Nevada petroglyphs the oldest in North America [1]

AP - by Scott Sonner - August 15, 2013

Oldest Petroglyphs

This May 2012 photo provided by the U.S. Geological Survey shows ancient carvings on limestone boulders in northern Nevada's high desert near Pyramid Lake. The carvings have been confirmed to be the oldest recorded petroglyphs in North America - at least 10,500 years old. The findings were published August 2013 in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This site was once the shoreline of the now dried up Winnemucca Lake. (AP Photo/USGS, Larry Benson)
This May 2012 photo provided by the Nevada State Museum shows ancient carvings on limestone boulders near Nevada's Pyramid Lake which have been confirmed to be the oldest recorded petroglyphs in North America - at least 10,500 years old. Larry Benson, the curator of anthropology at the University of Colorado Natural History Museum, and Eugene Hattori, curator of anthropology at the Nevada State Museum, were among the co-authors of a paper on the findings published August 2013 in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This site was once the shoreline of the now dried up Winnemucca Lake. (AP Photo/Nevada State Museum, Eugene Hattori)

PYRAMID LAKE, Nev. (AP) — Ancient rock etchings along a dried-up lake bed in Nevada have been confirmed to be the oldest recorded petroglyphs in North America, dating back at least 10,000 years.

The petroglyphs found on limestone boulders near Pyramid Lake in northern Nevada's high desert are similar in design to etchings found at a lake in Oregon that are believed to be at least 7,600 years old. Unlike later drawings that sometimes depict a spear or antelope, the carvings are abstract with tightly clustered geometric designs — some are diamond patterns, others have short parallel lines on top of a longer line.

Scientists can't tell for sure who carved them, but they were found on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe's reservation land.

"We initially thought people 12,000 or 10,000 years ago were primitive, but their artistic expressions and technological expertise associated with these paints a much different picture," said Eugene Hattori, the curator of anthropology at the Nevada State Museum in Carson City who co-wrote a paper on the findings earlier this month in the Journal of Archaeological Science.