Commerce Rock Art Site (23ST255)

This site is located on private land and it is NOT open to the public. The site is almost always covered by the Mississippi River except in times of extreme low water.

Early morning photograph of the large boulder of quartzite decorated with petroglyphs at the Commerce Rock Art site. Photograph taken by James Barnes of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers - St. Louis District. Scale is 3 ft = 91.4 centimeters. Photographed 21 December 2012.

Late afternoon photographs of the boulder. Scale is 1 meter. The site is briefly discussed by Carol Diaz-Granados (2000:468) and Diaz-Granados and Duncan 2000). Photographed 21 December 2012. The site is discussed in detail by Norris and Pauketat (2008).

Bird petroglyph; it measures 37 centimeters and height and 45 centimeters in breadth. The tail feathers measure 16 centimeters in breadth. Photograph taken by James Barnes of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers - St. Louis District. Photographed 21 December 2012

Bird petroglyph in the afternoon shadow after wetting with river water. Scale is 20 cm. Photographed 21 December 2012.

Eye and meandering lines (Mississippi River channel?) photographed in the morning light. The eye measures 34 centimeters in length and 21 centimeters wide; the iris of the eye measures 8 cm in diameter. Photograph taken by James Barnes of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers - St. Louis District. Photographed 21 December 2012

Eye petroglyph and meander pattern in the afternoon shadow after wetting with river water. Scale is 20 cm. Photographed 21 December 2012.

Mocassin print photographed in the morning light. The mocassin print measures 27 centimeters in length and 11 cm in width. Photograph taken by James Barnes of the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers - St. Louis District. Scale reads both inches and centimeters. Photographed 21 December 2012


Mocassin print petroglyph in the afternoon shadow after wetting with river water. Scale is 20 cm. Photographed 21 December 2012.

Professor Michael Fuller photographing the rock art in the afternoon light after wetting the stone with river water on the winter solistice - 21 December 2012. Scale is 20 centimeters.

Professors Michael and Neathery Fuller at the petroglyph site on 21 December 2012 - a very cold winter solistice.

Historic initials on a limestone boulder a few meters away from the quartzite boulder with Native American petroglyphs. Scale is 20 centimeters.

View of the Mississippi River valley (facing upstreaming = North) in the general vicinity of the Commerce rock art site.



Bibliography
Diaz-Granados, Carol
1993 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri - a distributional, stylistic, contextual, temporal and functional analysis of the State's Rock Art. Unpublished dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Washington University in St. Louis.

Diaz-Granados, Carol and James R. Duncan
2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.


Norris, F. Terry and Timothy R. Pauketat
2008 A Pre-Columbian map of the Mississippi? Southeastern Archaeology 27(1):78-92.
Special thanks to James Barnes (US Army Corps of Engineers - St. Louis District) for guiding me to the site. Thanks to Terry Noris (US Army Corps of Engineers - St. Louis District) for lecturing about the site at the Mound City Chapter of the Missouri Archaeological Society - that really got my interest up to see the site. A warm thanks to Neathery Batsell Fuller for hiking 2 miles through rough brush in freezing weather to study the site. Many smiles to Ettus Hiatt for her help with text and content editing.
Designed Michael Fuller,
St. Louis Community College at Meramec
Constructed on 31 December 2012.