Newspaper Rock Petroglyphs - New World Ancient Evidence on Waymarking.com

Petroglyphs are like whispers from the past. For thousands of years, prehistoric people of the Southwest have used the surfaces of the boulders, canyon walls, and rock shelters as a means of communication. Petrified Forest National Park contains many fine examples of these images pecked into stone. There are already a couple of waymarks attached to this place, but we would like to add one more to pass on some additional information.

For more information, check out the National Park's flyer Messages On Stone.

More than 650 images adorn the boulders at Newspaper Rock – one of the largest concentrations of petroglyphs in Petrified Forest National Park. People who farmed the Puerco River Valley 650 to 2,000 years ago pecked these petroglyphs onto the rocks, leaving a legacy etched in stone. The great variety of petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock includes anthropomorphs (human-like figure), zoomorphs (animal-like figures), katsinas (spiritual figures, hands and tracks and geometrics.

When rocks are exposed to the element for a considerable amount of time, a patina, called “desert varnish” forms on the surface. Native people used sharp tools to chip into these veneer of iron and manganese oxides, clay minerals, and organic material, revealing the lighter colored rock beneath. The various shades of desert varnish are due to the amounts and ratio of minerals present. Blacker shades tend to be higher in manganese oxides, while redder tones indicate a higher amount of iron oxide. Click on the pictures to get larger images

Scientists are not sure about the meaning of the pictures.

But as we already stated at Puerco Pueblo:
For us, these images radiate a strong message to respect life in all its varieties!

To log your visit to this Waymark, post a picture of your GPSr next to the artifact. Post a second, wider picture to show the "Ancient Evidence" in context.