Newspaper Rock near Monticello, Utah

(9/17)

On our way from Moab to Mesa Verde, we stopped at a petroglyph site called Newspaper Rock, on property of the U. S. Bureau of Land Management.

This rock was naturally covered with "desert varnish," a dark coating secreted by microorganisms that live on the rock surface. Cutting through the desert varnish to the bare rock would produce a nicely contrasting figure. A natural projection above the rock shelters it from rain, so it was an ideal canvas for native inhabitants.

The figures on the rock are attributed to four different cultures, beginning with nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived from 9,000 BC to about 1 AD, and continuing with Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) and Fremont cultures to about 1,300 AD, and then the Ute Indians who probably created the lighter colored hunting scenes during the 1800s.

Some of the figures are difficult to interpret, but others are fairly obvious. Here we see a hunter on a horse shooting an arrow at what may be an elk.

On this part, we see a number of feet, some with 6 toes.

Some of these figures look like flying squirrels and a group of Bighorn Sheep.

Across the middle of this view are four darker figures that appear to be deer. Darker figures are ones on which desert varnish has begun to be redeposited, so they are the older figures, probably drawn by one of the earlier cultures.