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“Spring Equinox Tour of Los Morteros and Picture Rocks Petroglyphs Archaeological Sites”
March 20, 2019 @ 8:00 am - 12:00 pm
Photo by Tom Herrick of equinox “sun dagger” on spiral petroglyph at Picture Rocks site, Pima County, Arizona.
Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Spring Equinox Tour of Los Morteros and Picture Rocks Petroglyphs Archaeological Sites” with archaeologist Allen Dart will be held on Wednesday, March 20, 2019 from 8:00 am to noon. Group will depart near Silverbell Road and Linda Vista Blvd. in Marana, Arizona. Requested donation of $25 ($20 for Old Pueblo Archaeology Center and Pueblo Grande Museum Auxiliary members).
The 2019 spring equinox occurs on March 20 at 2:58 p.m. Mountain Standard Time (9:58 p.m. GMT). To celebrate the vernal equinox and the annual Arizona Archaeology and Heritage Awareness Month, archaeologist Allen Dart (Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s executive director) leads this tour to Los Morteros, an ancient village site that includes a Hohokam ballcourt and bedrock mortars, and to Picture Rocks, where ancient petroglyphs include a solstice and equinox calendar marker, dancing human-like figures, whimsical animals, and other rock symbols made by Hohokam Indians between AD 650 and 1450. An equinox calendar petroglyph at the site exhibits a specific interaction with a ray of sunlight on the morning of each equinox regardless of the hour and minute of the actual celestial equinox, so participants in this tour will see that sunlight interaction with the calendar glyph unless clouds block the sunlight.
Reservations and donation prepayment required by 5 p.m. Tuesday March 19. 520-798-1201 or info@oldpueblo.org.