The Lemonweir Glyphs (or

petroglyph 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 ...

s) are a set of carvings by early Native Americans near the

Lemonweir River The Lemonweir River is a river in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is a tributary of the Wisconsin River as the Lemonweir River originates near Tomah in Monroe County and flows into Juneau County through New Lisbon and Mauston before conve ...

Juneau County, Wisconsin Juneau County is a county located in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census, the population was 26,718. Its county seat is Mauston. History Before white settlement, before loggers and explorers, the area that is now Juneau Coun ...

. They were listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1983. Some time before recorded history, people in Wisconsin's

Driftless Area The Driftless Area, also known as Bluff Country and the Paleozoic Plateau, is a topographic and cultural region in the Midwestern United States that comprises southwestern Wisconsin, southeastern Minnesota, northeastern Iowa, and the extreme ...

climbed partway up a bluff above a river and carved marks on a sheltered spot in a

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

wall. Some of the marks are indecipherable, but others depict animals: a fish, a deer or elk, a thunderbird, a heron or crane, a buffalo, a lizard, and a deer or antelope. The largest animal is twelve inches tall. The deepest carvings are nearly a half inch deep and the shallowest are only faintly visible. Some of the images have been damaged by modern initial-cutters. Nearby, more marks are cut into a seven-foot sandstone boulder. The top and one side are cut with various arrangements of vertical, horizontal and diagonal lines - all abstract, with no animals.

References

{{reflist Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin Buildings and structures in Juneau County, Wisconsin Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Wisconsin National Register of Historic Places in Juneau County, Wisconsin