Rock Art in Utah

If I could make only one statement about rock art, what would it be? Protect rock art? Respect rock art? Take care of the places where it’s found?

I should speak. I’m a guide and take people to these sensitive sites almost every trip. Sell-out! Traitor! Scoundrel! Rock art for hire? I’ve heard a rumor that a guide friend won’t discuss the subject because I visit sites professionally. I almost didn’t take the job because of the same sensitivity. These places stick in us somehow, lodge somewhere near the soul, and feed our imaginations. Rock art expert and language professor of Ekkehart Malotki describes rock art as “communication with the spirit realm, a visual communication that does not depict things literally but rather metaphorically.” Those metaphors deeply affect our sympathies.

So back to my dilemma—the poor guide forced to sell out things of the soul to win his daily bread. Of course that’s not how I look at my situation. Guiding gives me an opportunity to open the eyes of the world to the beauty of my backyard. When we visit rock art sites I hope to describe the place and its creators in a way that lights flames of protectionism in others. I always speak of and enforce a “leave no trace” approach to visitation. My stewardship, I hope, represents my redemption. Needless to say, the love of rock art runs deep.

If you’ve stayed in Utah for more than a day, you’ve realized, no doubt, that the state is blessed. Scenic beauty, year round recreation—something for everyone, including rock art galore. But when you consider the art of the ancients you have to let go of imposed geographic boundaries and think regionally. The prehistoric peoples living here thought outside the box because the box hadn’t been invented.

Take archaic period (about 9,000 to 1,800 years ago) pictographs of the Barrier Canyon Style. This artwork, found mainly in Canyonlands, seems more complex, detailed, and well ... spooky, than the work of later cultures. Otherworldly anthropomorphs seem to float on stone, their elongated, ghostly vestiges often accompanied by attendant zoomorphic figures. Many archaeologists associate the look and feel of archaic rock art with the belief system they think held sway at the time — shamanism.

The scenario for the production of archaic rock art goes like this: Shaman ingests hallucinogen or reaches trance state by some other means, visits otherworldly realms, returns and records the trip. The prehistoric version of shooting video through your RV’s windshield as you tour some national park, except in prehistoric times people believed that forgetting your visions could lead to sickness and death — nowadays no one cares if you misplace the vacation footage.

Archaic rock art styles appear across the Southwest and into Mexico. Where they occur you find panels with similar stylistic elements. The people who created the “Great Gallery” and the “Harvest Scene” may have spent their time in what we now call Utah, but the culture they shared, as evidenced by the rock art record, extended well beyond our state’s modern boundaries.

The same can be said for the culture of later groups, like the Ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi), Fremont, and present day groups like the Hopi, Ute, Paiute, Goshute, Shoshone, and Navajo. All of these groups adorned the walls of cliff and cave for various reasons, including story, ceremony, marking the sun’s movement and recording migrational wanderings. And thoughtless doodling? For the record, in my fifteen years of research, including a thorough scouring of the ethnographic record, I’ve found not a single mention of casualness in rock art. It was always made for a reason that, unfortunately, we can no longer fathom.

Therein lies the beauty and allure of rock art. Interpretation amounts to mere speculation, and those who wish to plumb the depths of meaning often find only a mirror of their own psyches.

In Utah, finding out where to visit rock art is easy. Try Nine Mile Canyon, Newspaper Rock, Capitol Reef National Park, Fremont Indian State Park, or any number of public access sites mentioned in Dennis Slifer’s book Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region. How to visit is another question.

Rock Art Definitions

• rock “art”: archaeologists don’t believe these ancient pictures were created for art’s sake alone, but the name sticks.

• petroglyph: image pecked or scratched on a rock surface.

• pictograph: image painted onto a rock surface. Most pigments consist of a mineral base mixed with a organic binder, such as animal fat.

• panel: word used to describe a collection of individual glyphs.

• glyph—single petroglyphic or pictographic element.

• anthropomorph: human-like figure.

• zoomorph: animal-like figure.

Of course there’s the leave no trace admonition. Never touch rock art for any reason. Photographers — leave the chalk behind. Chalking glyphs is uncool and illegal. Be careful where you step and what you lean your pack on. I go so far as to remove my pack and hat while visiting rock art sites to avoid “the casual brush-off.” Turn to smile for the camera and a single swipe of your pack could erase a thousand year old Picasso. Rock art wasn’t created casually, so don’t visit that way.

But you can go even further. Last year I explored a site on the Kaibab Paiute Reservation with a Paiute guide. We met at an inconspicuous trailhead. Before we started my guide procured a small zippered tobacco pouch, bade me take a pinch, and explained it was good to ask for the site’s permission to visit. We raised our offerings to the sky, bent to leave them on the ground, and whispered our requests. Along the way he told me that his people show respect by visiting quietly — one of the most important lessons I’ve learned about rock art.

So be brave, ask permission, and consider voicing a quiet “thank you” as an offering on your departure. I’m sure you’ll find out why Utah’s rock art deserves all the respect in the world.

Utah hosts more easily accessed rock art sites than any other state. To find a site near you pick up Dennis Slifer’s Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region. Ekkehart Malotki and Donald E. Weaver, Jr.’s Stone Chisel and Yucca Brush, is a beautifully photographed and superbly written introduction to the study of rock art. Hands down the subject’s best tome. And if your interested in conducting your own study of the ethnographic record, check out Sacred Images: A Vision of Native American Rock Art, an interesting and attractive work featuring extensive Native American commentary alongside wonderful photographs of Southwestern rock art.

Greg Aitkenhead is a world-class climber, backpack guide on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and self-described rock art nut.

Rock Art - E-mail of a Past Civilization