REVISITING NEWSPAPER ROCK, SAN JUAN COUNTY, UTAH:

Newspaper Rock, San Juan

County, Utah. Photograph

Peter Faris, September 2018.

On October 1, 2018, I posted a column titled Public Access/Public Servants/Responsiveness/and Responsibility, an editorial about my attempt to visit the rock art of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, in Montezuma County, Colorado on September 24, 2018. I was refused access by Marietta Eaton, the Monument Manager, who was totally uncooperative with my hopes to be able to bring some of its rock art to RockArtBlog. (Ironically, as recently as May 2018 they were advertising an Artist-in-Residence program which was supposed to provide access to all of its cultural resources including rock art to the winning artists)

Newspaper Rock, San Juan

County, Utah. Photograph

Peter Faris, September 2018.

Instead, a very helpful young lady at the Monument Visitor Center referred me to Newspaper Rock, in San Juan County, Utah, and gave me a map to the site. I had been to Newspaper Rock before, but it was nearly forty years ago, so I took the opportunity to revisit it. Back around 1980 you had to find the site on your own, now there are signs and a parking lot for visitors, a paved trail, and a large slab of flat rock turned into an improvised viewing platform, and they have put a fence around it to suggest to visitors that they stay back. In other words Utah's response to visitors is the polar opposite from that of Eaton and the Canyons of the Ancients. And, while not mitigating in any way my anger and disgust at the policies of Canyons of the Ancients, a visit to Newspaper Rock is always worthwhile, and it was a lot like reconnecting with an old friend.

Newspaper Rock, San Juan

County, Utah. Photograph

Peter Faris, September 2018.

Newspaper Rock is west of the midpoint between La Salle Junction and Monticello, Utah, off of State Highway #211. It is open for visitation like most Utah sites, and nowadays has a nice paved parking area. (Back when I first visited there it was dirt roads and parking lot). 

Interpretive sign,

Newspaper Rock, San Juan

County, Utah. Photograph

Peter Faris, September 2018.

The panel itself is behind a fence to demark the area that visitors are asked to stay out of, and it is accompanied by an explanatory sign with the following explanation: "Newspaper Rock Archaeological Site:

Newspaper rock is a petroglyph panel etched in sandstone that records approximately 2,000 years of early human activity. Prehistoric peoples, probably from the Archaic, Basketmaker, Fremont and Pueblo cultures etched on the rock from B.C. tom to A.D. 1300. In historic times, Ute and Navajo people, as well as European Americans made their contributions.

In interpreting the figures on the rock, scholars are undecided as to their meaning or have yet to decipher them. In Navajo, the rock is called "Tse' Hane'" (Rock that tells a story).

Unfortunately, we do not know if the figures represent storytelling, doodling, hunting magic, clan symbols, ancient graffiti or something else. Without a true understanding of the petroglyphs, much is left for individual interpretation. Newspaper Rock is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Please continue to preserve it." (Utah Parks sign at Newspaper Rock).

The petroglyphs themselves are pecked through a coating of patina that is literally blue-black over most of the surface and so even fairly old images show up spectacularly, making for great photography. If you are ever in that area you should make a point of visiting it, it is well worth the few extra miles.

BIRDS IN ROCK ART - KILLDEER?

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, 

San Juan County, UT. Photo 

Sherman Spear, 1966.

One of the joys in the study of rock art is the moment of recognition, that eureka moment in which you believe you have identified something that had been unidentified before. Located in the Canyon Rims Recreation Area next to Canyonlands, San Juan County, Utah, is Newspaper Rock, a pre-and-proto-historic palimpsest of petroglyphs millennia in the making. Imagery has been accumulating on this rock from the Archaic period down to the historic, and near the bottom to the right of center on this rock is a small petroglyph of a bird. The bird stands upright, has a plump body, long legs with big feet, and a bill of medium length.

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, 

San Juan County, UT. Photo 

Sherman Spear, 1966.

In looking at the birds of Utah, my candidate for the closest fit to these characteristics would be the killdeer.

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, 

San Juan County, UT. Photo 

Sherman Spear, 1966.

"Killdeer are a type of plover, similar to the snowy plovers that nest along the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The killdeer, however, is well at home in dry upland habitats.

Killdeer nest on open ground, digging just a shallow scrape in the soil. Gravel roads are often ideal nesting habitat because killdeer eggs blend in very well with nearby pebbles. The spotted eggs and young hatchlings are very cryptic, invisible to the eye even when they are underfoot. This dangerous breeding strategy can often lead to trampled nests. Or, if a predator has a good sense of smell, the eggs and young are easily eaten." (Larese-Casanova)

Kildeer, Public domain.

To protect its nest the killdeer uses the famous broken-wing trick to distract any predator that comes too close to the nest, leading the predator off far enough, and then takes flight taunting the predator with its call. (Larese-Casanova)

Although nominally a shore bird the killdeer is also found in dry areas throughout the West, this it could well be possible that the creator of this image had models available locally. Indeed, it has been proposed that during wetter climactic eras the dry gullies of the Canyonlands region were also riparian habitats and killdeers would have been natural inhabitants of that environment as well. So the killdeer (Charadrius vociferus) is my nominee for the identity of the bird on Newspaper Rock - Eureka. 

REFERENCES:

Mark Larese-Casanova,
http://wildaboututah.org/killdeer-the-bird-that-lives-dangerously/

FLYING SQUIRRELS IN ROCK ART?

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Sherman Spear, 1966.

One marvelous rock art site known to many people in the Rocky Mountain West is Newspaper Rock in San Juan County, UT. Newspaper Rock has a petroglyph panel of mixed Fremont culture  and Ute rock art. It was one of my early sites in my first few years of interest in rock art.

Newspaper Rock close-up, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Sherman Spear, 1966. Arrows

point to figures under discussion.

Newspaper Rock, Indian Creek, San Juan

County, UT. Photo Glen Weaver,
Sept. 1999. CRAA Archives.

In the upper left portion of the panel of petroglyphs are three enigmatic figures that have four outstretched limbs (arms and legs), fairly large tails, and what looks like nothing more than a fabric panel stretched out between the arms and legs. From the very first time I saw them they struck me as portrayals of flying squirrels but this seemed so improbable that I really did not take it seriously. From relative repatination these enigmatic figures appear to be early Ute in provenance rather than Fremont culture.

Flying Squirrel in flight. Image courtesty

CyHampsonFlyingSquirrels.com.

Map of Northern Flying Squirrel range.

Public domain. Note the outliers in Utah

- especially in Southeastern Utah.

In a location like the Canyonlands of the desert southwest I would not have expected to find portrayals of a creature that I associate with the northern forests, but imagine my surprise when I looked into the range of the Northern Flying Squirrel and found that it did extend down into just about that area. Could these figures actually represent flying squirrels? Perhaps some of you with knowledge on Ute mythology could cast some light on this possibility.