Random Walks in Time: Making a Mark: Art for Art's Sake

Golden Eagle in San Rafael Swell

On more than one vacation, we have found ourselves on a little gray line with no number out in the middle of nowhere to see one sight or another. Most of these are dirt or gravel roads. Sometimes you find what you are looking for, sometimes not. Sometimes you even end up with a busted tire.

Cottonwood Wash and Buckhorn Wash roads run through the middle of fantastic red sandstone formations of the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone Formation, the Triassic Wingate Sandstone and Permian Coconino Sandstone in an area called the San Rafael Swell. This area is rich in archaeological evidence of Fremont, Paiute and Ute cultures. The Fremont people lived in the area about 2000 years ago, at about the same time as the neighboring Pueblo peoples and may have been an offshoot of the "Anasazi" cultural group. Evidence suggests that the Fremont were a foraging and corn/maize farming culture, with smallish villages with pithouses. Climate change seems to have displaced the culture about 950 A.D. They certainly moved westward and some may have found their way to Nebraska/Kansas as the ancestors of the Dismal River culture.

The Barrier Canyon culture left art throughout modern Emery County, Utah. One of the most impressive is the Buckhorn Wash pictograph panel. You can see the scope of the panel in the picture to the left using Nadienne and short Christian for scale. The pictographs were made on a freshly exposed sandstone canvas. Red pigment composed of ground hematite (iron (III) oxide) was likely mixed with animal fat, egg, or water, and brushed onto the surface of the rock with brushes made from animal fir or plants. The pigment soaked into the porous rock and has stayed visible for about two thousand years. Weather and modern vandals are the primary threats to the continued existence of this art panel.

Some of the figures are obviously human. Many of the figures have holes pecked in their chest. What they originally represented is unknown and why holes have been deliberately picked in their chest is also a mystery. It may be that the figures held some power for the Fremont peoples and the holes released the power of the art, maybe by a rival or later culture. Were the figures ritually killed? All questions with no answers.

An attempt to cover some of the figures with yellow paint was made long ago. Again one asks "Why?" Did the aesthetics of the culture change? Did a later culture try to alter or cover them up?

Look a little closer

We would like to know what it all means, but we'll just have to keep guessing and enjoying.

Uplifted sandstone - see the ripple marks?

Figures with vandalism apparent

Extreme close-up

Bird-Men or Angels?

Chiselers

The area also contains petroglyphs, which are pictures chiseled out of the rock. The sandstone is polished and the iron oxidizes (rusts) over time, leaving a reddish varnish on the rock. By pecking away at this layer, one can create images in the stone. These designs may be of animals, people or symbols. Meanings are largely unknown, but guesses are handy.

The lower part of the image above could be interpreted as a sheep, but what about the square subdivided into four squares? Is it a representation of the four winds? These drawings may have been painted at some point in the past. Are they the embodiment of power that the artist was calling upon? Ritual? Creativity?