Sugar Grove Petroglyphs
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Sugar Grove Petroglyph Site (36GR5)
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Heavily wooded and on private land, this is a largely obscured view of the area of the site
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| Location | Off Pennsylvania Route 88, 0.7 miles (1.1 km) northwest of its bridge over Whiteley Creek in Monongahela Township |
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| Nearest city | Masontown, Pennsylvania |
| Coordinates | 39°49′36″N 79°57′40″W / 39.82667°N 79.96111°WCoordinates: 39°49′36″N 79°57′40″W / 39.82667°N 79.96111°W |
| Area | 0.1 acres (0.040 ha) |
| NRHP Reference # | 86000476 |
| Added to NRHP | March 20, 1986 |
The Sugar Grove Petroglyphs are a group of petroglyphs in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Located on an outcrop of sandstone in Monongahela Township near the eastern edge of Greene County, the petroglyphs have been known since at least the 1930s. Due to their value as an archaeological site, the petroglyphs have been named a historic site.
It is certain that the Sugar Grove Petroglyphs are the work of a Native American people, although the cultural affiliation of their creators is unknown. Among the cultures that archaeologists have seen as possible creators are the Monongahela or Fort Ancient, both of which are known to have inhabited the upper portions of the Ohio River valley. In his 1974 monograph Rock Art of the Upper Ohio Valley, petroglyph specialist James L. Swauger argued for a Monongahela-related and proto-Shawnee identity of the creators; this conclusion he drew from the presence of carvings that he interpreted as representations of Ojibwe religious subjects. Although the Ojibwe never inhabited southwestern Pennsylvania, Swauger believed that the ancestors of the Shawnee shared these subjects as part of a common cultural heritage.
The petroglyphs were carved into the flat portion of a large outcrop of Dunkard-series sandstone; it rises somewhat more than 4 feet (1.2 m) above the ground on its western side, but its other edges are level with the floor of the surrounding woodland. The petroglyphs are confined to a roughly square area of the stone that measures approximately 23 feet (7.0 m) on each side, although most appear on the eastern side and center of this area.
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