Pictograph Cave State Park Is One Of The Most Important Archaeological Sites In Montana

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            Pictograph Cave State Park speaks colorfully and in many voices, even today.   Pictograph and its neighbor Ghost Cave, located near Billings, contained artifacts spanning thousands of years of inhabitation, with distinctive time periods layered one on top of the other.   These artifacts, combined with rock art created by prehistoric and early historic people, enabled archaeologists to create the first chronology of prehistoric northern plains cultures.

The caves, just south of Billings on Coburn Road, were commonly referred to as the Indian Caves—for good reason. They offered shelter for 5,000 years to prehistoric hunters and gatherers and then later American Indian peoples.   Early people rested, camped and communicated through pictographs drawn on the rock cave walls.

Christopher Chippindale, an internationally recognized expert in rock art, says Pictograph Caves State Park is the most important single archaeological site in Montana.

In the late 1930s the caves were examined by archaeologists of the time, assisted by a Works Progress Administration excavation crew, with leadership from the Montana School of Mines.   The excavation work attracted thousands of visitors until World War II put an end to the work.

The deeper deposits held artifacts from the Middle Prehistoric Period (3000 B.C. to 500 A. D.) while layers closer to the surface of the cave floors were of Late Prehistoric occupations by nomadic buffalo hunters of 500 A.D. to 1800 A. D. About the time the horse appeared on the plains in the 1700’s, native people would set up tipis on the lands below the caves.

In 1964 the caves were designated as a national Historic Landmark. By then, records of many of the artifacts excavated in the ’30s and ’40s were lost and damage to the caves by vandals had taken a toll. It wasn’t until 1969 that the caves came to be managed by Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and in 1991 the site became an official State Park.

Over 30,000 artifacts were said to have been recovered from the caves.   A detailed, 357-page archaeological work “A Preliminary Historical Outline for the Northwestern Plains,” by William Thomas Mulloy, documents the excavations. Blades, projectiles, choppers, scrapers, all were recovered. Among the most interesting items found were those described as “game counters.”

Mulloy described one as a “sub-triangular piece of bison hoof fifteen hundredths of an inch thick and nine tenths of an inch in maximum width. The concave side is plain, while the convex side bears an incised representation of a bison head with two drilled dots for eyes and a vertical slash for a nasal opening. About the periphery are additional drilled dots and short incised dashes . ”

What happened to the artifacts collected at the caves is the least understood aspect of the archaeological investigations.   The whereabouts of only a fraction of the 30,000 artifacts recovered from the excavations is known.   Many of the finest examples of stone and bone tools, shell, plant material, leather, and baskets have disappeared. Some were lost as they were transferred from place to place for exhibitions following their excavation. Others were lost in a fire at the first museum established at Pictograph Cave in the early days.

State Parks managers hired EthnoScience, Inc., a Billings firm that specializes in cultural resource management, to follow the trail of letters and memos from the past 60 years and try to find the missing artifacts. The company concluded that there is little chance of finding new leads.   To date, the largest remaining collection of materials is at the University of Montana in Missoula. The materials there continue to be studied and at least two thesis have been written using the materials.

“There are many individuals over the years who participated in searching for these artifacts. It is still possible people will hear of the search and come forward with new information, but we’ve pursued the avenues we’re aware of at this time,” said Lynelle Peterson, the EthnoScience staffer who took on the job of tracing the artifacts.

Montana State Parks managers also remain hopeful that institutions or individuals holding these items in obscure collections will someday become aware of what they have and contact Pictograph Cave State Park. In any case, Pictograph and Ghost caves continue to give voice to the many prehistoric Northern Plains people who spent time at the caves.

For more information on Pictograph Cave State Park go to: http://www.pictographcave.org/