"The Rocks", San Benito County, California

[Music] hello friends my name is alex corkus and i want to welcome you to the finding law civilization series now one of the fascinating things as europeans came out here to the americas and settled out west is that they often use the same pathways and trails that had been developed by native americans they did so because these trails were the safest and quickest route between points a and b now today we'll be trekking along one of these routes it's actually a very large highway divider 12 acres in size now this route today is known as highway 156 as it joins highway 101 north in a state of california between the counties of monterey and san benito now one of the fascinating things about our journey is the places we go and the people we meet along the way and surprisingly out of the middle of nowhere a four-legged friend joined me on this trek but i tell you the most fascinating thing is the mystery that i uncovered at this site and i hope that you can help me solve it anyways it's going to be an interesting trick and i invite you to come with me well friends our journey begins i'm facing approximately north here in this highway divider and you probably can hear the highway noise and so to my right over here we have the northbound lane and to the left over here we'll have the southbound lane so we continue ahead and look at this i see a dog directly in front of us i tell you i think this will be an interesting journey here is a another view of highway 156 and if you go to the left you can see a large boulder right there kind of in the center of the frame now that boulder was always marked by kids graduating from high school and the highway department would always paint over it and so that boulder always drew me to it and so today i'm here below me my friend joel found a large boulder and i can tell that there's several mortars there he's clearing the area of fallen leaves duff and we'll take a look at those i tell you this is really fantastic [Applause] well i'm walking slowly down this hill and so as we come upon this boulder we find something that's been hiding in plain sight for hundreds of years now this boulder was probably here thousands of years thousands of years and used by the natives because look at what we have in front of us this large boulder contains about a dozen mortars now there's probably double that amount but if you look directly ahead of me over here this is a poison oak tree this poison oak tree covers about a fourth of this boulder now when i look down in there i can see other potential mortars but friends we can't go in there that poison oak can be very dangerous to a person's health but anyways look at this here's a mortar right over here here's another one over here there's one right there and let's walk over here here's another mortar right here right here is a mortar and right there is a mortar now there's a very large mortar right here and it has a channel coming out right here look at this and it goes down in here and let's see what i can see right over here well look at this right over here this is a potential small mortar or what we would call an anvil there's another one right there there's another one right there so there's probably other features to this boulder that we basically can't see because of the poison oak but i tell you this is really fantastic you know look at this right here well what we're going to do is we're going to continue our journey we're going to work our way downhill over here and then work our way to the boulder that's located directly let's see if we can see it from here there it is you can see it just up under the branch of this oak tree that's where we're going right now so again there's the boulder that we're going to trek to and i'm going to turn around over here and this is the large boulder that we just came up off of so let's continue this journey it's quite exciting so as i'm working my way towards that boulder directly in front of us i noticed this over here as i'm working my way to it this here is a drainage in other words water flowed here at one time this is probably a natural stream and this is why the mortar station was right over there you know to process acorn you needed to leech it and you needed water to leach it to take out the tannins so that the acorn mush the crushed acorn would be fit to eat so anyways what we're going to do is go down into this dry creek bed and work our way back up to that stone well friends as i'm working my way to that boulder i'm under this canopy of three oak trees i'll tell you it's beautiful look at this over here the branches go down to the ground almost forming a barrier you could have a little house here nobody would ever know but one fascinating thing as i was looking at this oak tree looking up down and around i saw this directly ahead of us that's a nest that's the home to the california rat now there's nothing to be scared of they don't attack people they live a solitary life and they want to be left alone out here in the wilds just like we do so anyways what i'm gonna do right over here i see a portal through these branches look at this over here so i'm gonna part the way over here okay slowly and with my walking stick right over here i'm going to push it to the side and this is our doorway out of the oak tree grove or canopy so here we are [Applause] and there's there's this large boulder that has always fascinated me it drew me here this is why i'm here because of that boulder i wasn't aware that there was actually a native site here but i was always suspecting that there would be but look at this over here this is completely fascinating there are a series of steps carved into this boulder look at that i'm facing into the sun and hopefully you can see it but there you go steps all the way to the top [Music] [Music] well friends as we look at this giant monolithic boulder we ask ourselves who carved the steps into the boulder was it the local natives or was it the europeans who came afterwards i'll tell you it's somewhat of a mystery at this point because these types of steps are often found in the american southwest not necessarily here in california anyways before we continue any further let's examine the rest of this boulder so we can get some kind of context to what we're looking at now my experience in the past when i've come across these great monolithic boulders that have a flat facing wall is often times we'll find symbols we'll find the couple symbol and we'll find some orders the mortars were worked by the women of the village to process the acorn and so they often left symbols behind at their work stations oh my goodness look at this right here in this narrow pathway what we're seeing in front of us are petroglyphs these are known as couples now one of the things about couples their actual meaning has been lost in time but there is some indications that they could have been used as a fertility symbol look at this right here a couple is a rounded area okay right over here look at this over here and then this up here and there seems to be a pattern in other words this is doesn't appear to be random look at this here there's one right here there's another one here okay you're seeing the pattern there's another one here okay there's a degraded one over here another one over here another one over here and let me get real close one over here now they continue okay i see one right here another one right here and another one right here here here here look at that this is a pattern this is not a natural occurrence they were placed here by the ancients as i said this is a petroglyph a petroglyph is some kind of etching into the stone there you go look at this well based on finding these over here i would say that we're going to come across some mortars okay look at this over here now these over here look at this now these look like they have been actually formed uh by man look at this this looks like a drilling rod right here [Music] now if you look at the boulder and the pattern that i mentioned right over here it doesn't seem that it's naturally occurring so what i'm going to do is i'm going to go to the other side of this boulder right over here what we're going to do is see if there's a difference now we're passing this spot because it's full of uh lichen and and plant material right over here so you can't see what's behind that but let me turn around right over here to where the sun is now you can see the boulder over here is quite rough it's a soft boulder okay a sandstone you can see parts coming out over here but if you look at the boulder over here there's no pattern like we saw now you can see small indentations over here like for example here but they're random there's no pattern over here there's no pattern there you go so what we're going to do is go back to that papio side and you let me know what you think in my mind's eye i do see a pattern anyways let's go over here [Music] and there you go you see this here this is the pattern that i'm talking about it's not natural it's not natural occurring look at this right here anyways my sensing is that we're going to find some orders up here well friends there we have it right in front of us we see a series of mortars right over here i see one here let's see second one here a third one right there and a fourth right over here now right over here looks like what i'll call the animal so this is where the acorn right there was broken open before it was put into the mortar right here to crush i tell you this is quite fascinating i tell you one of the interesting things on these journeys is the people you meet and the friends you make look at that right over there i tell you looks like i have a friend for life let's see if she'll come to me come here yeah look at that okay she jumped right up on me i'll tell you this is what a loving dog you know you know it's a pit bull but i tell you very mellow and so anyways let's continue our journey with our new found friend well directly ahead of us right over there is the boulder that we just saw in this here is a little valley so to speak you know behind the boulder and right over here directly to my front is that large boulder that uh containing orders that we found in the beginning very beautiful large oak tree and there's our newfound friend directly in front of us exploring with us but my goodness look at this i think i see another mortar well let's go to it and examine it there you have it you see that right there so let me clear it up a little bit okay there you go look at that oh there's my friend again i tell you nothing like having a companion on these on these journeys okay can you please get out of the way come on come here okay thank you so right over here i would say that's a mortar oh my goodness look at this i tell you i tell you she really wants to play and have some lovings okay there you go so back to the mortar right over here well i can't get rid of her well friends there should be no doubt in our minds that we've encountered a native american site we found two milling stations and these wonderful petroglyphs known as cupules now the native american tribe that lived here in this area which is san benito county were known as the ama mutsun [Music] well friends as to the question of who actually carved those steps into this giant monolithic boulder i think it's still somewhat of a mystery however what i'd like to do is share with you a journey that i took several years ago to arizona into a place called canyon the shay where my navajo guide took me to a similar series of steps carved into a cliff face now in american southwest these type of steps are known as moki steps anyways let me share with you what i encountered at that site [Music] friends before us we have some ancient anastasi footholes these are probably 4 000 years old and they go up this canyon wall so let's take this journey together hopefully i can make it without falling there's another hand hold here see people just start working friends what we have here this is a foothold right here yeah but this right here is a handhold yeah so what you do is you grab a hole like this and then you step up in here okay here's another one right here see right here you gravity and coming down and grab it yeah yes beautiful okay so so but i'm a zuni person okay these people that live in the canyons or my predecessors and my ancestors i still keep their cultures alive today i have spanish culture i have european culture mexican culture navajo culture zuni culture and pueblo cultures coming from mesa verde choco canyon skunk valley cajunta i know all those cultures today which i have to take care of [Music] well friends after i left the site and in an effort to determine who actually carved those steps into this giant monolithic boulder i conducted some research interestingly i found an article dated from 1931 where in a california highway engineer described the construction of a new road right through the site we've just visited he called this giant monolithic boulder the pine gate rock the article went on to say that highway robbers carve the steps into this large boulder so that they could climb to the very top and from this position they could see unsuspecting travelers along the roadway now aside from that what i'll call antidotal information in this 1931 article i could find no other reference to highway robberies right here at this site so to me it's still a mystery did the natives carve those steps into that boulder or were they highway robbers that did it hopefully someone watching this film can shed some additional light to this mystery and so i invite you to send me a text and let me know if you have any information what is the explanation who knows [Music] [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you

Channel: storiesbyalex

Views: 15,400

Rating: 4.9076924 out of 5

Keywords: alexander kerekes, finding lost civilizations, amah mutsun, mutsun, san benito county, california natives, alex kerekes, mortars, cupules, The Rocks, pinecate rocks, san juan grade, san juan bautista, dunbarton rocks, san juan rocks

Id: TdlqprW1HmY

Length: 21min 29sec (1289 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 06 2021