At the Crane Petroglyph Heritage Site in the Verde Valley, visitors can reach through time for a glimpse of life in this place almost a thousand years ago.
The area is an example of the Beaver Creek petroglyph style, found throughout the eastern half of the Verde Valley, with lots of animal-like depictions with steady linework. The petroglyphs were made by the people whom archaeologists call the Sinagua, and Hopi refer to as Hisat’sinom, the ancient ones. They carved shapes that resemble the sun, elk, deer, cranes, and abstract lines by carefully chipping desert varnish from the surface of large cliff faces, exposing lighter rock underneath to create images that survived hundreds of years.
The images at Crane remained mostly a mystery to non-native archaeologists until 2005, when Verde Valley researchers embarked on a year-long observational study of the area. On the day of the summer solstice, at around noon, they watched the sun slice between two boulders and create two sharp shadows that passed over the wall. The beam struck a zigzagged, step-like carving hypothesized to be associated with the beginning of planting season before grazing the roots of a conspicuous corn-like image.
The study, according to archaeoastronomer Ken Zoll, revealed that the Southern Sinagua culture used the panel to mark significant dates through the manipulation of light and shadow, linking time with the spiritual and agricultural cycles of the Verde Valley.
The Crane site is just one of many solar calendars in the Colorado Plateau that connect us through spiritual, ritual, and agricultural cycles to cultures not too distant from our own.
This Earth Note was written by Danika Thiele and produced by KNAU and the Sustainable Communities Program at Northern Arizona University.
