DStretch image of four associated charcoal pictographs in the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. The Scale is 10 cm.
The Stuesse Shelter Site was registered with the Archaeological Survey of Missouri by R. Bruce McMillan in 1964. The site was discovered and tested as a result of the archaeological survey of the proposed Union Reservoir (which was never constructed). This site is located on private property and it is not open to the public.
DStretch image of four associated charcoal pictographs in the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. The Scale is 10 cm.
The far left element is a deer followed by a quartered circle (Osage, Ho'-e-ga according to Hall 1997:55), a figure that resembles an owl, and an indistinct element that may be a spinning cross.
The quartered circle pictograph is very significant; it was used by Mississippian artists in a variety of materials including decoration on a fired-clay pipe (Chapman 1980:Figure 5-60G), shell gorgets (Chapman 1980: Figure 5-45c, d, and e) and petroglyphs (Diaz-Granados and Duncan 2000:175, Figure 5.8). Reilly (2004: Figure 2), Diaz-Granados (2012), and others link the rayed cross with the Upper World/Heavens, the quartered cross with the Middle World, and the spinning cross with the Lower World in the art of the Mississippians. The Middle World is the realm in which humans exist with animals, insects and plants - spirit beings from the Upper World and Lower World sometimes descend or ascend to interact with the humans of the Middle World (Reilly 2004: Figure 2; Lankford 2011:22, 117).
Normal image of the four associated charcoal pictographs in the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. Scale is 10 cm.
DStretch image of a "rib cage" single charcoal pictograph in the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. Scale is 10 cm.
Normal digital image of the "rib cage" single charcoal pictograph in the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. Scale is 10 cm.
DStretch image of the oval and halved oval red pictographs on the right side of the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. Scale is top 15 cm of a meter stick.
Normal digital image of the red oval pictographs in the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. Scale is 10 cm.
DStretch image, possibly of a panther, red pictograph on the right side of the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO.
DStretch image, possibly of a panther, red pictograph on the right side of the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO.
DStretch image of two red pictographs on the left side of the center of the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter Site in Franklin County, MO. The pictograph on the right side resembles a tied bundle. Scale is 10 cm.
Overview in DStretch of black and red pictographs on the back wall of the Stuesse Shelter in Franklin County, MO. Scale is 1 meter.
Mark Stuesse at the mouth of Stuesse Shelter in Franklin County, MO.
Stuesse Shelter during the winter in Franklin County, MO. Photograph by Mark Stuesse.
Professor Michael Fuller documenting the pictographs on the back wall of Stuesse Shelter in Franklin County, MO. Many thanks to Mark Stuesse for guiding me to the site and taking this photograph. Heart-felt thanks to Professor Neathery Fuller who spent hours combing the hillside for this site during 2015.
Stuesse Shelter is one of the rare archaeological sites in Missouri where there is archaeological evidence to correlate the rock art with the occupational history of the shelter. An archaeological team from the University of Missouri - Columbia excavated ten units (5 x 5 ft squares) during 1964. Five squares formed a 25 foot trench, starting at the edge of the deposit then oriented toward the shelter wall. Three of the squares were taken down to bedrock.
Projectile points were the most numerous type of chipped stone artifact found in the 1964 excavation; they indicate a range of occupation in the shelter from approximately 4000 BC until AD 1400. One small ovate arrowpoint belongs to a variety called Crisp Ovate. Several notched ovate arrowpoints belong to the variety classified as Scallorn points.
A number of small triangular arrowpoints were also found. One un-notched specimen can be classified as a Madison point. The majority were the points were notched on the sides and would be classified as Reed points.
The most numerous projectile points examined from the site were shallow side notched specimens that can be classified as Rice Side Notched. Nineteen projectile points of this category were recovered during the archaeological testing.
Three contracting stem projectile points would be classified as Langtry points. Eleven stemmed projectile points would be classified as Etley points.
A single example of a side notched specimen would be classified as a Big Sandy point. A single example of a full grooved axe was also recovered in the test excavation of the shelter.
Three pieces of rubbed hematite, two of which could be classed as red ochre, were recovered. The pieces were probably used for paint pigment. Two cube shaped pieces of galena rubbed on all surfaces were also found.
Vegetal remains included several charred nut hulls. Those identified included two fragments of butternut (Juglans cinerea), and fifteen fragments of hickory nut (Carya app.). One fragment was either butternut or black walnut (Juglans nigra).
Two flexed burials (an adult and child) were discovered during the testing of the site in 1964. The shelter is not exceptionally large; it is possible that some of the pictographs were a ceremonial response to the death and burial of the two individuals. No grave offerings were placed with the burials so it is not possible to date them by association.
The Stuesse Shelter (23FR170) is discussed in detail by Chapman, Denny and McMillan (1964). The site is included in the analysis of Missouri rock art by Carol Diaz-Granados (1993: 503-4) and Diaz-Granados and Duncan (2000:56).
Chapman, Carl H.
1980 Archaeology of Missouri, II. University of Missouri Press, Columbia.
Chapman, Carl H., Sidney Denny and R. Bruce McMillan
1964 Report on the Archaeological Resources in the Bourbeuse River Valley and the Lower Meramec Valley of the Meramec Basin Project Area, Missouri. Prepared for the University of Missouri Columbia for the Regional Director of the Midwest Region of the National Park Service in Omaha, Nebraska.
Diaz-Granados, Carol
1993 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri: A Distributional, Stylistic, Contextual, Functional and Temporal Analysis of the State's Rock Graphics. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Washington University , St. Louis, Missouri.
2012 Missouri Rock Art and the Mississippian Connection to Portable Artifacts. Paper presented at the Missouri Archaeological Society Fall Symposium presented at Washington State Park.
Diaz-Granados, Carol and James R. Duncan
2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Hall, Robert L.
1997 An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Lankford, George E.
2011 Native American Legends of the Southeast. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Reilly, F. Kent
2004 People of Earth, People of Sky: Visualizing the Sacred in Native American Art of the Mississippian Period. in Hero, Hawk and Open Hand. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.