Pictograph Cave Montana

Pictograph Cave Montana

Pictograph Cave State Park is located south of Billings Montana. Excavations in the 30's and early 40's, partially as part of a WPA project, yielded artifacts carbon dated up to 3500 years ago. It appeared to the archaeologists that the cave was used more or less continuously up until contact. Plentiful artifacts were recovered and originally currated at the Montana School of Mines. The pictogrphs are deemed to be younger being from 2100 to a mere 300 years old. Dating rock art is far from an exact science but correlating rock art image details with dated artifacts can provide some guidance. Carbon 14 dating is not reliable for pictographs. Many of these pictographs are very dim and hard to recognize. On site they are somewhat easier to see but are still very dim. Being exposed to the elements and sun (indirectly) and on a surface that is not optimum in the first place, these pictographs will probably disappear in a few generations. The only alternative I see is to physically remove them with the top couple of inches of rock from the cave wall and place them in a controlled museum environment.
Some pictures have been enhanced in Lightroom to make the glyphs more visible. I hope.