Rock Shelter - Indiana County

This post is about as Vintage as one can get. Spent the day in Indiana County looking for Native American Rock Shelters. Conditions were just perfect for climbing steep and slippery ravines in search of the first people to call our area home. Searching for this stuff is a bit of an obession for me. As soon as the snakes go in - I head off the beaten path.

Walking and at times climbing over this glacial debris is not easy - but had to get past this stuff heading up to the shelter - besides having to walk across a small crick before we even started up the side of the hill.

This is it - though it's hard to really get a good look and feel for the place - considering it's location and the fact that it's located on a very steep section.

This shot truly doesn't give a scale to just how large the place is - it runs from 5 feet to 10 feet at the far end.

And it's really hard to tell from this angle how much square feet it really contains - but it runs about the size of a 15 x 20 room.

This is by far the most interesting feature of the shelter. These holes were rubbed into the stone with a small rock - much as if you would stick your finger in sand and twist it. I believe it's star related - and note that very faintly on the bottom around the first hole - is the colored outline of a red triangle. Again a Native symbol - used to block out certain Spirits.

Some Moss buildup on the inside of the holes.

The ceiling in the far end of the shelter.

Example of one of the interior walls.

The two walls and top of the structure come together at this point. It's hard to tell from this angle - but there is also a small - hallway type feature.

Which you can tell better at this angle. But I wasn't squeezing thru there because 1. I'd get stuck and 2. there are some awfully big spiders crawling calling this space home.

See - there they are at top along with an interesting shaped stone wedged in there.

On the "ceiling" is what looks like inscribed tally marks - unfortunately some of these shots turned out on the soft side.

Looking at the set of mark (in focus in person - unlike this picture) - my own guess it that it is man made. It's too far in the interior of the structure to be caused by a bit of melting glacier.

On this section of the wall - in the center - is a bit of a fossilized tree bark in the stone.

I am actually standing in the far end of the structure - but because of the angle of the hillside - it looks level to the ground - it's not.

Far end with a nice - small opening - almost would have been used as a window or chimney - for the entire front section of the shelter would have been covered with either hides or tree saplings - and there would have had to be some sort of opening for the camp fire smoke to go out of.

This is on the exact opposite - showing the other side of the opening. Note the small - built up structure to the left - that would have funneled rain water.

This no accident - this is simply very good engineering.

This is the back end - which stands about 30 feet high.

Another smaller rock shelter along the back end - this stands about 6 foot.

Sliding back down to the bottom - which is kind of dicey at times - the whole area - overlooks Blacklick Creek. We spotted at least two more possible rock shelters in the same section - that will be explored in the future.