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This is the best book I've come across about the petroglyphs and other history of South Mountain. Does anyone know how to reach the author or photographer? Todd Bostwick and Peter Krocek. They have very little online presence. I found a pretty nice panel I think they may have missed, impressive enough I figure they would have featured it in the book, but that's all I have to base my assumption on.

@overthehillsfaraway
Linked-In says Todd Bostwick is now Director of Archaeology at Verde Valley Archaeology Center. An expert on South Mountain petroglyphs who is still very active is Aaron Wright at Southwest Archaeology. You may be able to find his email address.

But I also suggest you post your interesting petroglyph pictures on HAZ as part of a hiking photoset. There is a fair amount of experience lurking out there. ;-)

Hansenaz wrote: ↑Feb 06 2026 2:10 pm @overthehillsfaraway
Linked-In says Todd Bostwick is now Director of Archaeology at Verde Valley Archaeology Center. An expert on South Mountain petroglyphs who is still very active is Aaron Wright at Southwest Archaeology. You may be able to find his email address.

But I also suggest you post your interesting petroglyph pictures on HAZ as part of a hiking photoset. There is a fair amount of experience lurking out there. ;-)

My best petroglyph pics from South Mountain were taken in an off-trail location. Will I be apprehended for posting them? There are a couple big panels alongside a rocky drainage.

@big_load
Well, we're over two years since you last posted, so I'd expect hikebot to give you a pass.

Mission accomplished! My pictures aren't great, but it was a big site and some of the glyphs are different than any I've seen before.

@Hansenaz
I've found about 700 of them at South Mountain so far. Landscape of the Spirits features around 240 panels with a hand drawn, numbered figure. I've found around 130 of them. The one I found the other day didn't match any of them which I found strange given every other panel of that quality I've seen has been one of the figures so I'm wondering if they didn't come across it. I also found a stacked rock wall nearby which is unusual for SoMo. They are about 300ft up from the base, fairly high up relatively speaking. I know a guy who showed me a really nice, huge crane glyph he found, he contacted the photographer once long ago and confirmed they hadn't found it. I just posted a photo of it in the photosets but I'm not sure how to put a link in here to it

@big_load
I've only heard of these petros in stories, and I'm only holding these pictures for a friend. No, I don't even know his name.

@Hansenaz
I did try LinkedIn once and I recall I found some way to try contacting him I think but never heard back.
I found a mistake in the book where one of the figures says it's in box canyon but it's really in beverly. Also noticed a couple places they renamed a locality and forgot to change it everywhere, confused me for a little bit

@overthehillsfaraway
Probably best to try reach him through Verde Valley Archaeology Center...that's a real place. My point about posting them is that if they really are "cool and unknown" you'll get some validation and support. If they're known you might find out.

@overthehillsfaraway
copy and paste the URL [ photo ]

@wallyfrack
Attempt 1

[ photoset ]

I don't see it on the homepage anymore.
Forgot to mention I discovered some patterned pottery sherds at the base of the mountain nearby this area too, maybe a half mile away plus the vert

@overthehillsfaraway
That is a nice one. Image search finds only your Facebook post so its certainly not "internet popular" and possibly internet unknown. (BTW I put up a YT video on image searching petroglyphs last year [ youtube video ] , though I don't claim any expertise). I tag @Petrophile to give an opinion since he's at the top of the list for local knowledge.

I'm not a Facebook user but I've heard that the Facebook petroglyph people are very active so maybe you're already asking all the people in the know. If you haven't reached Aaron Wright though you should try to. His 2011 PhD thesis is downloadable: HOHOKAM ROCK ART, RITUAL PRACTICE, AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATION IN THE PHOENIX BASIN is over 1200 pages long, and it's all about South Mountain. Of course he doesn't show a picture/drawing of every glyph but he tabulates all (?) of them. He's been doing a lot of different stuff since then but he continues to have South Mountain "interest". I see he gave a presentation last month to the Phoenix Chapter of the AAS "Hohokam Petroglyphs, Mountain Ritualism, and Social Transformation in the Salt River Valley". This email address is listed in the AAS monthly publication "The Petroglyph" aaronwright1@hotmail.com.

@Hansenaz
Ahh as I was looking that up, I saw he is also the author of Religion On The Rocks which I do own. That has very detailed maps but of only 3 localities of south mountain. I also have no idea what he was tagging, I have to assume artifacts and sherds and maybe more because he has way more flags than I see anything for when I get there. I overlaid the Beverly canyon area map onto my Google earth project and investigated some of the extra dots he had and didn't find anything of interest there. I'll go look for that thesis though and see if I can find it. Thanks!!

@overthehillsfaraway
I haven't spent much time chasing the SM petroglyphs but one area I've spent a lot of time on is the lower Gila River. Turns out Aaron Wright is the expert there as well. Busy, productive guy!

@Hansenaz
I found his thesis and even found the figure of the same petro, listed as AZ T:12:339.4A. I can tell he listed them east to west and by area, gives me lots of targets to go look for!

@overthehillsfaraway
Excellent...I see it pg 768. I had done a quick scan and didn't find this match to your picture. I'm sure there are plenty of clues in that for the South Mountain glyph hunter!
My (pure) guess is it's pretty darn hard to find anything that hasn't been cataloged by archaeologists. I think the professionals have access to big databases where it's all collected.

@overthehillsfaraway
One more thing. I was curious if Google Lens could find a photograph (or your photograph) from his line drawing. The answer seems to be no but it did find this: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.archaeologysouthwest.org/pd ... _sheet.pdf (yeah that link...seems to work for me). I had to stare at it for a while to see that the spiral part is in the background at top left and the three bighorns are bottom right of first page. So apparently this glyph sticks in someone's imagination at Arch.SW - maybe AW's.

@Hansenaz
That is interesting! Good eye on your part and the image search.
I spent a few hrs skimming that thesis and overlaying maps and took my 7th or 8th shot at the 32nd street area and hit a jackpot I was looking for the last few weeks. Success!

@overthehillsfaraway
Well, the image search found it. I just had to look at it longe enough to see why!

It turns out my Landscape of the Spirits book also had found the glyph. They mislabeled it to the 24th street locality which is why I didn't find it when I checked all of their 32nd street drawings. I've found about 100 glyphs in the 32nd street area by now and I'm still missing at least 6 or 7 featured in the book. Such a wild area