Native American Art

[BearBio]

Besides Biology and Firearms, one of our (Mrs and I) great interests is history, primarily Irish and American (because of a Native American and Celtic history on my mother's side).

So, this last weekend, we went camping and to see some NA rock art. Now, we've seen rock art all over the western U.S but this was some of the best we've seen. It was at Horse Thief Lake and is by tour arrangement only (limited to 10 people):

This is very well known and is called :She Who Watches":


This is a NA burial area:


[A hunter with an atlatl:
URL=http://s1128.photobucket.com/user/BearBio/media/Petroglyphs%20-%20hunter%20with%20adeladel_zpsqzkdoxff.jpg.html]

[/URL]



An "enlightened" man (maybe a youth) after undergoing a rite of passage:



An elk:


An osprey with a fish:


An owl:


Stone for sharpening atlatls:


Another owl from another period:

 

[turbo111]

How do we know this wasn't done last year?

 

[BearBio]

How do we know this wasn't done last year?

Because the spelling is correct!

 

[Kevin]

Nice pictures, My parents are members of the Utah Rock Art Association. I think they are going up there for a meeting next month again. Rock Art is one of their hobbies.

I didn't know there are any sites up in Washington state. Thanks for sharing.

 

[BearBio]

Nice pictures, My parents are members of the Utah Rock Art Association. I think they are going up there for a meeting next month again. Rock Art is one of their hobbies.

I didn't know there are any sites up in Washington state. Thanks for sharing.

Just about EVERY rock. Some of the sites no longer accessible: The basalt cliffs at Vantage, Washington. Thousands (appx 5000) inundated by the Columbia River as the waters rose. Now a few are accessible only by boat.

Elephant Island just above Rock island Dam==now submerged by the dam. About 5 acres of extensive rock art. When the dam was built many (thousands?) were taken for garden art in the area.

According to the rest area at Wells Dam, approximately 200 sites were inundated when the dam was created.


" From the State Parks website:

"More than 160 rock art sites have been found in this lower Columbia area, with nearly 90 of them being along the Columbia River between The Dalles and Pasco, with other large concentrations along the middle and lower Deschutes River, and scattered sites in the Yakima and John Day river drainages."

 

[LGC42]

I know they weren't done last year. I saw them in the 50s. I've been there many times since. The Columbia River Gorge is a beautiful place.

 

[bogus bill]

We live in SW Utah. There is a pretty good site about 15 miles from us at Parawan Gap.
http://thetrekplanner.com/adventure/parowan-gap/
It seems to me that no one really knows how to interpret them. Some might claim to but I could come up with some serious sounding gibberish too. There are about 4 or 5 site`s around here that I know of.

 

[WendyZXZ]

Those are some very nice pictures!

 

[BearBio]

We live in SW Utah. There is a pretty good site about 15 miles from us at Parawan Gap.
http://thetrekplanner.com/adventure/parowan-gap/
It seems to me that no one really knows how to interpret them. Some might claim to but I could come up with some serious sounding gibberish too. There are about 4 or 5 site`s around here that I know of.

I know. They (wife) had a NA interpreter but he's giving his tribal interpretation and they may not even be the same tribe. It may correspond to me reading Russian.

 

[pete44ru]

.

Here's some Navajo Native American art, that also wasn't done yesterday.

.

 

[BearBio]

And now, back to the scheduled subject matter................

 

[onehandgunner]

One of the ways you can tell it was not done yesterday, it was not done with a spray can. My daughter graduated from the Univ. of New Mexico last month with a degree in History and strong back ground in Southwest Native American History and Culture. So needless to say I have made "several" visits to pueblos and ancient sites. There are a bunch of rock drawings all around Albuquerque and New Mexico in general. Some out near Conchas Lake on private property that is supposed to be "OLD", really really OLD. Chaco Canyon is a gotta' see site if any of you can make it to NM. While you visit , go out to SKY City and take the tour and buy some pottery.

 

[Mike Armstrong]

Chaco Canyon is simply amazing. What those old guys could DO (with NO internet)! A tough place to make ANY kind of living and they managed to make monuments....I don't use the "A-word" but if I did I'd have to say it's truly awesome.

 

[BearBio]

Chaco Canyon is simply amazing. What those old guys could DO (with NO internet)! A tough place to make ANY kind of living and they managed to make monuments....I don't use the "A-word" but if I did I'd have to say it's truly awesome.

One thing to remember is that the climate was much different then. A massive drought (as well as the eruption at Wupatki and Sunset Crater) occurred about 1000 AD. The more recent Zuni, Pueblo, and Navajo merely referred to their predecessors as "Anasazi (ancient ones). Chaco was the center of a massive empire with a gigantic infrastructure of highways, canals, and logistical systems of trade and crops. Between 800 and 1200 AD was the decay of the Mayan Empire in southern Mexico and further south, as well as the rise of the more warlike Aztec (with their poor cousins, the Yaqui). The drought also severed many of the trading routes as did incursions by the Yaqui.

Another fact to remember is that, about 1200 AD, there was a generalized shift south by most of the tribes in North America. The Cheyenne and most of the Sioux tribes shifted south out of the forests, forcing the existing Plains Tribes either back into the mountains (i.e.; Bloods, Nez Perce, etc) or further south (Pawnee, Mandan, etc). The southern Plains tribes were wiped out (The Gulf Coast Indians) or moved west (Apache and Comanche).

I'm sure some people will "nit pick" this but it's meant as just a general "snapshot" of the changing conditions of the time.

 

[onehandgunner]

OH MERCY, don't tell O'bama we had climate change 1,000 years ago. He will blame it on the Viking sailing ships and since the ANCIENT ones used "buffalo chips" for fuel ( not the ones you get at BUFFALO WILD WINGS but they probably taste the same ) that caused green house gas and started the decline in our environment.