406 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1936 



Owing largely to methodological difficulties in the study of petro- 

 glyphs, archeologists have unduly neglected them. It was not until 

 1886 that petroglyphs were accorded their first comprehensive and 

 genuinely scientific treatment. Garrick Mallery, interested in the 

 primitive pictographic writing used by certain North Americaji 

 Indians, included many petroglyphs in a large volume, Pictographs 

 of the American Indians, published in the Fourth Annual Keport 

 of the Bureau of American Ethnology. In a subsequent and more 

 extensive treatment of the same subject, Picture-writing of the 

 American Indians, Tenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Amer- 

 ican Ethnology, 1893, he published further material on petroglyphs. 

 Although Mallery drew attention to the many similarities between 

 petroglyphs and pictographic writing, he warned against any inter- 

 pretations of the former which could not meet rigid scientific stand- 

 ards. Unscientific speculation continued rife, however, and is still 

 unabated today. 



With the great increase of scientific archeological research during 

 the past few decades, photographs, sketches, and even published 

 works on petroglyphs have rapidly accumulated in scientific insti- 

 tutions. In 1929 the writer used the materials on record at the 

 University of California to make a systematic, comparative study 

 of the petroglyphs of California, Lower California, Nevada, Utah, 

 and Arizona, endeavoring to give them historical sequence and, when 

 possible, rational interpretation (Petroglyphs of California and 

 Adjoining States, University of California, Publications in Ameri- 

 can Archeology and Ethnology, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 47-238, 1929). 

 Meanwhile, thanks largely to the enthusiastic cooperation of many 

 nonprofessional observers who have painstakingly sketched and 

 photographed petroglyphs, material has continued to accumulate in 

 scientific institutions. Little has been published, but when compe- 

 tent archeologists can be enticed to set aside their spades long 

 enough to ponder petroglyphs, we may expect a much better under- 

 standing of this interesting subject. 



Petroglyphs are not unique in America. Carved and painted fig- 

 ures are common on all continents, though only those which have 

 exceptional interest are well known. The graceful, lifelike paint- 

 ings of wild animals and human beings made by the pygmy Bush- 

 men of South Africa and the remarkably faithful portrayals of mam- 

 moths, giant bison, reindeer, and other ice-age animals painted by 

 the paleolithic Cro-Magnon men in Europe represent the height of 

 primitive art and have received well-deserved publicity. But there 

 are on all continents many simpler and cruder drawings, made by 

 usually unknown artists, which have been accorded little attention. 



American petroglyphs are extraordinarily varied. Some are so 



