The Petroglyphs on the Rio Grande

The kids and I made a dusk foray down to the petroglyphs in the Rio Grande Gorge for a look at some of the magnificent ancient works lining the walls of the canyon.  The figures here are located in the John Dunn Bridge area south of these that we photographed last year.

It was dark before we got back to the car.

Thousands of petroglyphs, dating from deep prehistoric times to the Spanish colonial era and beyond dot the Taos Plateau.

The Taos Archaeological Society (TAS) is doing an excellent job cataloging them with the help of the Bureau of
Land Management.

Most of the petroglyphs string along waterways and into deep canyons. Others lie out on the open range as, presumably, territorial markers.

To be honest, I’m a bit suspicious of these markings.  There are some things about them that make me doubt their age.  That said, petroglyphs are notoriously hard to date so I’ll be asking some friends at the TAS more about these in the coming days.

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