Hamilton Farm Petroglyphs, also known as Pictured Rocks and Indian Picture Rocks, are a series of ancient petroglyph

Petroglyph

Petroglyphs are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images...

s located U.S. Route 119 southeast of Ringgold, in Monongalia County

Monongalia County, West Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 81,866 people, 33,446 households, and 18,495 families residing in the county. The population density was 227 people per square mile . There were 36,695 housing units at an average density of 102 per square mile...

 of northern West Virginia

West Virginia

West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...

. The rock art

Rock art

Rock art is a term used in archaeology for any human-made markings made on natural stone. They can be divided into:*Petroglyphs - carvings into stone surfaces*Pictographs - rock and cave paintings...

 designs were carved by early Native Americans on sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

.

The Hamilton Farm Petroglyphs and surrounding archaeological site were listed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 in 1974.

Designs
There were 25 designs cataloged, when they were inspected in 1961. These included: include bear tracks, deer tracks, human footprint

Footprint

Footprints are the impressions or images left behind by a person walking. Hoofprints and pawprints are those left by animals with hooves or paws rather than feet, while "shoeprints" is the specific term for prints made by shoes...

s, a snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

 or spiral

Spiral

In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a central point, getting progressively farther away as it revolves around the point.-Spiral or helix:...

, human figures with upraised arms, and a "Spirit Otter

Otter

The Otters are twelve species of semi-aquatic mammals which feed on fish and shellfish, and also other invertebrates, amphibians, birds and small mammals....

." They are within an 18 foot square section of the stone, at an elevation of 1,460 feet.