9 Surprisingly Ancient Marvels in Modern California: 50 States of Wonder - Atlas Obscura

50 States of Wonder
9 Surprisingly Ancient Marvels in Modern California

Long before California was home to tech campuses, freeways, and palm trees, Native inhabitants etched huge designs into the landscape. Even before that, at roughly the same time that the Pyramids of Giza were under construction, a tree that still survives today began taking root. And even farther into the past, glaciers and mammoths created enduring monuments to antiquity. Across the state, the distant past is still within easy reach.

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Sheep frolic upon the stones, as they have for centuries. US Navy/Public Domain
Petroglyphs

1. Coso Rock Art District

The Coso Mountain Range is a vast desertscape boasting some of the oldest and most plentiful examples of Native American rock art in the Western Hemisphere. Inhabited by indigenous peoples beginning 13,500 years ago, this 90-square-mile area, now part of the Naval Air Weapons Station at China Lake, is most famously characterized by its abundance of ancient petroglyphs. As many as 100,000 portrayals of bighorn sheep, reptiles, humans, and other symbols are scratched or ground into the basalt rock face. The Maturango Museum, dedicated to the history and environment of the Northern Mojave desert, offers tours of the art-packed Little Petroglyph Canyon in the spring and fall (when public health conditions allow), providing that guests fill out an application with the Department of the Navy at least 25 days in advance. (Read more.)

100 E Las Flores Ave, Ridgecrest, CA 93555

Perhaps this is Methuselah? Chao Yen/CC BY-ND 2.0
Natural Wonder

2. Methuselah Tree

An ancient Great Basin bristlecone pine, the Methuselah Tree grows high in the White Mountains of eastern California. At roughly 4,800 years old, the tree is much older than its Biblical namesake, who is said to have lived for a comparatively measly 969 years.

The tree likely germinated around 2832 B.C., making Methuselah one of the oldest known living trees and non-clonal organisms in the entire world, even older than the pyramids in Egypt. It's not quite as senior as Prometheus, another bristlecone in Nevada that made it to 4,862 years before it was accidentally maimed and ultimately cut down in 1964 when a researcher set out to study its growth rings. Methuselah's precise location is kept secret to protect it from the same fate. (A smart choice, considering that an arsonist attacked the visitor center and several trees in 2008.)  Nevertheless, visitors can hike through the grove that contains Methuselah and hundreds of other ancient trees. (Read more.

White Mountain Rd, Big Pine, CA 93514

The museum grounds are stunning, even if you can't currently go inside. Catchpenny/CC by-ND 2.0
Museum

3. Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum

The largest collection of mummies and Egyptian artifacts on the West Coast is tucked into a residential area of San Jose, across the street from a middle school. It's the work of the mystical Rosicrucian Order, whose history dates back to the early 1600s.

With beliefs centering around a complicated philosophy combining elements of alchemy, Qabalistic thought, theosophy, and the occult, branches of the order sprang up across the world in the 1800s and early 1900s. One such society, the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, assembled the collection between 1915 and 1927. While the order established the museum in the 1920s, the jaw-dropping Museum building, inspired by the Temple of Amun at Karnak, opened in 1966. 

The museum houses 4,000 artifacts and four human mummies under glass, not to mention mummies of cats, sharks, and baboons. While the museum itself is shuttered due to coronavirus, the surrounding outbuildings and Egyptian-revival park are open-air art themselves. (Read more.

1342 Naglee Ave, San Jose, CA 95126

Too bad there aren't still mammoths around. elainegreycats/CC BY-SA 2.0
Natural Wonder

4. Mammoth Rubbing Rocks

The atypically smooth, shiny patches on these blueschist rocks in Sonoma County all fall between 10 and 14 feet above ground. That's the approximate shoulder height for an adult Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi).

The buffed spots on these stones are too methodical to be the result of natural forces, and they feature the same tiny gravel scratches as modern African elephant rubbing rocks. As a result, scientists have concluded that this area was once mammoth territory. Like modern-day elephants and bison, the mammoths groomed themselves by covering their bodies in mud and then scratching it away by rubbing against the massive boulders. These days, the boulders are more popular with climbers than pachyderms. (Read more.

Duncans Mills, CA 95430

Birds have a great vantage point for appreciating the sprawling figures. Rsfinlayson/CC by-SA 4.0
Geoglyphs

5. Blythe Intaglios

Gigantic figures drawn on the ground’s surface loom on two low mesas about 15 miles north of Blythe, California. The Blythe Intaglios are somewhere between 450 and 2,000 years old, depict three humans, two animals, and a spiral, and are believed to have been made by the Mohave and Quechan peoples. The palette of these “drawings” is the earth itself. The artists scraped away at the dark desert ground to expose the lighter soil underneath.

With the largest human figure coming in at 171 feet long, the images are difficult to see from ground level and are best viewed from a helicopter. Which begs the question: If the figures are mainly visible from the air, how did the the Mohave and Quechan plot them out? (Read more.

 

California Highway 95, Blythe, CA 92225

The largest petrified trees in the world, preserved together in an eternal forest. Sarah Stierch/CC BY 4.0
Natural Wonder

6. Calistoga Petrified Forest

The same turbulent forces that heat the waters of Calistoga’s famous hot springs and geysers once turned a forest to stone. Three-and-a-half million years ago, an ancient volcano knocked down and buried a forest, including a grove of enormous redwoods. Their grey stone effigies were uncovered in 1857 and excavated over the following decades.

Petrified forests have been found all over the world, but the forest in Calistoga is remarkable for the sheer size of the enormous redwoods preserved: They are among the largest petrified trees found anywhere. Today, a half-mile trail wanders though the woodland with signs and markers indicating specific trees, some of which are only partly excavated. (Read more.

4100 Petrified Forest Rd, Calistoga, CA 94515

A glimpse through the smooth stones. kallahar/CC BY 3.0
Natural Wonder

7. Fossil Falls

There's no longer any rushing water at Fossil Falls, although this incredible geographical landmark is enhanced by imagining how the series of enormous waterfalls once plummeted down the breathtaking rock formations. 

Volcanic flow nearly 20,000 years ago left fields of volcanic rock in what is now the Inyo Desert. When glaciers from the Sierra Nevada Mountain range melted after the last ice age, they formed rivers and lakes of runoff. This runoff eroded the basaltic volcanic rock, leaving rounded forms behind. The rock formations are smooth, twisted, and black, and descend into steep cliffs—evidence of the power of the ancient water. (Read more.

Olancha, CA 93549

The cave's paintings are so vibrant, it seems like they were put there yesterday. 4nitsirk/CC BY-SA 2.0
Art

8. Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park

Hidden along a narrow, steep, and windy road is a tiny piece of Chumash history preserved forever. The state park is small, but warrants a closer look. Peek through the bars blocking the entrance to this cave, and you’ll discover striking traces of the past.

On the rock walls, colorful symbols made long before European settlement are a bright contrast against the pale sandstone. Though the meaning of the images is unknown, the artwork is believed to relate to Chumash cosmology. The age of the rock art is murky, too. According to some estimates, it may be upwards of 1,000 years old. (Read more.

CA-154, Santa Barbara, CA 93105

The museum's newer exhibit about race is called "Race: Are We So Different?" Josh Lake
Museum

9. San Diego Museum of Man

The inauguration of the Panama Canal was a very big to-do in 1915, and one of the attractions of the related Panama–California Exposition was the opening of an exhibit for what would become the San Diego Museum of Man. That exhibit, called “The Story of Man Through the Ages,” was an anthropological dive into one of the dominant narratives of the time—that race was biological, and that different groups of people slotted into different places in a racial hierarchy. The museum has shifted course, and now features an exhibit that challenges that whole premise, and emphasizes race as a social construct, instead of a biological one. 

Besides housing several interesting and unique temporary exhibits with subjects that cover everything from 10,000 years of beer-brewing history to cannibalism, the museum is known for its impressive collection of Ancient Egyptian cultural resources, among the most extensive in the U.S. (Read more.

1350 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101

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Honestly, the tallest building in the state is still a little dinky, compared to skyscrapers elsewhere.

6 Huge Things in Tiny Rhode Island

The smallest state in America is often the butt of jokes. Rhode Island is neither a road nor an island, and it was once famously parodied in the now-defunct website “How Many Rhode Islands”—a simple tool that allowed you to see just how many Rhode Islands could squeeze inside a given country. The United States could contain 3,066 Rhode Islands, and Russia could hold 5,445. But the tiny state has a rather grand history. Rhode Island was founded on the principle of religious freedom, was the first of the Thirteen Colonies to renounce its allegiance to the British Crown, and was one of only two states not to ratify the 18th Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Many of the state’s attractions still loom large, including a 58-foot-long blue fiberglass termite and an improbably large blue bear slumped under a lampshade.

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Forbidden Caverns, ready for its closeup.

7 Underground Thrills Only Found in Tennessee

Famous for country music and hot chicken, Tennessee is also filled with natural wonders. Across the state, caverns beckon. Venturing into some of Tennessee's strangest subterranean haunts is a great way to experience the depths of the state's spell-binding charm.

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Watch out for any chimp-gator hybrids lurking in the tea-colored water of Honey Island Swamp.

Sink Into 7 of Louisiana's Swampiest Secrets

Louisiana has long had a complex relationship with the wet world. Chitimacha, Choctaw, and Atakapa peoples built communities among the knobby knees of bald cypress trees; French fur traders and pirates eventually made their own marks. Later still, modern engineers attempted to corral waters with levees and dams, or to reclaim land where there had been none. Across the 50,000-odd square miles that make up the state, troves of special places are becoming concealed by rising water. Here are seven places water has revealed or covered up.

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Diego Rivera's mural sprawls across a light-flooded room in the Detroit Institute of Arts.

7 Mechanical Marvels in Michigan

Michigan is famous for its steep, sweeping sand dunes, freckling of lakes, and unique fossils—but across the state, you'll find slews of automated wonders, past and present. From old animatronic toys to the ruins of early assembly lines, here are seven places to be dazzled by industry.

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Who doesn't love an old tree?

11 Wholesome Spots in Nevada

Here at Atlas Obscura, we have a fondness for the forbidden, a hunger for the hidden, a gusto for the grim. (You get the point.) But it wouldn’t be so intrepid to simply highlight Nevada’s underbelly, would it? There’s more to the state than extraterrestrial-themed brothels and nuclear bomb test sites. Kids and grandparents might enjoy enormous Ferris wheels, unusual geysers, or pristine parklands. Even Nevada—home to Sin City—has a family-friendly side.

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All aboard for a plate of pancakes.

7 Places to Glimpse Maine's Rich Railroad History

Maine is widely known for its mottled red crustaceans and stony-faced lighthouses, as well as bucolic towns and the top-notch hiking outside of them. But before all that, Maine was all about one thing: trains. As America industrialized in the 19th century, there was an insatiable demand to build and a hunger for lumber. Maine had plenty of it, and the state’s rivers became swollen with the fallen bodies of pine and spruce, much of which was hauled by rail. Trains did the heavy lifting to coastal hubs including Bangor and Ellsworth, and by 1924, there was enough railroad mileage in Maine to get from London’s King's Cross station to Mosul, Iraq. Over the years, some of the old cars were fashioned into eateries, but many were simply abandoned in the woods. Now, relics of Maine’s railroad history are scattered in museums, restaurants, and more.

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At Glacier Gardens, the tree canopies are flowers in bloom.

11 Places Where Alaska Bursts Into Color

Picture Alaska. You might see in your mind's eye the granite and stark white snowcaps of Denali National Park, or the dark seas that surround 6,000-plus miles of coastline, or the muted olive of its tundra in the summer. But as anyone who's been there knows, the country's largest, most sparsely populated state can absolutely burst with color, from the luminous green of the Northern Lights, to the deep aqua of its glaciers, to the flourish of wildflowers fed by its long summer days. Here are some places to see the full spectrum of The Last Frontier.

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Workers assess the exterior of the Washington Monument after an earthquake in 2011.

9 Places in D.C. That You're Probably Never Allowed to Go

The District of Columbia is home to a number of places that you need to flash the right ID to access. From restricted rooftops to government storage facilities and underground tunnels, the city is filled with places that are off-limits to the average visitor. What’s more, many of them are hidden within popular tourist destinations and densely populated neighborhoods—so you might catch a glimpse of them, but never get any closer. These are a few of our favorite restricted spots in D.C., and the stories behind them.

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