Native American Drawings

If you follow the "shortest highway in America" through Thompson Springs town and onto a dirt road, you will eventually reach a parking lot amongst sage brush and red rock cliffs. Get out, use the clean bathroom, then walk around exploring. You will come across several cliff faces with Native American drawings from different time periods and tribes. They are amazingly well preserved. I almost thought they weren't authentic! There are some unfortunate **** who drew their own initials on the wall of course, but for the most part it's a step back in time...
You can easily see the differences between time eras in the style of the drawings:
This impressive site which is on the National Register of Historic Places is undergoing a long term conservation and preservation treatment. The Antiquities Act of 1906 and the Archaeological Resources Protection Act provides for serious penalties to vandals.
Native Americans painted and chipped their religious, clan symbols, or records of events into the sandstone cliffs. There are three distinct styles present which represent three separate cultures and time periods known to have been in the area during the past several thousand years.
The Historic Ute rock art is identified and dated by the horse and rider figures. Horses were introduced to North America by the Spanish in the sixteenth century. There are still some descendants/wild horse herds in Utah and Nevada that live on protected land. The No-tah (Ute people) lived freely throughout western Colorado and eastern Utah until about 1880, when they were forced into reservations.
Some of the most spectacular examples of rock art in the Southwest are attributed to Archaic people. Archaic people were nomads, hunting large and small game animals and processing wild plants. They did not build permanent habitation structures, but lived in caves and in small brush shelters built in the open. The occupied this area from aprox. 8,000 years ago until the introduction of corn agriculture about 2,000 years ago. Their rock art, Barrier Canyon Style, usually consists of larger than life size manlike forms. The identifying characteristics of these figures is hollowed eyes or missing eyes, the frequent absence of arms and legs, and the presence of vertical body markings.