Features

BYRON — On a grassy hillside a 30-minute drive from the 21st-century bustle of San Francisco lies a secret from California’s past — rock art left by the region’s original inhabitants. 

They are paintings that time forgot, faint etchings of red and black in tantalizing swirls and patterns inscribed by the Indian tribes who once met here for ceremonies and purposes that now can only be guessed at. 

Getting to the cave paintings isn’t easy. The area is secured by locks and fences. Local parks officials, who own the land, have a caretaker on site to keep off trespassers. 

Time and the elements are slowly destroying the paintings, drawn on the walls of shallow caves amid the rolling hills of Contra Costa County. The rock surface is slowly flaking away as water seeps in from the hillside. But birdlike figures and possibly other animals, which may be representations of tribal gods, can still be seen. 

Some would like to see the paintings made more accessible to the public before they are swept into oblivion. 

“We would love to open this area up so we could tell schoolchildren at an early age about history,” says Tom Mikkelsen, assistant general manager of the East Bay Regional Park District. 

Before that happens, officials would have to find a way to address the concerns of California Indians, who consider the site sacred. They also have to figure out how to keep it from being vandalized or simply loved to death. 

“It’s extremely fragile, that’s the problem,” says Jeff Fentress, an anthropologist who has studied the paintings. 

The paintings, known as pictographs because they consist of symbols, are about four miles from the town of Byron and about 50 miles east of San Francisco. 

The caves are believed to have been in use as early as 500 A.D. and carry a variety of rock art styles. The site is striking — rocky outcroppings jutting out from gentle hills where golden eagles soar. But there isn’t much in the way of food here, few oaks or other nut-bearing trees, leading researchers to conclude the site was reserved for ceremonial and spiritual purposes. 

Tribal traditions link the caves to two other nearby landmarks — Mt. Diablo, now a state park and at 3,850 feet the San Francisco Bay area’s highest mountain, and Brushy Peak, which is about 1,700 feet high. The three sites are part of the creation mythology of the region’s Miwok, Ohlone and Yokurt Indians. 

“For native people, these weren’t casual use places. They weren’t places that everyday people went to,” says Bev Ortiz, an ethnographic consultant who has also studied the pictographs. 

The issue of how to appreciate, but not destroy, ancient sites has been tackled all over the world. In Egypt, the number of visitors allowed daily at the Great Pyramid was cut from thousands to 300 to prevent damage. 

At the Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, home to fascinating ruins of the prehistoric Anasazi culture, officials offer guided tours and keep some trails unmarked as they try to balance public access and historic preservation. 

“There are some special rock art sites that we have actually covered up and we now no longer show people because of the vandalism,” says park guide G.B. Cornucopia. 

The tension between ancient ways and modern life has also played out at Brushy Peak, a 1,700-foot mountain about 10 miles south of the Northern California pictograph caves, where a plan to provide more access to the summit drew protests from some California Indians. 

“This site was visited by certain people in our society to conduct private secretive ceremonies,” says Don Hankins, a Plains Miwok Indian. “Not only is it the place of our origin as referred to in our creation stories and songs but it’s also a place where many of our ceremonies stem from.” 

Park officials agreed to monitor access to the peak and work out a way to make sure the area is protected if more trails are open, perhaps through guided tours. But they aren’t getting the budgetary support they’d hoped for — in March, voters defeated a parcel tax that would have paid for projects including fencing, gates and staff to lead tours to the pictograph caves. 

A bill now before the Legislature would give added protection to sacred sites such as the pictographs. The legislation, written by state Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, would stop approval of projects deemed to adversely affect such sites unless tribal officials accepted mitigation measures, such as allowing public access but keeping the site closed during periods deemed particularly sacred. The bill has passed the Senate and is pending before the Assembly. 

For now, the pictograph caves are surrounded by chain link fences. When the weather warms up, rattlesnakes join the anti-trespasser patrol, slithering through tall grasses surrounding the rocky outcroppings. 

For those who do get to see them, the pictographs are a glimpse of a culture that was all but wiped out by the disease, destruction and dispossession wrought by colonialism and the Gold Rush.