Las Tinajas de Los Indios, or "Indian Tanks", are

tinaja Tinaja is a term originating in Spain (Spanish for clay jar) and used in the American Southwest for surface pockets (depressions) formed in bedrock that occur below waterfalls, are carved out by spring flow or seepage, or are caused by sand and gra ...

s located in the

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

heights of the Point of Rocks on the north side of

Antelope Valley The Antelope Valley is located in northern Los Angeles County, California, and the southeast portion of Kern County, California, and constitutes the western tip of the Mojave Desert. It is situated between the Tehachapi, Sierra Pelona, and the ...

Kern County Kern County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 909,235. Its county seat is Bakersfield. Kern County comprises the Bakersfield, California, Metropolitan statistical area. The county sp ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

.Frank F. Latta, ''El Camino Viejo á Los Angeles - The Oldest Road of the San Joaquin Valley''; Bear State Books, Exeter, 2006, pp. 10-11; Reprint of the 1936 work by Frank F. Latta, of an address he delivered before the Kern County Historical Society, February 20, 1933, and published by it as its second annual publication, in 1936.

History

''Las Tinajas de Los Indios'' (The Jars of the Indians), later called "Indian Tanks", was as its name suggests, the site of an Indian encampment. The tops of the Point of Rocks, sandstone rock formations, have ''tinajas'', (''jars'' in Spanish), natural basins that acted as reservoirs or cisterns to hold the water that collected during the winter rains and held it throughout the summer. These tinajas bear evidence of having been improved by the Indians. Deeply worn steps have been cut into the rock leading down to the water. Indian mortars, rock writings, and other evidence have been found about the rocks that show this was a prehistoric encampment. Later it was a watering place on

El Camino Viejo El Camino Viejo a Los Ángeles ( en, the Old Road to Los Angeles), also known as El Camino Viejo and the Old Los Angeles Trail, was the oldest north-south trail in the interior of Spanish colonial Las Californias (1769–1822) and Mexican Alta Cali ...

, between Aquaja de la Brea to the north and seven miles from ''Corral de Matarano'' at Arroyo de Matarano to the south.

References

Landforms of Kern County, California Geography of the San Joaquin Valley El Camino Viejo {{KernCountyCA-geo-stub