Three maces, bird track and ballpayer petroglyphs photographed in 1979.
Three mace petroglyphs photographed in 1979.
Two bird tracks (in the foreground) and three mace petroglyphs (in background) photographed in 1979.
Mace and associated pits photograph on the afternoon of 2 April 2016 at Washington State Park. Scale is 20 cm.
Mace and associated pits photograph on the morning of 4 March 2018 at Washington State Park. Scale is 20 cm.
Drawing of the mace and associated pits from the display at Washington State Park.
Wyatt (n.d.: 10) reports he recovered, in 1959, pottery sherds belonging to a plate and a vertical walled bowl very close to the petroglyphs at Washington State Park B. He identified the plate as Powell Plain ware (dating from AD 1100 to 1275); the shell tempered sherds were found at a depth of 7 inches below the ground surface. A surface survey by Wyat, a few feet away from the petroglyphs, also discovered material culture: 33 fragments of shell tempered pottery (St. Clair ware), the tip of a projectile point, several mussel shell fragments and numerous flint/quartzite waste flakes. It is possible that a Mississippian structure (house, temple/shrine) stood near the petroglyphs OR that offerings were brought to site and left on the exposed bedrock.
Carol Diaz-Granados and Jim Duncan (2000:113) analyzed aspects of the
Washington State Park Site in their recent study entitled The Petroglyphs
and Pictographs of Missouri. They identified the following themes
in the rock art at the site: ceremony, games/sport, myths/oral tradition,
fertility, and narrative.
Bibliography
Chapman, Carl H.
1980 The Archaeology of Missouri, II. University of Missouri Press,
Columbia.
Chapman, Carl H. and Eleanor F. Chapman
1964 Indians and Archaeology of Missouri. University of Missouri
Press, Columbia.
Chapman, Carl H. and David R. Evans
1977 Investigations at the Lilbourn Site 1970-1971. The Missouri Archaeologist
38.
Diaz-Granados, Carol and James R. Duncan
2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri. University of
Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Diesing, Eugene H.
1955 Archaeological Features in and around Washington State Park in Washington
and Jefferson Counties, Missouri. The Missouri Archaeologist. 17(1):
12-23.
Diesing, Eugene H. and Frank Magre
1942 Petroglyphs and Pictographs in Missouri. The Missouri Archaeologist.
8(1): 8-18.
Fowler, Melvin L., Jerome Rose, Barbara Vander Leest,
and Steven R. Ahler
1999 The Mound 72 Area: Dedicated and Sacred Space in Early Cahokia. Illiinois
State Museum Reports of Investigations 54.
Fuller, Michael J., Neathery B. Fuller, and Eric C. Fuller
2019a Total Solar Eclipses and Rock Art in Missouri. Missouri Archaeological Society Quarterly 36(1):12 - 19.
2019b Artifacts Associated with the Washington State Park Petroglyphs. Missouri Archaeological Society Quarterly 36(4):12 - 20.
Hamilton, Henry W.
1952 The Spiro Mound. The Missouri Archaeologist. 14.
La Flesche, Francis
1932 A Dictionary of the the Osage language. Smithsonian Institution
Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 109.
1995 The Osage and the invisible world: from the works
of Francis La Flesche. Edited by Garrick A. Bailey. University of
Oklahoma Press, Norman.
Morse, Dan F., and Phyllis A. Morse
1983 Archaeology of the Central Mississippi Valley. Academic Press,
San Diego.
O'Brien, Michael J. and W. Raymond Wood
1998 The Prehistory of Missouri. University of Missouri Press,
Columbia.
Wyatt, Ronald
1959 Summer Fieldwork at Washington State Park, Missouri. Missouri
Archaeological Society Newsletter 134:7-10.
n.d.
A Study of Three Petroglyph Sites along Big River in the Eastern Ozark Highland of Missouri. Manuscript on with with the Division of American Archaeology, University of Missouri - Columbia.
Designed by Neathery and Michael Fuller,
St. Louis Community College at Meramec
Constructed on 22 September 2002.
Revised 19 May 2020