Fremont Indian State Park

Sheep Petroglyphs at Fremont Indian State Park in Utah

Fremont Indian State Park is located alongside I-70 in Sevier County, Utah.  The site was discovered in the 1980's when the interstate was constructed in Clear Creek Canyon.  This site was the largest collection of Fremont houses at a single site ever discovered in the state of Utah.  Sadly, most of these were destroyed in the construction.  However there was a great deal of archeological work done and Fremont Indian State Park was created in 1987 to preserve what was left.

'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.

Colorado River Near Moab

Panel along the Banks of the Colorado downstream from Moab

Last June I had a visitor in town and took him down to Dead Horse State Park and Canyonlands National Park.  We drove back down the Shaffer Trail, past the potash ponds and along the Colorado River.

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.

Provo Canyon Petroglyphs Revisited

This week on Tuesday I hiked back up to the boulder field near Johnson's Hollow in Provo Canyon and revisited some of the petroglyphs there.  I first visited this site in January 2011 and reported on it last August.  I was accompanied by my son, Alan, and my dog, Stretch, the dauchshund.  We saw several petroglyphs I have have seen there before.  And we found a new boulder I had not seen before.

The "new" boulder

This new boulder is further east and uphill of where I have looked before.  I suspect there are a great many more in this area one could find with a little time and patience.

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.