It’s been awhile since I wrote about rock art…

Many of us know about the fantastic collections of native rock art in Utah, USA. The quality and quantity of beautiful rock art in the Range Creek Canyon of Utah first sparked my interest when I read an article in the August 2006 issue of National Geographic magazine. It’s an interesting story…

For 50 years Utah cattle rancher Waldo Wilcox protected an astounding collection of artifacts left by the prehistoric Fremont culture–including countless panels of rock art. “The Indian stuff? My father always said to leave it alone,” he says. Which he did–and more. By gating the road to his property near the mouth of Range Creek Canyon, he blocked access to tens of thousands of acres of unspoiled backcountry where the Fremont had farmed, hunted game, and gathered wild plants from about A.D. 400 until their culture mysteriously disappeared almost a thousand years later. Ready to retire, Wilcox sold his land in 2001. The state of Utah, its current owner, is now responsible for managing the future of this priceless legacy.

Check out the amazing examples of work in the photo gallery.

Fremont petroglyphs at McKee Springs, Utah. Photograph by Ira Block, National Geographic

Today, I came across an update on the current situation in Range Creek Canyon in an article and excellent video at Remote Central, an archaeology and anthropology blog by Tim Jones that I’ve been following for some time.

By the way, there’s another interesting article in Tim’s blog on a subject I’ve written about several times: Fungus Once Again Threatens Lascaux Cave Paintings.

Chauvet. Owl, engraved in mud. (c. 28-30,000 BC)
Photo © Chauvet, J-M., Brunel Deschamps, E., and Hillaire, C. (1995). Dawn of Art, The Chauvet Cave: The Oldest Known Paintings in the World. New York: Abrams.

Reader Bill, knowing my interest in prehistoric art, recently sent me a link to a very informative website. OriginsNet is about Researching the Origins of Art, Religion, & Mind. The oldest period, predating early Paleolithic, is called Oldowan, a new term for me (an interested amateur). There’s a great deal of research material presented, but naturally the photographs interested me the most. In particular, the gallery of Upper Paleolithic Art is stunning with its exceptional quality photos of pictographs from famous sites like Lascaux, Chauvet, Altamira and others. The above image, which I’ve borrowed, struck me for NOT being a pictograph, but instead it’s engraved in mud.

James Harrod, the site manager, is a scholar specializing in prehistoric art, religion and semiotics. He argues that by the time of the Magdalenian, there appears to be a religious symbol system in which four animal symbols, horse, bison, ibex and deer, are structured in a complementarity relationship or ‘quaternion’. Once utilized in such a semiotic system, the animal symbols can function as a complex, multi-leveled mnemonic device, an ‘encyclopedia’ of Magdalenian social and naturalist knowledge and spiritual values.

Fascinating. Thanks, Bill!