Primitive cave drawings and pictographs can be found in Black Hills. The drawings may have been the work of Asiatic wanderers who roamed the Hills 10,000 years ago. Other pictographs could be less than 150 years old-the art of Plains Indians in the 1800s.

    Most drawings on the stone walls of the Black Hills are of deer, buffalo, and antelope. There are also occasional human figures and hard-to-decipher symbols. The most puzzling pictograph in the Black Hills is the so called "Coronado Map." Located in Red Canyon north of Edgemont, this three foot by five foot map-like drawing was thought by some connected with the Spanish explorer and his search for a fabled city of gold. That theory was dismissed by the University of South Dakota's W.H. Over's research uncovered dozens of pictograph sites across the state, and Over hesitates to guess at meanings for the drawings.

    Another unusual group of pictographs are found at Ludlow Cave, 80 miles north of the Black Hills. General Custer found and named the site in 1874. Custer's Indian Scouts attached great spiritual importance to this cave, saying that wild animals appeared there in a transformed state. This may have been referenced to drawings of antelope and buffalo found on the cave's walls. Custer also found a group of drawings that greatly puzzled him. "I cannot account for the drawings of ships," he wrote in a letter to his wife.

    Many Indian relics were found in Ludlow's cave as might be expected. But unexpected was the discovery of a human skull pierced by a bullet, an old flintlock pistol, and a gold ring with the initials "A. L." These finds perplexed members of the expedition, who thought of themselves as the first white explorers of the area.

    Indian scouts told of a legend connected with Ludlow Cave. They believed that from time to time and old man with a long white beard appeared at the cave. This man, according to tradition, had been seen through the generations and was "...without beginning of days or end of years."

10/01/03