Alta Meadow grinding (?) rock

[westmatt]

_DSC2378 by Matt Fox, on Flickr

This is near Alta Meadow. I can find no information, but it certainly looks to have been made by the hand of man. Anyone have any further information?

[westmatt]

Also, can anyone help me out with an ID on this:

_DSC3293 by Matt Fox, on Flickr

[Gogd]

At first I thought the flowers were Mountain Pennyroyal, a.k.a. desert mint, however, the leaf structure doesn't match. But if the flowers had a sweet mint candy-like scent, then in fact they are Pennyroyal.

Ed

[westmatt]

Took me a while to find it - Marsh Checkerbloom (Sidalcea ranunculacea).

[Silky Smooth]

You are correct, they are human, native american's for the grinding holes. GDurkee so beautiful described the lives of native americans in the high country one post.

[cgundersen]

WM, I'm not sure this embellishes what Silky added, but in reading I did ages ago, there were similar rocks with similar indentations that were used by native Americans to grind acorns and/or any other hard edible. I've only seen one example in person, so it's good to know that there's another within day-hike reach. Add these examples of prior human inhabitants of the Sierra to the widespread obsidian flakes that one finds and it makes for some fun conjecture about how widely the Sierra was traversed before Europeans invaded. Cameron

[Lenier]

There are thousands of these holes all throughout the Sierra. It's hard to not spot them, especially on exposed granite in the foothills of Sequoia, as well as the GIant Forest.