This is the third year in a row (2016, 2017) that we have made a January visit to the Sutherland Wash Rock Art District. Each visit we see new petroglyphs – and every year we learn a little more.
After past visits I enjoyed reading Gender in Hohokam Imagery and Landscape: Sutherland Wash Rock Art District, Coronado National Forest, Arizona and Flower World Imagery in Petroglyphs: Hints of Hohokam Cosmology on the Landscape by Janine Hernbrode and Peter Boyle. After this visit I was excited to see two additional papers by Hernbrode and Boyle:
Petroglyphs and Bell Rocks at Cocoraque Butte: Further Evidence of the Flower World Belief Among the Hohokam: Cocoraque Butte is located inside Ironwood Forest National Monument. At Cocoraque Butte there is a combination of flower (both realistic and abstract), bird and butterfly petroglyphs suggesting that Flower World beliefs were present. There are also Bell Rocks at the site – rocks struck for their sound – located near the Flower World petroglyphs. Based on the Tanque Verde red-on-brown painted sherds at the site it was most heavily used between A.D. 1150 and 1300 – later than Sutherland Wash (which was probably used most heavily from A.D. 1000-1100).
Broad Distribution of Flower World Imagery in Hohokam Petroglyphs: In this article Hernbrode and Boyle compare the proportion of core Flower World imagery at a number of sites in Arizona and conclude that Signal Hill, Cocoraque Butte, Sutherland Wash Rock Art District, Tumamoc Hill and the Webb Petroglyph Site, all located ‘near’ Tucson, all have strong evidence of the Flower World Complex. They also conclude that there is “scant evidence” of Flower World Complex petroglyphs at several other more distant sites – South Mountain, Charlie Bell Well and the Picacho Mountains.
