The Fort Ransom Writing Rock is a pit and groove or cup marked boulder located on private land in Fort Ransom, North Dakota. Fort Ransom, North Dakota is located in the Sheyenne River valley in southeastern North Dakota and is an area rich with historic and prehistoric archaeological sites including other carved rocks, Native American burial mounds, and the ruins of a 19th century military fort. Fort Ransom is 332 miles Northwest from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pitted boulders appear in Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Iowa and in other states. Cup marks appear all over the world. This boulder has special properties involving amphitheater acoustics, location near a natural spring, possible use in fertility, mourning, rainmaking and vision quest rituals, and has a possible astronomical alignment of four pinkish grooves, each about five and one half feet long.

The Writing Rock is located in a fenced former pasture in the Fort Ransom area. The boulder is a white color and stands out from the surrounding grass. Access is by permission of the landowners who are protective of this locally well known landmark.

The boulder was described and published by Theodore H. Lewis in the May 1891 American Naturalist 25:455-461 along with a drawing of the petroglyphs. This publication provided an opportunity to undertake a case study of what a century of exposure to the elements has done to a cup marked boulder. A comparison of that drawing with the current petroglyphs in 1994 indicates that in the intervening century some of the petroglyphs have disappeared -- probably from erosion or spalling, some are barely detectable, graffiti has been added, and a new possibly natural circular depression has appeared. The primary area of erosion appears to be in the northeast corner of the boulder. The new “natural” cup mark is towards the center of the boulder.

The base of a somewhat similar pit and groove boulder was excavated by A. Buchner in Saskatchewan, Canada and dateable artifacts were found at the base of that boulder.

For a scholarly series of general publications on”pit and groove” boulders and their anthropological setting in North America, the writings of E. Breck Parkman provide an interesting synthesis of the topic. As David Whitley has pointed out however, not all cupules are necessarily ancient since there are ethnographic accounts in the far west indicating their manufacture during historic times.

POSSIBLE RITUAL USES OF THE SITE

The Writing Rock’s setting suggests the possibility of a shamanic vision quest site. A factor suggesting this possibility is that it is located near a natural spring. During an interview that I had conducted with an elderly shaman from California (admittedly a different culture) I was informed that cold springs were used to induce altered states at the end of a vision quest. After the birth of a baby the young fathers in that culture, after deprivations of several days would typically run downhill from a cup marked petroglyph site and jump into a cold spring, apparently to induce the vision. This procedure was also used by a person in mourning after a recent death. In the far west cup marks were sometimes made by women wishing for fertility who would ingest the fine powder resulting from making the cup mark. A cup mark can be made in about 15 minutes by striking the same point with a stone tool with an end like a ball peen hammer.

In northern Minnesota ethnohistorical sources regarding Nett Lake suggest that a spring was considered an entrance to the underworld for spirits associated with petroglyphs.

The boulder is flat enough to lie on out of the prairie grass. The length of the North/South grooved or carved lines are about 5 1/2 feet or the length of a typical person.

This boulder is also located near the base of what is called Bear’s Den Hill. Burial mounds can be found at the top of Bears Den Hill. Other burial mounds, including a large “pyramid” mound, are to the east. There is a standing rock at the state site up the road.

The natural spring has been dammed to form a reservoir of clear water. This water flows out of the reservoir as Viking Creek a short distance to the muddy Sheyenne River. The spring was probably an important local source of clean drinking water.

ETHNOHISTORIC INFORMATION

Cheyenne ethnohistoric sources also suggest the possibility of a vision quest site. According to Grinnell, the Cheyenne favored sites on the west side of rivers that were not too dangerous and that had a panoramic view of the prairie. The Writing Rock is to the west of water and has a good view to the East. Some vision quests involved standing in the hot sun or being skewered to a pole, but one version involved standing chest deep in water all night. The presence of water in a hot environment would also keep a dehydrating young man from dying. The clear spring probably also accounts for the presence of the fort and was probably attractive to animals living on the prairie.

SPECIAL ACOUSTICS

From the Writing Rock there is a good view across the valley. The present water reservoir is an addition from this century, and may affect and improve acoustics. From the boulder you can clearly hear someone talking on the road a considerable distance to the East across the valley. It is also possible to hear people talking across the valley at Old Fort Ransom at the information sign near the road and to clearly hear cars to the South on the road. One can also hear people talking at the Olson farm and people on horseback across the valley to the Northeast. The rock is (at least now) in a location with special amphitheater acoustics. The pounding of the boulder may have been heard all over the valley.

The sudden banging of a rock may be related to inducing altered states during a vision quest. According to medical researchers a sudden startling loud sound can induce synesthesia and Stage II of altered states of consciousness. At the present time there may be an effect of sound bouncing from the new nearby reservoir. It is also possible however that beavers in the past constructed similar dams along this creek.

The burial mounds on top of Bear’s Den Hill are NNW at the top of the hill. The spring, rock, and mounds are in a very rough general alignment. Old Fort Ransom is directly to the East.

WEATHERING

A petroglyph that looks like a “cents” sign (a “c” with a line through it) in the NE corner is no longer visible except as a darker pigment of lichen on the rock. This suggests that lichen can maintain the shape of a completely eroded petroglyph for some period after the petroglyph itself is gone. This petroglyph has completely eroded since T.H. Lewis visited the site a century ago.

ASTRONOMICAL ALIGNMENTS?

The long straight lines crossing the boulder and ending in oblong Cup marks, generally head towards true North, suggesting a possible awareness of the North Star, or as Jack Steinbring has observed, a possible enhancement of glacial striations. The long lines run towards the farm house. What we would view as a North/South line may also have been perceived as an East /West demarcator by other cultures (much as the ancient Chinese conceptualized a compass as pointing South rather than North).

The long lines are all pink in color, as if the petroglyph maker pounded down to a layer that had a pink color. It is possible that exposed pinkish granite turns whitish grey with age and the lines are more recent or are from the historic period EuroAmericans.

Granite is composed of three components with different weathering rates. The majority of cup marks (also called “pits” or “cupules” in the North American literature) were slightly black in the bottom from lichen growth. Presumably, as water sits in the more protected cups the growing microenvironment is better than the more exposed planar surface that has a greater exposure to heat, blowing debris, and people sitting or resting on the rock.

The rougher texture, color, depth, size, cross sectional shape, historical records and superpositioning are all methods that can be used to infer relative dating of the petroglyphs. Running Deer Rock’s petroglyphs located a short distance up the slope are extremely shallow and in danger of completely eroding from view.

Test results on a comparable piece of weathered pink granite fieldstone using a 24 oz. ballpeen hammer with light blows indicated about 600 blows are needed to get a respectable indentation. If the purpose was to create fine powder for some reason, such as body pigments or a drying medication, the dust would have been a useable powder. The cup is of course lighter in color where the stone has been pulverized since it removes any weathering or patina. A comparison of headstones of granite from 100 years ago in Minneapolis shows similar accumulations of black lichen. Oddly enough the phony marks were the blackest. Perhaps the dust allowed a surface more conducive to lichen growth.

The Writing Rock generally points downhill towards the spring. Similar boulders have been suggested by E. Breck Parkman as being related to rainmaking, fertility and “babymaking” rituals. Some cultures consider the dead to value food and water, and for spirits to be “thirsty” and “hungry.” The Writing Rock is in a rough alignment NNW between the burial mounds and the spring.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE AREA

The land is owned by Virgil and Nadine Olson. Members of the Olson family have found a chopper, hammer stones, and many other stone tools on the property. Artifacts including a spearpoint, stone ax, and a hatchet with a blade have also been found in the course of plowing, gardening, and at the bottom of a posthole.

The site is visited every year by third graders from a local elementary school and is well known to the local community . The mounds on the top of the hill have been visited by a Native American woman praying at the mounds.

It is possible that people from the Old Fort Ransom (as distinguished from the contemporary town of Fort Ransom) added to the cupmarks. Virgil Olson has indicated that in the 1930’s the sand that was blowing in the dustbowl days may have scoured the stone. When he was young , Virgil Olson recalls that the spring would bubble up fresh drinking water. The dam and beavers built the reservoir since that time and the area is now a game refuge.

As a human habitation site, this valley would have offered many advantages. Game animals may have come to the water to drink. There are birds in the game refuge today and presumably the fresh spring water (unpolluted by river mud or animal droppings) would have been attractive. There are berries, tall grass, and relief from the heat of the plains in the valley. It is now partially wooded from the availability of water.

Earlier in this century there was a shooting range below the Writing Rock with a crank style telephone to tell the marksmen how they did. There does not appear to be any bullet damage to the boulder. That telephone might explain what the pole in the early photos of the boulder may have been for. There was also a stone foundation, since filled in, in the area. Cross-section profiles of the petroglyphs clearly demonstrate one phony or natural cupmark, and clearly distinguish the few later chiseled markings. These profiles should provide a baseline for future studies of the rate of erosion of these important petroglyphs. E. Breck Parkman has suggested that cupmarks, which are also found in the far west, are possibly one of the oldest styles of petroglyphs in North America and may date back to the peopling of America.