Avocational archaeologist yours truly avows to be I had opined in a previous column about the wealth of prehistoric relics awaiting discovery in the backwoods of northwest Montana.
Now wouldn’t you know comes word of a “one of a kind” potpourri of petroglyphs found near Whitefish, some so significant they surpass notable rock art finds of the western U.S. and Canada.
Be forewarned: several of the ancient Whitefish carvings, painstakingly pecked into solid rock using stone chisels and hammerstones, border on X-rated.
Renowned anthropologist James D. Keyser, who has conducted rock art research from Alaska to New Mexico to Italy, reveals that local residents David and Andrea Vissotzky first informed him in 2019 of their remarkable find “close to their home near Whitefish, Montana.”
“The Vissotzky petroglyph site is unique for the region, both in being the only identified concentration of petroglyphs found in Montana west of the Continental Divide and in being pecked into horizontally lying bedrock,” Keyser and his colleague Cameron J. Dimmick write in the latest 2025 Journal of the Montana Archaeological Society (MAS).
Initially visiting the site in late 2019, the two social scientists made plans to record the petroglyphs the following summer, with much-needed funding provided by the Oregon Archaeological Society (Keyser, while educated in Montana, has residences in Portland and Italy) and Sacred Sites Research. Even the acclaimed Italian archaeologist Angelo E. Fossati agreed to travel to Montana to assist the on-site team—that is, until Covid-19 reared its ugly head and disrupted the field work.
“Finally, in June of 2023, we conducted a nine-day project in which a ten-person field crew” descended on the Whitefish site, which “yielded pecked figures of humans, animals, and a few weapons, but by far the most common motif is animal tracks.”
While Keyser’s team is still preparing its final report, the material evidence indicates the Vissotzky petroglyphs—discovered in the vicinity of the Stillwater State Forest—date to the Late Archaic period, between 1,800 and 4,000 years ago.
“Initially, we note that there is no evidence to indicate a Late Prehistoric or Historic period date [since neither] bows and arrows nor guns are depicted, nor are there any motifs—such as V-neck humans, shield-bearing warriors, or horses—that are common” to more recent ages, the report states.
Instead, the local site’s primary subject matter are animal tracks—bear paw prints, ungulate hoofprints (deer, bison/elk, moose, bighorn sheep), rabbit prints, bird tracks, as well as human moccasin prints. Many of the prints are organized into “trackways” that mimic the patterns of the creatures moving through their environments.
The presence of “so many tracks and trackways,” the research pair says, some consisting of both front and rear paw prints, are not only unique to Montana, the 44 “realistic bear tracks” alone set the Vissotzky imagery apart from other significant rock art discoveries in the past.
As for there being bison carvings in these thick forests of northwest Montana?
“While it is quite likely that the Vissotzky artists were familiar with bison tracks from seasonal hunts out onto the plains to the east, elk tracks were much more common in the local area, so it is possible that most of the bison/elk tracks are actually those of elk,” the authors concur.
Human footprints, on the other hand, are easier to distinguish.
“We also identified two trackways as human moccasin prints and a third as human snowshoe tracks,” the pair observes. “One moccasin print trackway is a series of eight moccasin prints leading up to and surrounding a stick-human figure.”
Also, the site reveals “two supernatural therianthropic beings with bear paw feet and humanoid bodies.”
Finally, there is the Whitefish site’s aforementioned “focus on sexual themes.”
“Interestingly, symbolism at the site is notably hyper-sexual,” the anthropologists write, “with images showing copulating freestanding genitalia, women giving birth, males with grossly out-sized [sexual organs], and one man shown with a weaponized penis represented by a projectile point.”
In their acknowledgements, the two scientists thank the Vissotzky family “for bringing the site to our attention. Without their interest and perseverance in getting us interested in recording the site, this rich record of prehistoric life would still be unknown.”
The crew additionally salutes Patrick J. Rennie, archaeologist for the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation who “helped us clear all the bureaucratic hurdles within his agency and the Stillwater State Forest office,” and his wife, Dawn, both of whom participated in the field work.
“My wife was the camp cook,” Rennie explains to me by telephone.
Which means like most every other archaeological site, in this state and elsewhere, the field research is “all voluntary … we paid out of pocket for all the food … the lodging … a lot of personal-time sacrifices,” he says.
Like many others in his chosen profession, Rennie (interestingly enough he received degrees from both Montana State University and the University of Montana) describes his passion for archaeology as a “labor of love.”
If only more elected state officials in Helena shared the same enthusiasm (read support) for Montana’s human history and prehistory. Rennie, in fact, tells me of several significant archaeological sites in Montana that few people will ever see, let alone know about. And that needs to change.
I reached out to Jessica Bush, the state archaeologist for Montana, and she acknowledges “there’s been a decline in interest [with] archaeology in some ways in Montana.
“A lot of times it’s university driven, and in the last decade or so,” she cites as one example, “University of Montana professors haven’t been focusing on Montana archaeology,” choosing instead to work sites in Canada and Wyoming. “I think thats a big part of it.”
Otherwise, Bush reminds me that much of the land in Montana is owned by Uncle Sam, U.S. Forest Service to the Bureau of Land Management, so some existing and potential archaeological sites are “regulated” under the federal National Historic Preservation Act.
“So they [the few feds there are] view the work as they can,” she explains, and ultimately decide whether to pursue further research at a site, and then in consultation with state, local and grassroots cultural interests that can help supply the volunteer manpower.
Hats off to the Vissotzky family for certainly doing their part in support of “public archaeology,” as the Society for American Archaeology prefers to call it.
“Archaeologists frequently look to local residents for historical information, for assistance in the actual excavation of a site, or for research partnerships,” says the society. “Many archaeologists encourage the public to be directly involved in archaeological projects. After all, it is their community and their heritage being studied.”
John McCaslin is a longtime journalist and author who lives in Bigfork.