Local Historic Site Has Attracted Visitors for Over 800 Years
More than 30 people joined a guided tour of one of Ohio’s significant prehistoric sites on Saturday, organized by the Belmont County Victorian Mansion Museum.
Officially called the Barnesville Petroglyph, the site is one of several locations in Ohio believed to hold spiritual or ceremonial meaning for Indigenous peoples who inhabited the region centuries ago.
The site received its local nickname ‘Track Rocks’ from the large number of animal tracks carved into the sandstone boulders by Native Americans, many of which date back over 800 years. In addition to the carvings that gave the area its nickname, the boulders also contain petroglyphs of faces and symbols as well as more recent carvings added over the centuries.
(Photo by Daniel Caron / Nature Nomad, LLC)
(Photo by Daniel Caron / Nature Nomad, LLC)
(Photo by Daniel Caron / Nature Nomad, LLC)
The tour was led by John Boilegh, archaeologist for the Division of Mineral Resources Management for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. It wasn’t the first tour he has led for the museum. Much like those living here hundreds of years ago, the site seems to keep drawing him back.
“Track rocks itself is a fantastic and amazing place,” said Boilegh. “In my humble opinion, it’s probably the best petroglyph site in Ohio… but it’s not just that. It’s just in the interest that the community has.”
Boilegh wasn’t the only ODNR employee to travel to the site. Jeff Johnson, Chief of the Division of Natural Areas and Preserves, attended as well. Johnson, looking at the site through a different professional lens, highlighted the geological uniqueness of the landscape.
“Typically, you don’t see large sandstone boulders on top of a ridge sitting like this,” said Johnson. “And then the fact that they’re covered with petroglyphs is amazing.”
“I haven’t seen this many petroglyphs in one place,” said Joshua Starkey, a period reenactor who also studies earthworks and native sites around the Ohio Valley. “If you’re into native culture… it’s a cool place to come and visit.”
Museum board member Becky Thomas, who helped organize the tour, said that preserving the site is part of why the museum continues to return to Track Rocks. “This place is historical but deteriorating, and we’re trying to bring attention to it so that people at the state level might do something to protect these rocks.”
The importance of preservation wasn’t lost on attendees like Julia Spangler. “It’s nice to have this to pass on to our children and to keep established that local pride. There’s real history in rural America, and it shouldn’t be lost.”
“We always think of archaeology as being someplace else,” echoed Boilegh, “In reality, archaeology is everywhere. It’s very rare that you’re going to go to a place [in Ohio] that hasn’t had people in it over the last… 13,000 years.”
Track Rocks served as a communal gathering place for centuries, Boilegh explained, and because of that ended up being a record of local prehistory.
“Everybody could meet here and discuss things, learn things, and these rocks became like a tablet… where memories or thoughts or stories could be showcased and written down, maybe not necessarily in a way we think of language, but very similar. It’s a place where their communities could meet a lot like we did today, where our community came together.”
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