At points of interest in our southern deserts you often find a trail leading to petroglyphs (rock markings) of the ancient kind, sometimes with modern written analysis posted alongside, attempting to explain the function or significance of the prehistorical marks. But consider my present-day “Petroglyphs” above. Could you now decipher what lies behind these contemporary writings on stone, their meaning?  And a thousand years from now — would you have any hope of figuring this out?

And what of these marks — inscriptions not on boulder but in aspen skin? The lacerations are at least as obscure as any ancient, non-alphabetic communication I have seen or read about. We see echoes here of the most primeval human art, for instance like those hand-stencils seeming alive and mysterious on stones deep underground in France — pictograms long hidden — some created more than thirty thousand years ago.