Petroglyphs Anyone?

[Argonaut20]

Just came back from a one nighter to the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site north of Tularosa, NM. There are 21,000+ pictures carved into the rock at this site, carved over a period estimated to be about 800 years. (600 AD -> 1400 AD.) The country is pretty flat, for the most part, both to the East and the West of the ridge containing the petroglyphs. At the foot of the ridge was a small archeological site inhabited from about 600 AD until about 1400 AD by a prehistoric people called the Jornada.

The trail along the ridge is pretty easy walking and the BLM campground is convenient. Further East is a Forest Service campground near a wilderness area.

An interesting historical tidbit is that the Three Rivers Ranch nearby was once owned by one Albert Fall, a politico who was caught up in the Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920's.


Wishful thinking or a picture of an actual kill?


Stylized birds here.


Likely this is a picture of a ceremonial mask.


Who knows what this is? It looks like some of the maps I used to get to find specific addresses, but I'm pretty sure that isn't it.

Summer time this area gets pretty hot and you can tell from the pictures that this is snake country in the summer. There is an amazing variety of petroglyphs here. No one knows what they mean. My guess is that most were done while folks were on the ridge looking across the plains for game animals. There are pictures of big horn sheep, deer, and other game animals as well as symbols and motifs that are beautifully done but not subject to interpretation.

 

[Argonaut20]

More pictures of petroglyphs.


A group of petroglyphs.


Another mask.


This mask looks like Valley of Mexico material to me, but who knows?


A view to the East with Sierra Blanca visible to the right.

 

[highz]

Nice pics. Glad you were able to get away for an overnighter. You timed it perfectly between two storm systems.

I really like being able to get up close and wander amongst the petroglyphs at Three Rivers. It's a cool place. I think one of the reasons petroglyphs are so appealing is because we don't have all the answers about what they mean and why they were made. Speculation is part of the fun.

 

[Overland Hadley]

Three Rivers is a mind boggling location.

And I enjoyed the camping in the parking lot. Nice location for exploring.

 

[Bosque Bill]

Thanks for sharing these photos. The petroglyphs there are unique in the southwest. I've been wanting to get to Three Rivers for a couple of years now; this year I will get there!

 

[Dughlas Stiubhart]

Yep, Argonaut, that is a great little hike up the hill past all the petroglyghs. Thanks for photos!

 

[buzzman]

Argonaut, thanks for the pics. I have now added this to my "Places to Visit List".

 

[Smokecreek1]

First off, the rock art is nice and yes more than just interesting, and most people who use this site would not damage, destroy or take this resource! But, secondly, some of you know my back ground includes many years of finding, recording, protecting and managing rock art and other prehistoric and historic sites as a federal archaeologist. I almost didn't respond to this thread, but I'm on a bummer right now because the fire rehab plan for an area I worked in (and noted for its prehistoric resources) and wrote up most of the plans for, for over 25 years just came out and the post wild fire-the second largest in California history-inventories, noted that many hundreds of rock art (and other) sites are now exposed, and at least one National Register rock structure/occupation site in a large NR District been discovered (recently) potted, and that another rock art panel has been removed by sawing it from the parent rock. Soil erosion and now increased water erosion due to an apparently good winter could led to further resource damage before things can began to regrow and stabilize in the spring.

While BLM (the manager out there) has been given funding to reseed, replant and rehab of the area (large as it is) and increased its on the ground presence (law enforcement and others), it is up to people like us (an the general public) to allow the BLM (and other managers) and nature the time to let the ecosystem heal. One of the biggest problems we always had was keeping people from loving the resources to death. While it is temping to go out there and see what you can see, you are damaging the land and resources. So I guess what I'm asking is before you go out and investigate these recently burned over areas, check with the land managers first-maybe they need some volunteers or some other help, but what they don't need are a bunch of curious people adding new foot prints to those fragile environments-sort of like when in the late spring when all the arrow head hunters seem to spout up and go collecting because of all the exposed goodies. Sorry if this is the wrong thread to bring this up, but several regular users of this site understand where I'm coming from here and have to deal with it at work. We all love it out there and want to preserve it, whether its in one of these publicly accessible areas or the most remote place on the other side of that canyon, but we can surely wait a year or two before we adventure into these damaged areas.

Thanks,

Smoke

 

[highz]

Smoke, I hear you and feel your pain.

The officially (BLM) sanctioned trail at Three Rivers takes you through and close to the petroglyph boulders. I admit I worried that vandalism, or theft, or just plain overuse might be a problem, but I don't think Three Rivers has a lot of population pressure - yet. I haven't heard of problems at Three Rivers, but maybe others know more than I.

 

[Smokecreek1]

Highz-I have done allot of soul searching over the years about opining up stuff to the public--but it belongs to them not the BLM/FS etc., so we do our best to do it, sometimes we win, sometimes they do and you can't put a cop on every site or fence every neat thing out there. As has been mentioned many times on this and other sites, no matter what you do, there will always be one as----- who ruins it for the rest-yep the feds ain't gona tell me what to do! Well, there still lot to enjoy out there so we can't worry about everything bad going on or we might as well stay home. Still nice looking rock art site, maybe have to see it if I ever get over your way! I was watching dual survival last night and this subject came up-our hero's kept finding poaching stuff and traps all over the place and the old Special Forces guy made the comment sure wish he had a gun because he might just stay there and take care of them poachers his way. I think we all have felt like that before.

Smoke

 

[Dughlas Stiubhart]

At the very top of the hill that the Three Rivers Petroglyph Trail ascends and past all the other art shown in Argonaut's photos, I found this rock drawing at the very edge of the summit area. To me it is unusual because it appears to be a sketch of the actual view from that sight--the peaks in the distance and the valley below.

What do you think, Argonaut? What do you think, Smoke, HighZ? Anybody?

 

[highz]

Interesting thought, Stew. Maybe it's a kind of map - is that faint vertical zig-zag a trail? I'd sure want to know in advance of a long trip which way to head to make sure I would find water, or maybe find game or ???

What direction were you facing when you took this?

 

[craig333]

At least I can understand people who steal artifacts. Its plain old greed working there. People who just vandalize stuff? I just can't grasp why someone does that. As for keeping things quiet I don't see any problem with that. If someone goes through the trouble to find it and respects it thats fine. No real need to make it too easy. Burned areas are much like areas that are unsuitable for travel when wet. We need to able to say no, can't travel here today, maybe another time.

 

[Dughlas Stiubhart]

Interesting thought, Stew. Maybe it's a kind of map - is that faint vertical zig-zag a trail? I'd sure want to know in advance of a long trip which way to head to make sure I would find water, or maybe find game or ???

What direction were you facing when you took this?


Good ideas there, HighZ. I never noticed that there was a trail leading from the valley floor up the peaks.

If I remember correctly, I was facing kind of NW. The mountains more to the south are much closer and actually look more like what is in the glyph. I tried to take picture facing more SW but I couldn't get in a position where I could get a good shot.

 

[Dughlas Stiubhart]

At least I can understand people who steal artifacts. Its plain old greed working there. People who just vandalize stuff? I just can't grasp why someone does that. As for keeping things quiet I don't see any problem with that. If someone goes through the trouble to find it and respects it thats fine. No real need to make it too easy. Burned areas are much like areas that are unsuitable for travel when wet. We need to able to say no, can't travel here today, maybe another time.


Over the past 150 years or so, a lot of the vandalism has been done by dumb-asses with guns. Before there were road signs to shoot up, the jerks were blasting away at pictographs and petroglyphs. But let's fair, it's not just we rural wanderers who are to blame, plenty of paintings and statuary in urban museums has been defaced and damaged with knives or paint over the years.

This art along a dirt road in the San Rafael Swell was blasted to near oblivion by bullets until it was restored by the BLM. It looks great now (2010) but how long before others shoot it up again?

 

[craig333]

When I go target shooting I bring my targets (and all the leftovers including the casings), wanton destruction just because you can? Baffles me but then an awful lot of things do.

 

[Smokecreek1]

When I go target shooting I bring my targets (and all the leftovers including the casings), wanton destruction just because you can? Baffles me but then an awful lot of things do.




Why do they do it----Yes- because they can!!!! and my usual comment, "No Fed is gonna tell me what to do". It's not always just signs, rock art, cows, etc., and the such. We had a nice little primitive campground that except for hunting season was lightly used. You know one of those places that you found if you followed a campground sign off of some lonely HW (in this case 395 North) to a surprise place. Well, unlike so many of these places this one had a water pump with real fresh and safe water (something that is rare to find out here in the high desert). So, some one----- used a whole lot of armor piercing ammo to destroy the well head-you know keep the flat landers and feds out I guess and exert their rights as Americans, etc. Lot's of bad stuff got in the well and we said the hell with it and didn't fix it. You never can manage or protect against things like that and it ruins it for everyone, one can only hope that they needed water one day somewhere and found none and Darwin proved his theory again.

Smoke

 

[Barko1]

Very nice petroglyph site, and indeed it would be hot in summer. Here is a picture from the FS campground that I believe is about 6 miles East. Some great campsites with great sunsets.

 

[highz]

Very nice petroglyph site, and indeed it would be hot in summer. Here is a picture from the FS campground that I believe is about 6 miles East. Some great campsites with great sunsets.



That campsite looks very familiar!

I posted a trip report a few months back on the Three Rivers FS CG. Here is the link. Compare the second photo to Barko's.

(Hey - I just realized I've reached the kilopost mark.)

 

[Argonaut20]

First, the skyline. Is that a sketch of the mountains? I don't know. Looking at the right side, maybe a desert centipede sketch. Those things on the front look like the pincers on those critters. Or maybe it is a sketch of the mountains. Or???

Smokecreek, I agree with you and your thoughts on preservation. I worked on a pueblo site that had a large collection of irreplaceable murals. What wasn't excavated was destroyed by pot hunters. That is the story for many, if not most, of the archeological remains in the southwest. Greed led to the destruction of the Mimbres sites. Prices on the pots could top $5000 for figured vessels that were near complete. Who knows why other sites were defaced when there was no real monetary incentive? As I am sure you are aware, we might try to conceal where some of the treasures are located only to return and find that someone has come and ripped it apart for no good reason. Having the BLM keep a campground monitor on something like Three Rivers makes sense. People can enjoy the site but the monitoring should minimize the damage. Unfortunately, the way our government seems to work is to cut the funding for preservation and maintenance of these sites. I'll go no further on that topic.