Rocky Hill
Pictograph Site
(Wukchumni Yokuts of Tulare County)
The Rocky Hill pictograph site near Exeter in Tulare County is a protected archaeological preserve that is owned by the Archaeological Conservancy, and a docent-led tour must be arranged through them to visit the site. Because many of the pictographs here are on exposed boulders, the effects of sun and rain have made them faint and difficult to see. However, a few that are protected from the elements beneath overhangs or in small boulder caves still show bright colors. Tours are conducted with participation of the local Yokut Indian community, who consider Rocky Hill sacred, and visitors are asked to be mindful of this by showing the appropriate respect. Tours are arranged from time to time by the California Rock Art Foundation, as well as by various archaeological and educational groups. Because we have not had the chance yet to take one of these tours, we are temporarily borrowing below some images of the site created by Mary Gerbic and Jon Harmon.
Pictograph Images from Rocky Hill
(Upper images by Mary Gerbic. Lower images by Jon Harmon)
Much of the rock art at Rocky Hill is faint and difficult to see. Hence each of the images in the bottom panel are paired with an enhanced image
created by Jon Harmon using the free DStretch plugin that he wrote for ImageJ, which is an open-source, image-processing program for working
with scientific images. Please see Jon Harmon's website and the ImageJ website for more information on these products.
