Ambrose Bierce’s Indian Inscriptions: Biographic Art Along the Bozeman Trail

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 1866 Ambrose Bierce accompanied the Hazen expedition whose tour inspected military outposts in the Department of the Platte. During cartographic work, Bierce recorded two "Indian inscriptions," one petroglyph on the Powder River near Ft. Reno, and an arborglyph on the Yellowstone River upstream from Pompey’s Pillar. His recordings are detailed enough that we can decipher these narrative drawings. The petroglyph shows the aftermath of an attack on a lumber wagon, while the arborglyph shows two war expeditions, one against a Mackinaw boat on the Yellowstone River and the other against a group of Metis and their Red River cart.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Art and Archaeology of the West: Papers in Honor of Lawrence L. Loendorf   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23450