natural process of exfoliation is at work on Sierra granite (peeling away of layers due to water expansion). Someday the petroglyphs will be gone and along with them will go the tangible record of the first visitors to Donner Summit.
There are many good sources for information about the earliest visitors to Donner Summit as well as the rock carvings. A particularly good source is Ancient Rock Carvings of the Central Sierra by Willis Gortner. You have to be really lucky to see a copy since it's out of print - but you may run into someone with a copy.
Bill Oudegeest