Santa Barbara County and the Channel Islands are host to a variety of spiritually and ritually significant sites for the Chumash people, whose traditional homeland spread for many miles along the coast of California between San Luis Obispo and Ventura. The earliest traces of the Chumash go back some 10,000 years, but archaeologists reckon that their “golden age” or Late Period began around 500 C.E. and ended shortly after 1800.
Painted Cave lies near the summit of San Marcos Pass, some twelve miles from Santa Barbara (known as Syukhtun to the Chumash). It is in the coastal mountain range, at 2,600 ft. elevation. The cave, measuring some 22ft. deep by 8ft. in width, is elaborately covered with rock art (called “pictographs”), examples of which are shown below. More information on the cave and its art is available at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, which has a highly informative series of Web pages on Chumash Indian life, the Painted Cave in particular.
Learn More About the Painted Caves