Sanilac Petroglyphs Michigan The Hunter Tile

Sanilac Petroglyphs photo by Scenes from the Past... The famous Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross in 1881. The first disaster that her organization responded to was the forest fires of Michigan in the area known as "The Thumb". The fires burned over a million acres of central and eastern Michigan, including all of the Thumb of Michigan. These fires (possibly started by fragments of a comet) revealed petroglyphs from a long lost American Indian tribe. The drawings were carved into the sandstone in Sanilac County but remained hidden by thick forests until the fire exposed them. The glyphs are carved into a large rock on the ground that is forty feet long and fifteen feet wide. Carved between 300 and 1,000 years ago, the drawings were likely made by the Hopewell or Chippewa Indians. They depict flying birds, other animals, and a man with a bow and arrow - lasting testaments to a former way of life. Archaeologists have not determined the purpose or use of the drawings, though some have speculated that they were a destination for vision quests, as the rock is isolated near the fork in river. Shaman and holy men may have used the rock as a record of their visions, depicting animals that came to them in dreams. They could have also been part of a trading route and served as the social media of its day. The Sanilac Petroglyphs are the only known prehistoric carvings in Michigan. Other petroglyphs in the United States can be found in Arches National Park (Utah), the Columbia River Gorge (Washington), and the Bishop Tuff tableland (California).