On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Good Morning All,
This weekday feature is for Juicers who are are on the road, traveling, or just want to share a little bit of their world via stories and pictures. So many of us rise each morning, eager for something beautiful, inspiring, amazing, subtle, of note, and our community delivers – a view into their world, whether they’re far away or close to home – pictures with a story, with context, with meaning, sometimes just beauty. By concentrating travel updates and tips here, it’s easier for all of us to keep up or find them later.
So please, speak up and share some of your adventures and travel news here, and submit your pictures using our speedy, secure form. You can submit up to 7 pictures at a time, with an overall description and one for each picture.
You can, of course, send an email with pictures if the form gives you trouble, or if you are trying to submit something special, like a zipped archive or a movie. If your pictures are already hosted online, then please email the links with your descriptions.
For each picture, it’s best to provide your commenter screenname, description, where it was taken, and date. It’s tough to keep everyone’s email address and screenname straight, so don’t assume that I remember it “from last time”. More and more, the first photo before the fold will be from a commenter, so making it easy to locate the screenname when I’ve found a compelling photo is crucial.
Have a wonderful day, and enjoy the pictures!
Prepare for some wow today folks!
Today, pictures from valued commenter Mr. Prosser.
Since I rarely comment here I am a “Lurker” but I enjoy the posts and comments daily and look forward to Alain’s On the Road posts. I have a BA in Anthropology which means I spent my career as a structural firefighter/paramedic (25 years) and a mathematics instructor in middle school (Too many years). Once retired I moved to Grand Junction, CO and began pursuing my true interests as an Avocational Archaeologist especially in northwest Colorado, northeast Utah and the Four Corners. These photos of early Native American rock art, both petroglyphs (pecked or incised into the rock patina) and pictographs (painted with various pigments) date from 2000BCE or earlier to historic times
Arroyo near Kane Creek
Typical canyon country where this type of rock art is found
Sego Canyon area, Utah
Barrier Canyon style pictographs, the oldest style 2000 BCE to 400 CE (roughly). Enigmatic anthropomorths, animorphs and symbols. These are overlayed with Ancestral Pueblo/Fremont figures and modern graffiti.
Moab Man
Moab, UT
Well known petroglyph near a golf course in Moab, UT. Ancestral Pueblo/Fremont style figure showing a horned headdress and hair bobs. 500 to 1050 CE. What does the figure symbolize? Don’t know. The lighter pock marks are modern bullet scars.
Poison Spider area
Linked Ancestral Pueblo/Fremont style figures. All with headdresses. Dancers? Spirit forms? Near the Poison Spider Trailhead, UT
Sego Canyon, UT
Very classic Fremont style anthropomorphs 500 to 1100 CE. Note headdresses, “Weeping Eyes” on rh figure and large necklaces and belts or sashes. Have no idea as to significance of arm and hand with linked fingers. Possible shield at lower left.
McDonald Canyon, CO
A bear figure (white) and headless figure with arching arms. Fremont 900 to 1100 CE
Cottonwoood Wash
Very well done concentric circles. This type of petroglyph is often associated with the Solstices. Often a rock outcropping near the figure will cast a progressive shadow along the rings until it reaches the center on or near the solstices.
I am always in awe of the skill, knowledge, passion, and eye of you guys. Please feel fee to use the form to send in lots of great and groovy stuff. I’ve got lots to work through, but do feel free to send stuff. Even if I don’t run it immediately, there are days or weeks where I’m swamped and some stored content makes things easy.
Thank you so much Mr. Prosser, do send us more when you can.
Travel safely everybody, and do share some stories in the comments, even if you’re joining the conversation late. Many folks confide that they go back and read old threads, one reason these are available on the Quick Links menu.
One again, to submit pictures: Use the Form or Send an Email
raven
Great work! My neighbor was doing his post-doc in Anthro and that funding was running out. He landed a job in Eugene, Oregon and he and his family are on their way. My buddy with a BS in Geology is a fitness consultant and reefer farmer in the Bay area!
Litlebritdifrnt
Alain did you get my photos? If not let me know and I will send them again. (I was having problems with the form as I changed my e-mail address.)
JPL
Fascinating work.
rikyrah
Those pictures.. wow ?
Alain the site fixer
@Litlebritdifrnt: I’ll check later and I’ll email you
Quinerly
Wonderful post to wake up to. Thank you!
Baud
Cool.
debbie
Spectacular! Bullet holes, even there?
Robyn
Fascinating! Thank you for sharing these discoveries with us.
HinTN
@debbie:
Us rednecks is everwhere, honey.
ETA: We went to see Moab Man when see were there last month. It’s worth the trip and I promise I’ll get some photos in to Alain soon.
satby
Great pictures, even better explanations of them! Thanks!
@debbie: Many years ago I visited Petroglyph National Monument outside of Albuquerque, which had been desecrated by both bullets and modern graffiti for years before it was finally preserved. People suck so bad sometimes.
Tarragon
Wow, Awesome!
Denali
Thanks for the glimpse of the great outdoor museums in our beautiful Southwest. These petroglyphs are mysterious reminders of people who were here long before we were. Now I want to visit them again.
Barbara
Those are great pictures. My family saw some of the petroglyphs at the Arches National Park in Utah. I find these connections to prehistory to be stirring and wonderful. We toured the cave at Les Eyzies with polychrome paintings of animals (not sure it’s still open) and there are no pictures allowed, ever, and you cannot take a light — only the guide. It’s sad that people think these precious images from the past are good for target practice, if that’s what they were doing.
stinger
Wonderful pics and explanations! I’m intrigued by similarities in art across cultures, some of which are separated by vast distances and even oceans.
Miss Bianca
Waves to the Western Slope from the central mountains! Nice photos!
eclare
Wow!
J R in WV
The typical deplorable doesn’t agree that these pictures are remarkable, as they are scratches made by mud people. Did Nazi that coming, but there it is, despicable through and through.
I don’t understand it either. We took an Archaeological Institute of America tour of 13 different European caves with ancient cave paintings with an expert. I was able to take some cave paintings photos, just no flash, ever. NE Spain Basque country and SW France. Museums too. A castle.
We need to spend more time outdoors in the SW finding these kinds of things. Amazing what sophisticated things our ancestors got up to!
Barbara
@J R in WV: The guide at Les Eyzies made sure that people’s cameras were in their cases before we went through the cave. They also restricted the number of people who could visit for the day to 300, in groups of no more than 10 at a time. Lascaux, of course, is basically closed to anyone not actively engaged in approved research, but the replica is supposed to be stunning.
J R in WV
Edit failed.
Didn’t thank “valued commenter Mr. Prosser” nearly enough. Great photos of fabulous subject matter, in case I didn’t make that clear in my first post. I have great regard for the people of the SW, current and greatly past, who were able to make mostly good lives out of a terrible desert. The whole Southwest is covered with signs of the life of the ancient peoples. In Tucson, when a new project starts, there has to be time built in to the schedule for archaeological work because all of that land was used for 10,000 years or more. Much like Europe where much of the land was used for that long as well, with Roman era material on top of previous culture material.
Thanks Mr. Prosser for the great work on the photos AND for sharing them with us here at B-J. The jackals are interested!
J R in WV
@Barbara:
It is amazing. Out guide knew the artists who did the repro, he said they would go back and forth, had detailed photos to work from and wouldn’t trust just the photos, were accurate to within a millimeter everywhere. Paul (our guide) also knew every dab and speck on the walls and ceilings of all the caves we visited.
Some are privately owned by the large landowner who’s property the caves lie within, one even has a tiny electric RR type train the visitors ride and stay on. But the rules and guides are different at every cave. One had stainless screens bolted over the art because the cave was slanted to one side and you had to lean on the walls to move about. The 12 of us were able to see the primary paintings in that cave 3 or 4 at a time.
It was an amazing trip, physically difficult a little, but worth the effort.
Steeplejack
Great pictures!
I will recommend once again Werner Herzog’s documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams (trailer).
Hmm, looks like there are a couple of links to the full film. (I haven’t checked them.)
Alain the site fixer
@Litlebritdifrnt: I did not.
MomSense
Love these photos.