You’ve seen some of the petroglyphs on Gabriola. Have you ever wondered just how they were made? You might like to wander over to Northwest Coast Archaeology, then, to consider How to Make a Petroglyph. You’ll learn how Christine Stathers, a Camosun College student, made a petroglyph on local sandstone. Blogger QMackie notes:

I think there is a lot of received wisdom about petroglyphs and a lack of hard information. Ethnographic accounts are thin on the ground, perhaps because these spiritual sites were not and are not the proper topic of discussion with Anthropologists, at least. There is often no archaeological context for these sites other than the designs themselves: no datable material, no associated artifacts, no faunal remains, etc. And one of the key questions when considering or weighing possible interpretations might be, how long did a typical petroglyph take to make? If it took an hour or two, that might rule in or rule out certain genres of interpretation; if it took months that might also suggest certain cultural practices or contexts of manufacture. Since petroglyphs are an archaeological site of wide public interest, of considerable cultural importance, and of little firm archaeological knowledge, then any steps taken to better understand their manufacture could pay dividends down the road.

With this in mind, Stathers set herself a simple task: make a petroglyph on a piece of local sandstone. She tried a number of different ways of creating grooves, including abrasion and indirect percussion, but pecking using a hard-hammer was far and away the most effective. She reports on the various costs and benefits of her tools (illustrated below) and discusses her decision making process throughout. [continue]

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