Tucson is full of great ways to engage with archaeology, but I don’t always take advantage of it because I am finishing up my dissertation. My friend convinced me to get away from the computer and join her on a autumn equinox tour of Picture Rocks and Los Morteros. Los Morteros was a Hohokam village site occupied between A.D. 850 to 1300, and is a large site complete with a variety of middens and a ball court. Picture Rocks is an outcrop just outside of town covered with petroglyphs, some of which help mark solstices and equinoxes. The tour was led by the great Al Dart from Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, and more information about the tour and other tours through out the year are available on the website. Above, you can see some of the petroglyphs and the triangle of light we saw crossing the petroglyph spiral at late morning on the equinox.

Los Morteros is named after these deep ground stone features in the bedrock pictured below. Having read the report, it was a great to finally see them in person.