FINDING LOST CIVILIZATIONS This

My father and I and several friends then went to thefishing village of Platanitos to visit the lookout point fromwhere we saw migrating whales. Later, we ate some superbshrimp ceviche and a specially prepared fish in a palapaalongside Platanitos beach. It was a very wonderful and specialday and I was thankful that my father and I shared thesame joys.On the way home I drove to Donicia’s house and sawseveral people sitting in the backyard. Two other men arrivedlater and I introduced myself. After explaining my interestin the archeology of the area, Donicia and his friendManuel agreed to show me some ancient sites the followingday. However, they also volunteered to take me directly toa site a short distance away. I agreed and we drove over toManuel’s home, which is a small adobe and brick houselocated behind the town cemetery. From there we followedan old path up a hill. I saw a large excavation to my leftand learned that this was a very old mine the Spaniards hadexcavated hundreds of years ago. The tunnels, I was told,stretched for several kilometers and once yielded silver. Wecontinued along the trail, traveling to the backside of the hilland then to an elevated pasture atop another hill.There I immediately noticed a large boulder severalhundred feet ahead that had some sort of petroglyph art.Walking toward the boulder, I came upon a tomb excavationand observed tomb markers strewn upon the groundalongside a depression in the earth. Manuel told me someonehad excavated the tomb to a depth of about one footand then stopped. He pointed to another hill where he saidmany tomb markers were still standing in a vertical positionover ancient graves. This information was exciting, as I hadseen many such tomb markers but most were lying on theground, having been either knocked down or moved fromtheir original location. I went to the petroglyph boulder andimmediately noticed a cat-like figure pecked into the stone;Manuel referred to this as a coyote. There was another animalnext to it that I could not discern what it was.Adjacent to these figures were some interconnectingSpirals and lines. These two different petroglyph designswere produced using separate styles. The cat-like figure waspecked into the boulder whereas the Spirals were etchedinto the stone.142