CRESCENT JUNCTION SITE, GRAND COUNTY, UTAH:

Petroglyph panel, Crescent Junction

site, Grand County, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 8, 2016.

Driving in to the Crescent Junction (Utah) rock art site one goes right past a Department Of Energy radioactive tailings disposal site. This reminded me of a RockArtBlog posting on June 10, 2009, titled Protecting Rock Art, in which I discussed poison ivy as a protection for rock art panels, and speculated upon the efficacy of using rock art sites for radioactive or toxic waste disposal to protect the rock art (Faris 2009). This is close in concept, but the disposal is near the rock art, not around it, and, I think, coincidental. In other words they were not looking to protect rock art, they were looking for empty land to dump their radioactive tailings at.

Petroglyph panel, Crescent Junction

site, Grand County, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 8, 2016.

Petroglyph panel, Crescent Junction

site, Grand County, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 8, 2016.

It is a good site though, worth visiting. I was there on a field trip from the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Colorado Archaeological Society (CAS) which was held in Grand Junction over the weekend of October 6-8. Members of the Grand Junction chapter of CAS are to be congratulated for an excellent meeting and programs.

The Crescent Junction site is on a number of scattered boulders at the base of the Bookcliffs formation on the North edge of the Grand Valley.

Fremont figure, Crescent Junction

site, Grand County, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 8, 2016.

Some of the rock art is archaic imagery with anthropomorphs, quadrupeds, footprints, and symbols intermixed. Many of the human figures seem to be Fremont in origin which give us a timeframe of AD 1 to 1300 (Wikipedia).

Bat? Crescent Junction

site, Grand County, Utah.

Photo: Peter Faris, Oct. 8, 2016.

One of the interesting figures seen here has been identified as a bat by folks in the area. It may be, maybe not, but it is interesting. Also some very complicated panels which could be designated as palimpsests because of intertwined and overwritten figures and symbols.

All in all it is a great example of the type of marginal Fremont site found throughout western Colorado and eastern Utah.

REFERENCE:

Faris, Peter

2009   Protecting Rock Art, June 20, 2009, http://rockartblog.blogspot.com/search/label/poison%20ivy

Wikipedia