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ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS
The desert country of our American Southwest is home to the greatest concentration of National Parks and Monuments in the United States. In addition there are sites managed by each state park system and numerous sites under the care of the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. Many who visit this region plan their trips expecting to see spectacular landscapes preserved for their scenic value. Few leave disappointed but most return home enchanted, not only by the scenery but also by the human history of the ancient peoples who first inhabited this country.
Archaeologists have identified many different peoples in the southwest's Formative Period, including the Ancestral Pueblo, (often called the Anasazi), Mogollon, Hohokam, Fremont, Sinagua, Salado and Cohonina. Scientists, after more than a century of research, strongly believe these peoples' ancestors arrived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. After 1500 B.C., following the introduction of the Mesoamerican knowledge of agriculture, these people gradually adopted the sedentary lifestyle of farmers. This in turn led to the building of permanent structures grouped in towns and villages. Then apparently, for reasons not clearly understood, they left them and migrated to other locations. Oral history and ceremonial tradition of contemporary Puebloans have led to the belief that some settled around Arizona's Hopi Mesas, some in the Zuni-Cibola region of New Mexico and still others along the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico.
For many visitors to the American Southwest, one of the most exciting moments occurs when one comes face to face with a panel of rock markings, executed by a people we know little of, for reasons we do not fully comprehend. Are these figures and patterns messages to be read? Are they supplications to the gods, clan symbols or prehistoric graffiti?
Rock markings are generally defined as being one of two types: petroglyphs, designs pecked into a rock surface using a harder stone; and pictographs, literally, rock painting. Pictographs were executed with paints derived either from mineral or vegetable sources. These paints were either daubed on using the fingers, painted on using brushes made of yucca fibers, or blown through a hollow reed around the hand which was held against the stone surface. Handprints are very common in this style.
Significant research has resulted in the identification of numerous regional styles, common design motifs and even relative ages for certain panels. Yet, for all we know of this subject, the most compelling questions remain unanswered: Why was this work created, who was meant to see it, and for what purpose? While answers to these questions may ultimately be found, for many visitors and observers it is the mystery of the unknown that is perhaps most appealing.
Despite the apparent permanence of designs pecked in stone, they are in fact very fragile and visitors are asked not to touch them in any way. Many of these sites are considered sacred by the contemporary Pueblo and Hopi peoples, descendants of the original artists.
Screen Saver Photography provided by: Frank Balthis, Jeff Nicholas, and Jim Wilson.
