Bartlett Site

As part of our field trip last weekend we visited a BLM site just off of the DeBinky Wells Road north of Dead Horse Point and Canyonlands near Moab.  This is a fairly well-known site, and you can find directions at this url.  The site is located in an alcove and contains some pretty impressive Barrier Canyon style pictographs.  It's well worth a visit if you are passing by.

DeBinky Wells Road Site

This past weekend Yeongmi and I went on a field trip with URARA down in Moab.  We only caught the first day, but what sights we saw!  My favorite was the very last site of the day, off DeBinky Wells Road, north of Dead Horse Point and the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands.  Dennis DeVore led us to the site and it was amazing.  Since this site is not well known and unvandalized, I am not posting any specific location information and the photos posted have no GPS information attached.

Most of the Panel in DStretch using the LDS filter

URARA 2016 Symposium

I just go back from my first attendance at the Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA) annual symposium.  This year it was held in Delta, Utah.  It was one of the funnest experiences I've had in a long time.

Sheep from Miller Canyon

Nine Mile Canyon

The Pregnant Buffalo

This past weekend I took my first field trip with the Utah Rock Art Research Association (URARA) and got to see some of the rock art at Nine Mile Canyon.  The trip was every bit as spectacular as I had been lead to believe it would be.  The rock art is so extensive there it would take years to see it all, but I did get a good sampling of many of the well-known sites and quite a few of the lesser-known ones as well.

'Winged Monster' Rock Art Finally Deciphered

I woke up to this news at Real Clear Science today. This is pretty cool.

'Winged Monster' Rock Art Finally Deciphered

Black Dragon Canyon is one of my favorite rock art sites. It's named after a winged figure that early rock art aficionados thought they saw and then outlined with chalk.

"I myself visited the site in person a few years ago," said Phil Senter, an associate professor of biology at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, who was not associated with the study. "There's no pterodactyl there at all. It's a collection of other images."

This has been known for quite a while, but the images they were able to tease out of DStretch (see earlier post here) are stunning.

from the article

Familiar Motifs

I visited the U.S. Museum of the American Indian in Washington yesterday morning (April 4, 2015) and ran across this work of art on the third floor that contains lots of the same motifs one finds in Utah rock art.

Rock Art Tour of the Swell

DStretch enhanced photo from Buckhorn Draw August 2014

I took a quick rock art tour of the San Rafael Swell last Saturday with a couple of friends.  We didn't hit any new sites, but revisited Rochester Creek, Moore Cutoff, Short Canyon, Black Dragon Canyon and Buckhorn Draw.

Cave Spring Pictographs

Hnadprints from the Handprint Panel

Cave Spring is located in the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park.  This location is one of the few sources of fresh water in the area and was used both by the native Americans and later by cowboys.  There are two panels here.  The first having a half dozen or so pictographs and some "negative" hand imprints where paint was sprayed on the wall with a hand blocking it.  The seconds has many positive handprints like those shown in the photo above.

Lone Warrior Pictograph

The Lone Warrior

The Lone Warrior pictograph is well-named in that this is the only easily visible piece of rock art at this site.  The style of the figure is unusual and is not easily classifiable as BSC, Fremont, Ute or Ancestral Puebloan.

Courthouse Wash Rock Art

The pictographs at Courthouse Wash are primarily Barrier Canyon Style.  There are also some smaller Fremont and Ancestral Puebloan petroglyphs here.

Sego Canyon Rock Art

Barrier Canyon Pictographs from Site 2

The rock art panels in Sego Canyon (aka Thompson Canyon) are some of the best Barrier Canyon Style art in Utah.  The ratio of impressiveness to difficulty of access is quite high.  There are also some very high quality Fremont figures here too

These rock art panels are easily accessible by car along a paved road.  Exit I-70 at the town of Thompson, exit 187, and drive north through the town and up the canyon for about 4.4 miles.  There is a parking lot on the left-hand side of the road.

Temple Mountain Rock Art Panel

There are several pictograph panels near Temple Mountain on the edge of the San Rafael Swell.  The best known of these is a BCS/Fremont panel within a few hundred feet of the Temple Mountain Road where it cuts through the San Rafael Reef, just before it transitions from a paved to graded road.  This is a popular camping spot, so be prepared to intrude a little if you want to see the pictographs.  If you are camping here, be prepared to be intruded upon.

View Larger Map

The panel is on the cliff face in the center top of this aerial view.

BCS Petroglyph

Most Barrier Canyon Style (BCS) rock art examples are pictographs that have been painted on the rock using a red/orange/pink or white pigment.  The Great Gallery in Horseshoe Canyon, the Buckhorn Draw and Head of Sinbad pictographs are classic examples.

However, I did run into a small example of a BCS petroglyph in Short Canyon.  Petroglyphs were chipped or pecking into the stone using a harder stone as a chisel.  The example below was very faint and only eight or ten inches small.  But is certainly looks BCS to me.

That should be "Great Gallery."

© 2013  Kerk L. Phillips

Escalante Canyon Rock Art

The stretch of the Escalante River between the town of Escalante and the confluence with Death Hollow has at least 3 good rock art panels.  Two of these are petroglyph panels located on cliff faces at bends in the canyon and one is a pictograph panel in a large alcove.  All are on the north side of the river.  The map below shows their approximate location (the second red dot is a bit too far to the right).  All three panels show a heavy Fremont influence.

Approximate Location of the Three Panels

Horseshoe Canyon

Holy Ghost Group at the Great Gallery

Horseshoe Canyon has been called "Louvre of the Southwest."  And for good reason; the Great Gallery there is perhaps the most impressive collection of rock art in the western United States.  Certainly it is the premier site in Utah.

Horseshoe Canyon was originally known as Barrier Canyon, and has given its name to the style of rock art found there.  Barrier Canyon Style (or simply BCS) rock art is found primarily in Utah and is centered in and around the San Rafael Swell and Canyonlands National Park.  However, examples are found in widely scattered locations throughout the state and in western Colorado. As the National Park Service website says, BCS artwork,  "is believed to date to the Late Archaic period, from 2000 BC to AD 500".

Buckhorn Draw

The Buckhorn Draw panel is a well-known example of Barrier Canyon style rock art located in the San Rafael Swell in Emery County.  It is accessible from a well-graded road and is a popular stopping spot for travelers driving through the Swell for sightseeing or recreation.

While the style is primarily Barrior Canyon, there are also many Fremont figures and some of the main figures are clearly Barrier Canyon figures that were overpainted by Fremont artists.  The panel is located in Buckhorn Draw (hence the name) which is a natural route through the Swell.  It has been a widely-used route for millennia and was part of the Old Spanish Trail.  As a result there are many relatively modern markings alongside the native American rock art.  The site was refurbished in the late 1990's as part of Utah's state centennial celebration and the more recent additions are now largely obscured, but still visible.

 Barrier Canyon figures in dark red, overpainted by Fremont figures in yellow.

Short Canyon

Original report - May 17, 2009

The lower of two large rock art panels in Short Canyon

I went on a campout this weekend with the scouts. We had the 12-13 year-old group (the scouts) and the 14-15 year-old group (the varsity scouts) with a total of 16 people.

We drove down Friday night to the Moore cutoff road and stopped at Dry Wash to see the petroglyphs and dinosaur tracks.

Head of Sinbad

Original Report - May 12, 2009

One of the other sites we hit on Saturday was a Barrier Canyon Style panel near the Head of Sinbad right in the middle of the Swell. The interstate passes within a mile or so of the panel, but historically this part of the Swell has not had a lot of traffic. It differs in this regard from the panels in Buckhorn Draw and Black Dragon Canyon which are both located along rather obvious travel routes. As a result, unlike these panels, the small one at the Head of Sinbad is in close to pristine condition. You can even see the brushstrokcs on some of the figures.

Black Dragon Canyon

Original Report - May 11, 2009

The Black Dragon?

 

I took a tour with my two youngest children this past Saturday. The Prehistory Museum at the College of Eastern Utah in Price does a regular series of expeditions through the San Rafael Swell, which they call "Saturday on the Swell". This last Saturday's was headed by Dr. Renee Barlow and focused on Native American rock art in the Swell. We visited 4 sites with the group and one of the most fascinating was the one in Black Dragon Canyon.

Coyote Gulch

Original Report - April 30, 2009

The Central Figures

The pictograph panel in lower Coyote Gulch is located about half a mile downstream from Coyote Natural Bridge. It is located on the north wall of the canyon at the top of a sandy hill. There is a very clear path running up the hill to the panel.
 

I have posted all the photos I took here on Photobucket.