416 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1936 



Ordinarily, geometric designs seem to have no esthetic motivation. 

 Certainly the intricate and wholly unintelligible petroglyphs, con- 

 sisting of wavy lines, circles, concentric circles, spirals, and miscel- 

 laneous crude zoomorphic and anthropomorphic figures found in the 

 Great Basin were not intended as creations of beauty (pi. 7). There 



^ i> c d e 



J- 



J 



^r^ ^* >^ -%. iJi 



Figure 2. — Petroglyphs representing animals, a to e, mountain sheep : a, near Donner 

 Lake, eastern Calif. ; h, at Little Lake, eastern Calif. ; c, near Tucson, Ariz. ; d, Grape- 

 vine Canyon, Nev. ; e, near Kayenta, northern Ariz. ; /, bison on the Colorado River at 

 the mouth of the Freemont River, Utah; g, antelope or mountain goat with young (?), 

 near Kayenta, north Ariz. ; h, deer or elk, on northern shore of Great Salt Lake ; i, deer 

 or elk on Colorado River, near the mouth of the Freemont River, Utah ; j, antelope ( ?) 

 near the San Francisco mountains, northern Ariz. ; k, wolf, coyote, or mountain lion ( ?) 

 on the Gila River, southern Ariz.; I, fox (?), on the Gila River; m, dog (?), near 

 Fruita, central Utah ; n, unidentifiable quadruped at Aztec Canyon, Ariz. ; o, unidentifi- 

 able horned animal, possibly a recent petroglyph representing a cow, from near Tucson, 

 Ariz. ; p, bear, in Nebr. ; q, bison in Nebr. ; r, deer or elk or moose, Pipestone, Minn. ; 

 «, deer, elk, or moose in Maine. 



is, however, an artistic value to many of the elaborate polychrome 

 geometric designs of southwestern California, whether their creators 

 intended it or not. 



ANTIQUITY OF PETROGLYPHS 



Although there is no question that petroglyphs have been made in 

 many different times in the past, it is usually extremely difficult to 



