The Petroglyphs of Track Rock Gap

At Track Rock Gap, in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, six table-sized soapstone boulders carry hundreds of carved or pecked symbols: bird tracks and animal prints, human footprints, circles, crosses and curving lines. The site covers 52 acres, and the Track Rock Gap summary gives the archaeological record. No one knows exactly when the carvings were made or what they meant.

Soapstone is soft, which made it easy to carve and easy to damage. That is why the site is so fragile. Vandals scarred several boulders, damage discovered in March 2021 that may date to the year before, and the Forest Service now lists the site as temporarily closed. For visiting details, see our Track Rock Gap visitor guide.

Archaeologists have proposed dates from the Archaic period, 8000 to 1000 BC, up to the Cherokee, who lived in the area into the 1800s. Dr. Matthew Stephenson wrote the earliest known account in 1834. The ethnographer James Mooney later recorded two Cherokee names for the place: Datsu'nalasgun'ylu, meaning where there are tracks, and Degayelun'ha, the printed or branded place.

Mooney also recorded Cherokee stories about the marks. One says they were left during a great hunt. Another says the animals made the tracks as they left a great canoe after a flood, when the earth was still soft. Those are stories, told by Cherokee people, and they are not an archaeological explanation. We pass them along as stories.

North Carolina has a related site. Judaculla Rock in Cullowhee holds roughly 1,548 carved motifs on one soapstone boulder, and the Cherokee link it to Tsul 'Kalu, the Master of Game, according to Wikipedia. Judaculla Rock is on the National Register of Historic Places and has a viewing platform.

In 2011 an online article claimed the stone walls and terraces near Track Rock Gap were the ruins of a Maya city. The claim got a second life when the television series America Unearthed aired an episode called American Maya Secrets on December 21, 2012. Wikipedia notes the show has been criticized for promoting pseudohistory, in its America Unearthed entry.

Professional archaeologists reject the Maya claim, and the site is understood as the work of Native Americans in the Southeast. Crediting the carvings and the landscape to people from Central America takes the achievements away from the Native peoples who lived here. If a visitor tells you otherwise, you can point to the long archaeological and Cherokee record instead.

Track Rock Gap is about 28 miles and 50 minutes from Helen, on Trackrock Gap Road in Union County. Because the Forest Service lists the carvings as temporarily closed, call the Forest Service before you go. Pair a trip with other mountain stops in the area. Our guide to Native American sites near Helen lists places you can visit without a restriction.