Bob Bray, a research archaeologist at the University of Missouri - Columbia, visited the Three Hills Creek site in the 1960s and left 3 pages of fieldnotes that are archived at UMC; it is from clues in Bray's fieldnotes that I was able to find the property owners and receive permission to visit the site. Carol Diaz-Granados visited the Three Hills Creek site five times during her dissertation research (Diaz-Granados and Duncan 2000: 37) in the 1980s. The petroglyphs at the site are very distinctive to the Mississippian art style dating approximately AD 900 to 1400.
The Three Hills Creek site is situated on private property and it is not open to the public. The Three Hills Creek site belongs to the "Big Five" group defined by Diaz-Granados as comprising Washington State Park A, Washington State Park B, Madden Creek, Wallen Creek, and Three Hills Creek. More images of the site and measurements can be found at my first webpage: https://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/ThreeHillsCreek.html/
Left to right: property owner, Prof. Taylor Keen (Creighton University) and Mike Chervinko.
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Petroglyphs on boulder 1-A at Three Hills Creek. The images are faint; the most prominent is a large pit and groove running down the center of the boulder. A very faint equal arm cross (or quartered circle) is situated to the left of the pit and groove. A bird track is situated near the end of the groove, and a very faint human figure (ball player, birthing woman, splayed figure) is situated immediately to the right of the pit and groove. The bird track and pit-and-groove petroglyphs appear in the drawings of this site published by Diaz-Granados 1993:Illustration 61.3a).
This photograph was taken by Mike Chervinko; the stone was wet from rain, then additional spray water was added to bring out the details.
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Petroglyph on the side of boulder 3-A is interpreted as a birthing woman/spirit being. It measures approximately 10 cm. tall. Rain and water moistened stone; photography by Michael Chervinko.
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Bray, Robert
n.d. Three Hill Creek Site - Bonne Terre - St. Francois County. Manuscript on file at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Missouri - Columbia.
Diaz-Granados, Carol
1993 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri: A Distributional, Stylistic, Contextual, Functional and Temporal Analysis of the State's Rock Graphics. Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of Anthropology, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
Diaz-Granados, Carol and James R. Duncan
2000 The Petroglyphs and Pictographs of Missouri. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
2004 Power, Wealth and Sex in Missouri Rock-Art. in The Rock-Art of Eastern North America. Edited by Carol Diaz-Granados and James R. Duncan. University of Alabama Press, Tuscaloosa.
Wellman, Klaus F.
1979 A Survey of North American Indian Rock Art. Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz.
Open hand petroglyph on boulder 7A. The length from base of palm to middle finger tip is approximately 21 cm and the spread from little finger to thumb is approximately 21 cm. We did not "see' an eye centered in the palm of the hand though 1980 era chalked photograph show a hand tin the palm. Photograph by Mike Chervinko.
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Small boulder (3-B) is situated 1.5 meters from boulder 3-A. It is decorated with three prominent bird tracks that are aligned down the middle of the boulder. Two prominent cupules are situated to the left of the line of bird tracks. A quartered circle measuring 10 x 8 cm is situated to the right of the bird tracks. A second faint petroglyph, a halved circle, is situated 10 cm away from the quartered circle. The faint petroglyph was not recognized during my two previous visits to the site and is not shown on the map in Carol Diaz-Granados' dissertation (2000: Illustration 61.2a, page 642).
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Boulder 1-B includes a tinaja (Spanish, "natural pocket in bedrock that can hold water") with at least five pit and groove petroglyphs positioned so water drains from the pit into the tinaja. The water then drains from the tinaja to the right. The pits and grooves average 12 cm in length and the somewhat shaped tinaja measures approximately 12 by 15 cm. Photograph made after rain and with additional water added to get an overall wetness by Mike Chervinko.
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Quartered circle within a circle emotif that is next to a deep crevice (right) on boulder #3-A. The petroglyph measures 16 cm in diameter. Rainwater and misted tap water helped define the petroglyph.
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Deeply carved bird petroglyph on boulder 1-C measures 17 cm tall with a wingspan of 16 cm. Taylor Keen (Creighton University) examined this petroglyph and identified the curved wings as a thunderbird; I see a slight indentation in the tail that gives it a silhouette like a lark.
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A circle surrounding a quartered circle is situated along the edge of a bedrock ledge designated 1-E. The outer circle measures 18 cm in diameter and in the inner circle measures 12 cm. The + symbol inside the inner circle was not prominent when I took this photograph, but it shows in the drawing of this petroglyph done by Carol Diaz-Granados (2000: illustration 61.3c).
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Three Hills Creek (23WA1702)
2025 field crew at 3 Hills Creek site: Left to right - Mike Chervinko, Taylor Keen, and Michael Fuller.
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