My final stop for the day is at one of the most prolific rock art sites in the southeastern US. Track Rock Gap is home to set of six large soapstone boulders, carved with a number of animal track and other figures. As you might guess, the area gets its name from the tracks. Some of the tracks represent birds, while others likely represent black bear.
According to information on the site, the petroglyphs were likely carved starting approximately a thousand years ago by the ancestors of the modern Cherokee and related nations. This rock art most closely resembles a site a visited in Missouri several months ago and the style is distinctly different from the dozens of sites I have visited in the great basin and southwest. It still amazing to me though that peoples of such diverse cultures all independently settled on this medium to leave their mark on history. I hope it remains forever.
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