| Horseshoe Canyon (a remote western section of Canyonlands National Park, Utah) contains some of the most significant rock art found in North America. The sheer sandstone walls and cottonwood trees shade the canyon floor as you hike back into pre-history to view the various magnificent rock art locations. The Great Gallery is the most spectacular of the Horseshoe Canyon pictographs (painted figures) and petroglyphs (figures etched in rock by a sharp stone) found in the Canyonland region. The large life-sized ghostly figures and supernatural images eerily gaze down over the ancient water-carved canyons and the intrepid travelers who come to view them. Many of the figures are armless and some, alien-like in appearance. Known to us as the Barrier Canyon style of painting, it is believed to date to the Late Archaic period, from 2000 BC to AD 500. During later periods, the Anasazi (ancestral Puebloan cultures) left their own style of rock art in the canyon as well. If you look carefully, you will find evidence of fossilized impressions of the once great beasts that roamed the area 145 million years in the past. During the late Jurassic period, the large carnivorous three-toed Allosaurus had walked and hunted near the rim of the canyon. Now only the snakes, lizards, and raptors stand guard over this ancient landscape. Horseshoe Canyon is a canyon alive with the secrets and the spirits of the ancient ones. |
