Highway signs: Petroglyphs of Utah Hwy 279

On our national parks RV travel successful May, we tried to decipher messages near agelong agone by autochthonal peoples on the Colorado River extracurricular Moab, Utah.

Today, Utah Highway 279 runs alongside these tablet-like sheer walls, with pull-outs wherever you tin halt and look astatine the stone art.

On the acheronian “desert varnish” coating the sandstone, aboriginal American Indians chiseled petroglyphs and painted pictographs of animals, human-like figures, and abstract symbols.

A motion indicates that immoderate of the stone creation dates arsenic acold backmost arsenic 6,000 B.C., incredibly.

You tin puzzle each time implicit what the etchings and paintings meant.

They connection a mysterious glimpse into past lives.

One conception shows radical holding hands successful a row, similar insubstantial dolls.

Horned animals and quality figures

The Colorado River slides by adjacent to the road, cutting done reddish stone formations.

I wonderment however overmuch this presumption has changed since the earliest petroglyphs were committed to rock.

If you’re funny successful stone creation similar this, cheque retired my earlier posts astir petroglyphs astatine Newspaper Rock, pictographs astatine Canyonlands National Park, and petroglyphs astatine Capitol Reef National Park.

Up next: Going adjacent deeper into the past astatine Dinosaur National Monument. For a look backmost astatine the otherworldly stone formations astatine Arches National Park, click here.

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