Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History

Hi, I recently discovered this piece while hiking on a trail near Buellton. (I can be more specific about location through private communications if need be). It is an area where I have found arrow heads before but never anything like this. The design on the rock almost appears to be a snake with dots along the edge. It seemed too perfect to be done by nature but I've been wrong many times before so that's why I've come to you for your expert opinion! I brought this rock home just so I could share it with you and if you conclude that it may be an artifact, I have every intention of returning it to its original resting place or to the SY Band of Chumash. 

Curator Response

Hi Dylan,

Thank you for sending us your interesting find. It’s difficult to tell from the picture alone, but the specimen looks like some of the dolomite (a kind of altered sedimentary rock) you find in the Monterey Formation, exposed sporadically along the coastline.

It doesn’t look like a Chumash artifact for a number of reasons. From the perspective of Chumash effigy forms and symbology, the form only loosely looks like a snake. Chumash animal-effigies were typically shaped from a single stone (taking on a uniform pale, shale-color or dark, serpentinite-color throughout). There are some instances of “portable rock art”—stones that Chumash people painted and/or inscribed. But this doesn’t look like that, either. This looks pretty weathered, so if the dark color were painted on, any ochre or charcoal pigment should be flaking off around the edges. What we see instead is the opposite: the color difference appears to be more clearly defined in the spots with the most wear. That suggests that the change in color is due to wearing down the outer, pale material, and the dark spots are probably something embedded in the stone coming to the surface.

What is that something? Is it some other rocks, or a fossil? Nothing recognizable as a fossil jumps out from the photos. We'd have to see it in person to tell whether there is a fossil peeking through. If that interests you, feel free to reach out to Dr. Hoffman at jhoffman@sbnature2.org to set up an appointment.

Stay curious,

Dibblee Curator of Earth Science Jonathan Hoffman, Ph.D.; Associate Curator of Anthropology Justin Lemberg, Ph.D.; and Associate Curator of Anthropology Brian Barbier, M.A.