Voices of the Ancestors

Did you know that the cliffs and canyons of western North America house one of the greatest collections of ancient art in the world? Among the red rocks that Desert Bighorns and rattlesnakes call home are alcoves that host galleries of Ancient American art - some of it dating to perhaps over 8,000 years ago.

People stare out of the cliff face - but they probably don't look like any people you've ever seen. These are figures out of ancient myth and legend - the stuff, perhaps, of great stories of quests, ghosts, gods, and magic.

Sego Canyon Site, Thompson Springs, Utah

Sego Canyon Site, Thompson Springs, Utah; largest figures approx 6 ft tall

Animals scamper across the rocks too: Desert Bighorns, snakes, lizards, dogs, coyotes, deer, elk, squirrels, birds, bears....some animals are alone, some in herds, others being hunted by humans.

Bear being hunted by Humans, near The Portal, Moab, Utah

Why is it that our western culture venerates the cave paintings of France and for the most part disregards the ancient art created by the indigenous peoples of North America? Yeah, those cave paintings in Europe are beautiful, but in my opinion no more so than what you'll see here in western North America. 

Perhaps these sites speak to the Native American in me. My Fox/Sauk heritage is pretty distant though, both in terms of distance from the western US and the number of generations back into my heritage. What Fox genes I have left are much diluted by Scots, Irish, and Rom, so I doubt my distant native heritage has anything to do with my love of this art.

Is it that I'm also an artist? We're getting warmer now. 

I know when I view this art I imagine that artist from so long ago, putting his (or her) time, energy, and creativity into expressing his thoughts and observations. I wish I could go back in time and somehow ask these artists what motivated them, what do those bug-eyed figures represent, and why create the art in the first place?

I think, though, it's just a realization of our shared human-ness. Those ancient artists were no different from us, really. Same genetics, same biology, same psychology. Their tools were different from ours but that doesn't make them any less human, less "us." Someone, many millenia ago, smeared pigment on a rock wall or chipped away the rock surface as some sort of message. I get that. We do something similar today: social media, blogs like this one, books, magazines, and web pages. 

Sego Canyon Site, Thompson Springs, Utah

So many non-natives here in Colorado and the west don't even know these sites exist, let alone how beautiful and awe-inspiring they can be, that I've decided to use a few upcoming blog posts for some profiles of these ancient American Rock Art sites. And as I visit more sites in the coming months I'll post about them here as a kind of rock art journal.

Note on rock art photo copyright: I'm making my photos of rock art site available to the public as part of the Creative Commons. I can claim no copyright to these sites, and I don't feel it's right to place a copyright on my photos of them...the people who can copyright them were the ones who created the art and they're long since gone. Feel free to use the rock art photos on this page - I only ask that you give me credit for having taken the photo and provide a link to this blog.