Cup-and-Ring Petroglyph - Santa Clara County, California - Pictographs on Waymarking.com

"The Uvas Creek/Little Arthur area had been the site of Ohlone Indian villages for thousands of years prior to the arrival of the Spanish missionaries. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Matsun Ohlones had inhabited this site for over 3,000 years. Radio carbon dating of site materials have yielded habitation dates of between 1,700 and 2,700 b.p. (before present). The four acre park site is part of a larger area of pre-contact habitation extending across Uvas and Little Arthur Creeks. The village was called Chitactac by the Matsun Ohlone people.

The site also contains a number of petroglyphs and over 75 bedrock mortars. Petroglyphs are markings picked, abraded, grooved or incised into the rock surface. Two types of petroglyphs are found at this site; cupules and cup-and-ring (concentric circles with a center depression). Their meaning and age are unknown, however, similar motifs found in other areas of Northern California have been associated with rain-making, fertility enhancement, puberty rites or shamanic ritual.

Located above the marshy South Santa Clara Valley and nestled in a little valley sheltered from the north winds, the early inhabitants likely found this an ideal place to live. Food resources were available from the foothills surrounding the site, from the creek, as well as the grasslands and marshes of Santa Clara Valley. Ohlone villages typically ranged in size from one or two families to hundreds of individuals. The village would have contained houses (holding up to 8 to 2 people) made from tule reeds or tree bark, assembly houses, granaries (to store food), dance corrals and ramada to provide shade for work.

Throughout out the site are numerous bedrock mortars. Mortars are stone bowls with a pestle (a cylindrical rock hand tool used to mash or pound) was used to process nuts, seeds, meat and fish."

Extracted from the Chitactac Adams County Park web site:

The park includes a self-guided interpretive walk and an interpretive shelter focusing on Ohlone Indian culture and the Adams schoolhouse which was sited on this property from the 1850s until 1956.

Chitactac Adams Heritage County Park offers a unique view into the Native American culture of Santa Clara County before and after the arrival of the Spanish. A self-guided interpretive walk around the site, including eight stations with interpretive panels, is supplemented by an interpretive shelter with seven additional panels and displays. The trail panels include photographs and original art covering the Adams School, Ohlone village life, Ohlone buildings, petroglyphs (rock art), Ohlone food processing, natural history of Uvas Creek, Spanish, California and Ohlone culture and petroglyphs and their preservation.

Click to get a PDF map of the park.

2. You must include a close up photo of the pictograph and your GPSr. The pictograph must be recognizable.

3. Tell a little bit about what you learned of the area.