"Bear Coming Out": A Distinctive Plains Shield Motif

Summary

Bear Gulch, an extensive rock art site in central Montana, has several examples of a distinctive shield design showing a bear emerging from its den. This design is known from both ethnographic shields and other rock art images across the Northwestern Plains, including two shields at the Castle Gardens site in Wyoming and one from Montana’s Valley of the Shields site. The comparison of the designs from Bear Gulch with others from both ethnographic sources and other rock art sites illustrates part of the potential contained in the images recorded in Plains pictographs and petroglyphs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Wyoming Archaeologist 2004

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Contact(s): Marcia Peterson

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