Grimes Point, in

Churchill County, Nevada Churchill County is a county in the western U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,516. Its county seat is Fallon. Named for Mexican–American War hero brevet Brigadier General Sylvester Churchill, the county wa ...

near Fallon, is a

archeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

that was listed on the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1972. It was listed for its potential to yield future information. Along the 'Grimes Point Trail', many

petroglyphs A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

can be seen. The land is managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Archaeology

A small rock shelter on Grimes Point was discovered in 1939 by guano-miners; Georgia Wheeler recorded the site as 1-1C (Cave no. 16) and named it ''Grimes Burial Shelter''. The location is to the east of Fallon, Nevada, and just to the south of the Spirit Cave, where the

Spirit Cave mummy The Spirit Cave mummy is the oldest human mummy found in North America. It was discovered in 1940 in Spirit Cave, east of Fallon, Nevada, United States, by the husband-and-wife archaeological team of Sydney and Georgia Wheeler. He was said to b ...

was recovered. The matting discovered at Grimes Point was later recognized as 'the diamond plaiting type', which is a unique weave. It was dated in 1995, to 9,470 years old.

Human remains

Associated were the well-preserved remains of a child, about ten years old, and small fragments of an older individual. Richard Jantz and Douglas Owsley conducted further research on these remains.

Archaeological complex

The Grimes Point site is a part of a much larger archaeological complex, which includes a wide variety of materials, caves, shelters, and other archaeological sites. The site is located on what was once a shoreline of

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

Lake Lahontan Lake Lahontan was a large endorheic Pleistocene lake of modern northwestern Nevada that extended into northeastern California and southern Oregon. The area of the former lake is a large portion of the Great Basin that borders the Sacramento Rive ...

and is best known for the cupules, which are small pits dug out of the rock surface and found on hundreds of boulders in the area. This site was the primary locality used by archaeologists Robert Heizer and Martin Baumhoff to define the "Pit and Groove Style" of rock art, which is thought by many to be the oldest type of rock art found in Nevada. It does share certain characteristics with other Great Basin rock art known to be of great antiquity called Great Basin Carved Abstract. Specifically, the depth of engraving and the width of the engraved lines are much greater than other rock art types that appear to be of more recent manufacture, a characteristic also noted elsewhere. Archaeologist Karen Nissen included Grimes Point in her analyses of rock art sites in western Nevada and concluded that rock art was generally associated with hunting locales, an idea popular at that time but somewhat less so today. The site is located off U.S. 50 east of Fallon and open to the public year-round.

Gallery

File:GrimesPoint2.jpeg, The ancient shoreline,

bench (geology) In geomorphology, geography and geology, a bench or benchland is a long, relatively narrow strip of relatively level or gently inclined land that is bounded by distinctly steeper slopes above and below it. Benches can be of different origins and c ...

wave-cut platform A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by erosion. Wave-cut platforms are often most ob ...

, of

may be seen in the background File:GrimesPoint3.jpeg, Petroglyphs at Grimes Point, Nevada

References

{{Pre-Columbian North America Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Nevada National Register of Historic Places in Churchill County, Nevada Oldest human remains in the Americas