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Canyonlands National Park
Utah

Canyonlands preserves a colorful landscape eroded into countless canyons, mesas and buttes by the Colorado River and its tributaries. The rivers divide the park into four districts: the Island in the Sky, the Needles, the Maze and the rivers themselves. We spent a wonderful afternoon exploring the Needles section of Canyonlands.

Newspaper Rock

Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument is in eastern Utah, 53 miles south of Moab, and to the east of Canyonlands National Park. The Monument features a flat rock with one of the largest known collections of petroglyphs.

It is situated along the relatively well-traveled access road into the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. The 200-square-foot rock is covered by hundreds of ancient Indian petroglyphs. The petroglyphs have a mixture of human figures, riders on horses, animals (deer, buffalo, and pronghorn antelope), symbols and abstract forms, and to date no-one has been able to fully interpret their meaning. We do not know if the figures represent doodling, story-telling, hunting, magic, clan symbols, ancient graffiti or something else.

The first carvings at the Newspaper Rock site were made around 2,000 years ago, left by people from the Archaic, Basketmaker, Fremont, and Pueblo cultures. In Navajo, the rock is called "Tse' Hane'" which translates to a rock that tells a story.

The petroglyphs were carved by Native Americans during both the prehistoric and historic periods. While precisely dating the rock carvings has been difficult, repatination of surface minerals reveals their relative ages. The reason for the large concentration of the petroglyphs is unclear, making the rock somewhat of a mystery.


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