Judaculla Rock is no ordinary stone. It is, in fact, a stone with a story. Consider the rock's size. It is more boulder than rock as it emerges from the ground on a slant. Shaped something like a giant fan, it is relatively flat on one side, but deep and gray down the edges.And like most rocky things in this region, it is millions of years old. But Judaculla has something else: markings, scribbling and dribbling, spidery lines, known as glyphs in the archaeological world, that were put there perhaps 10,000 years ago. As it sits now on the edge of James Parker's pasture, protected by Jackson County, a fence and a creek, Judaculla Rock is a mystery wrapped in mythology and shelled over with stories. Scott Ashcraft, staff archaeologist for the U.S. Forest Service in Asheville, has been studying and photographing the rock for several years now, collecting its history and taking down notes on the thing. He is the resident expert on the rock, but he wouldn't call himself that if you asked him. He and other volunteers in the state are tracking such phenomena in the North Carolina Rock Art study. It is a serious review with serious folks behind it, such as Ashcraft, the North Carolina Office of Archaeology, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians' Department of Cultural Resources and the North Carolina Archaeological Society, along with numerous western North Carolina colleges and volunteers.

When the study began in 1998, only about seven such rocks were known. Today, the study has pinpointed more than 50, and the list is growing, especially along the Tennessee-North Carolina border. Ashcraft calls them rock art "clusters."


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