Rock circles in Anza-borrego park are mysterious links to the past

The caress of a gentle spring breeze pulled me back to reality as I sat on the desert floor in the center of a cleared circle surrounded by a low ring of weathered rocks.

Hiking cross country in the jumbled landscape of Anza-borrego Desert State Park, I had come upon puzzling structures, perhaps left behind by unknown travelers long before the first European explorers arrived here.

On a low plateau above a boulder-strewn wash there were more than two dozen 6to 12-foot rock circles scattered about the cobbled landscape. Some were isolated circles, while others were connected like adjacent rooms.

Archaeologists have documented more than 500 such circles in the Southern California desert.

Obviously made by the hand of man, some appeared quite old, with rocks settled well into the ground and even surrounded by the crumbs of their own weathering.

What were these mysterious objects, far from water, food, or shelter?

I turned to a friend for answers.

Joan Schneider spent 10 years as the Associate State Archaeologist in Anzaborrego

Desert State Park.

Ever since being first documented in the 1920s, the rock circles have remained an enigma.

“They are obviously not natural, and their exact use was never passed down through cultural history,” Schneider said.

Some have speculated that the rock rings were sleeping circles built to support vegetation used to create protective structures. Others believe they were ceremonial sites. Perhaps both.

Native Americans here were migratory and moved from summer homes in the mountains to the milder desert climate in winter months.

Up until about 500 years ago there was a huge inland sea known as Lake Cahuilla with a footprint much larger than Salton Sea and extending west nearly to present day Ocotillo Wells.

Fish bones have been found at some eastern rock circle sites close to the ancient shoreline, which is still visible in some places today as a ring on rocks — similar to a bathtub ring — located more than 40 feet above current sea level.

Even earlier, perhaps a million years, the lake reached a level nearly 180 feet above present sea level.

The reason most of the circles are on elevated plateaus could be that things were different when they were first created.

Some archaeologists believe the ravines adjacent to the rock circles may have been back bays, wetlands or active stream courses and that would explain the placement of rings at a higher elevation.

Recent dating of three sites by new optical stimulated luminescence (OSL) technology attached ages ranging from more than 3,000 years ago to less than 200 years old for sampled rock circles or adjacent rock cairns.

Schneider’s experience and “gut feeling” along with the lack of pottery, food remains or tools, makes her believe the circles are a couple thousand years old.

Older circles may have simply vanished over time from the natural forces of nature.

Other archaeological research has suggested the lack of artifacts at many sites as well as their location suggest an age that could date back 8,000 to 10,000 years.

As science evolves, better analytical tools are developed and the blurry understanding of the distant past comes into clearer focus, the importance of preserving these artifacts is critical. It will take time.

“There is still so much we don’t know and thank heavens for places like Anzaborrego where this history is preserved for future study,” Schneider said.

At more than 640,000 acres, Anza-borrego is a treasure chest of history. Thousands of miles of hiking trails offer access to a rich cultural record of the early residents of this area.

Additionally, within the wilderness expanse of the park, larger than the state of Rhode Island, there is limitless open space holding secrets yet to be revealed. Already, more than 45,000 archaeological sites have been identified within Anzaborrego.

“This is an exceptionally rich cultural landscape. There is stuff way up high on mountain ridges, perhaps ceremonial or dancing sites. We just don’t know,” Schneider said.

She believes these dim messages from the past are vitally important to people of today.

“The Native American point of view is to live and take care of our environment. People are attached to the earth as part of nature that provides food, clothes and sustains them spiritually,” she said. “We have forgotten that.”

Maybe the rock circles were simply utilitarian when created, but they are certainly sacred now as a fading footprint of the first people to live, work, love and die here.

This is a spirit place, and for a time I was lost among those spirits, gazing out over an arid landscape that may have looked different when the first rock circles were created.

These were people of the earth. They understood the natural world better than I ever will, and they worked to maintain the balance needed to survive.

Today, this same, preserved landscape offers one of the few places where we can escape from the modern world, cut the cord briefly, gaze over an unchanged landscape, and enjoy a mental and physical quiet place.

More than ever, we need that right now.

Email ernie@packtrain.com or visit erniesoutdoors.blogspot.com.

ERNIE COWAN Some researchers have speculated that the rock rings were sleeping circles.