Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park
Sanilac Petroglyphs Historic State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Michigan. The park, also known as ezhibiigadek asin (Ojibwe for "written on stone") consists of in Greenleaf Township, Sanilac County, in Michigan's Thumb. It contains the largest collection of Native American petroglyphs in Michigan. The carvings were created in the pre-Columbian era and represent aspects of Native American spirituality. An interpretive hiking trail within the park passes along the nearby Cass River. This historic park is co-managed by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Saginaw Chippewa Nation. It was donated to the state by the Michigan Archaeological Society in 1971, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The petroglyphs Origins The main feature of the park is a sandstone outcrop with around 165 petroglyphs on it. The largest grouping of such carvings in Michigan, they were likely carved between 300 and 1,400 years ago. They were discovered by the area's settlers after much of the Thumb region was burned over by a massive forest fire in 1881. The petroglyphs include depictions of the religious and cultural knowledge of Great Lakes Native American tribes. Among the depictions of swirls, lines, handprints, and living beings are: Ebmodaakowet, the archer who shoots knowledge into the future; Migizi Inini, the Eagle Man, who looks to the east–the direction of the new day–and flies over to ensure people are following traditions and teachings; Mishibizhew, the water panther, who protects the waters of the Great Lakes. Study and preservation Archaeologists have studied the site since the 1920s. Stone tools and pottery found in the park show that various tribal groups have occupied the area periodically throughout the last 8,000 years. The petroglyphs were thoroughly recorded in 1940 by Darrel J. Richards and Carl Holmquist of the Aboriginal Research Club of Detroit, who created drawings and castings of the carvings. Richards's drawings are now in the collection of the Cranbrook Institute of Science in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Afterward, Cranbrook worked with the University of Michigan's Museum of Anthropology and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to create the first plan to preserve the site. Later, in 1966, around the petroglyphs was purchased from two different owners by the Michigan Archaeological Society, which deeded it to the state five years later. In 1971, the site was both established as a Michigan state park and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The state has made a series of improvements to the site to protect the slab, including a wooden pavilion erected in the mid-1990s and a chain-link fence surrounding the petroglyph site. In 2018, Michigan Department of Transportation specialists used Lidar along with detailed close-up photographs to collect approximately 3 billion information points and map the site to accuracy in the millimeter range, revealing details that would not be apparent to the unaided human eye. From this collection of data, The resultant digital models will document the site and can be used to track changes in the