The rich photography and narrative in this book presents an overview of approximately 5,000 years of Native American rock art painted and engraved on the canyon walls and boulders within the greater Grand Canyon region, an area stretching south from the Arizona-Utah border to the Mogollon Rim. The authors and their associates have recorded and documented more than 450 rock art sites within the region over the past 25 years in cooperation with the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon National Park, Bureau of Land Management/Arizona Strip, and the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. Their work presents a preliminary classification of this rock art within a chronological framework and associated cultural affiliations. These enigmatic images are placed within their environmental and archaeological context, essential in deriving potential clues as to their function and significance. Several interpretation theories exist in the literature and these are carefully examined in light of this current research. Importantly, rock art is an endangered cultural heritage and the question of its protection, preservation, and conservation also receives attention. While rock art offers a view into one aspect of the prehistoric cultural landscape, the religious and social importance of these images continues to have relevance to contemporary Native American peoples as well as representing an engaging cultural legacy for all humanity.

With the exception of the Grand Canyon itself, none of the great gorges of the American Southwest is more uniquely beautiful than Canyon de Chelly, with its sheer red cliffs and innumerable prehistoric Indian dwellings. Of all the important centers of prehistoric Anasazi culture, only this magnificent canyon shows an unbroken record of settlement for more than 1,000 years. In this liberally illustrated book, rock art authority Campbell Grant examines four aspects of the spectacular canyon: its physical characteristics, its history of human habitation, its explorers and archaeologists, and its countless rock paintings and petroglyphs. Grant surveys 96 sites in the two main canyons and offers an interpretation of the rock art found there.

Includes information on protected rock art sites in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. Gives information on these special rock art areas: Albuquerque and Santa Fe Area; Arches National Park; Bandelier National Monument Area; Canyon de Chelly National Monument; Canyonlands National Park--Maze Area; Canyonlands National Park--Needles Area; Capitol Reef National Park;Central Utah Area; Chaco Canyon Area; Desolation-Gray Canyon of the Green River; Grand Canyon National Park; Grand Gulch Primitive Area;Hovenweep National Monument; Indian Creek Canyon; Moab Area; Petrified Forest National Park; San Juan River Gorge; Three Rivers Area; Uintah Basin Area; West-Central Colorado Area; Zuñi-Cibola Area; miscellaneous areas; and Anasazi celestial rock art.

A mouse couple, in search of the mightiest husband for their daughter, approach the sun, the clouds, the wind, and a butte, before the unexpected victor finally appears.

"Native American cultures have flourished in the Four Corners region for thousands of years, from the early shamans, to the Anasazi, to historic tribes of today. Rock art images created by these cultures are diverse, mysterious, and haunting. Utah may contain more world-class, prehistoric rock art than any other region in North America. Rock overhangs with ghostly, painted, shamanistic figures have become synonymous with Utah." "Dennis Slifer has done extensive field work to identify those sites suitable for public visitation. Complete with maps and directions, this book describes more than fifty sites with public access in Utah, the Arizona strip, southern Nevada, and the western edge of Colorado. Richly illustrated with photographs and drawings, Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region is a must for all rock art enthusiasts."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Imagine seeing the varied landscapes of the earth as they used to look throughout hundreds of millions of years of earth history. Tropical seas lap on the shores of an Arizona beach. Immense sand dunes shift and swirl in Sahara-like deserts in Utah and New Mexico. Ancient rivers spill from a mountain range in Colorado that was a precursor to the modern Rockies. Such flights of geologic fancy are now tangible through the thought-provoking and beautiful paleogeographic maps, reminiscent of the maps in world atlases we all paged through as children, of Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau.Ron Blakey of Northern Arizona University is one of the world's foremost authorities on the geologic history of the Colorado Plateau. For more than fifteen years, he has meticulously created maps that show how numerous past landscapes gave rise to the region's stunning geologic formations. Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau is the first book to showcase Blakey's remarkable work. His maps are accompanied by text by Wayne Ranney, geologist and award-winning author of Carving Grand Canyon. Ranney takes readers on a fascinating tour of the many landscapes depicted in the maps, and Blakey and Ranney's fruitful collaboration brings the past alive like never before.Features: More than 70 state-of-the-art paleogeographic maps of the region and of the world, developed over many years of geologic research Detailed yet accessible text that covers the geology of the plateau in a way nongeologists can appreciate More than 100 full-color photographs, diagrams, and illustrations A detailed guide of where to go to see the spectacular rocks of the region

This unique full-color field guide is essential for anyone who seeks to understand why shamans in the Far West created rock art and what they sought to depict. Whitley is on the cutting edge of dating and interpreting the images as well as describing the