The rich photography and narrative in this book presents an overview of approximately 5,000 years of Native American rock art painted and engraved on the canyon walls and boulders within the greater Grand Canyon region, an area stretching south from the Arizona-Utah border to the Mogollon Rim. The authors and their associates have recorded and documented more than 450 rock art sites within the region over the past 25 years in cooperation with the Kaibab National Forest, Grand Canyon National Park, Bureau of Land Management/Arizona Strip, and the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument. Their work presents a preliminary classification of this rock art within a chronological framework and associated cultural affiliations. These enigmatic images are placed within their environmental and archaeological context, essential in deriving potential clues as to their function and significance. Several interpretation theories exist in the literature and these are carefully examined in light of this current research. Importantly, rock art is an endangered cultural heritage and the question of its protection, preservation, and conservation also receives attention. While rock art offers a view into one aspect of the prehistoric cultural landscape, the religious and social importance of these images continues to have relevance to contemporary Native American peoples as well as representing an engaging cultural legacy for all humanity.

"Native American cultures have flourished in the Four Corners region for thousands of years, from the early shamans, to the Anasazi, to historic tribes of today. Rock art images created by these cultures are diverse, mysterious, and haunting. Utah may contain more world-class, prehistoric rock art than any other region in North America. Rock overhangs with ghostly, painted, shamanistic figures have become synonymous with Utah." "Dennis Slifer has done extensive field work to identify those sites suitable for public visitation. Complete with maps and directions, this book describes more than fifty sites with public access in Utah, the Arizona strip, southern Nevada, and the western edge of Colorado. Richly illustrated with photographs and drawings, Guide to Rock Art of the Utah Region is a must for all rock art enthusiasts."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This fourth edition of David Grant Noble's indispensable guide to archaeological ruins of the American Southwest includes updated text and many newly opened archaeological sites. From Alibates Flint Quarries in Texas to the Zuni-Acoma Trail in New Mexico, readers are provided with such favorites as Chaco Canyon and new treasures such as Sears Kay Ruin. In addition to descriptions of each site, Noble provides time-saving tips for the traveler, citing major highways, nearby towns and the facilities they offer, campgrounds, and other helpful information. Filled with photos of ruins, petroglyphs, and artifacts, as well as maps, this is a guide every traveler needs when exploring the Southwest.

The ancient rock paintings and carvings found in abundance in the southwestern United States are astonishing in their beauty and mystery.

High above the noise and traffic of metropolitan Phoenix, Native American rock art offers mute testimony that another civilization once thrived in the Arizona desert. In the city's South Mountains, prehispanic peoples pecked thousands of images into the mountains' boulders and outcroppings—images that today's hikers can encounter with every bend in the trail. Todd Bostwick, an archaeologist who has studied the Hohokam for more than twenty years, and Peter Krocek, a professional photographer with a passion for archaeology, have combed the South Mountains to locate nearly all of the ancient petroglyphs found in the canyons and ridges. Their years of learning the landscape and investigating the ancient designs have resulted in a book that explores this wealth of prehistoric rock art within its natural and cultural contexts, revealing what these carvings might mean, how they got there, and when they were made. Landscape of the Spirits is the first book to cover these ancient images and is one of the most comprehensive treatments of a rock art location ever published. It conveys the range of different rock art elements and compositions found in the South Mountains—animals, humans, and geometric shapes, as well as celestial and calendrical markings at key sites—through accurate descriptions, drawings, and photographs. Interpretations of the petroglyphs are based on Native American ethnographic accounts and consider the most recent theories concerning shamanism and archaeoastronomy. Written in a simple and accessible style, Landscape of the Spirits is an indispensable volume for anyone exploring the South Mountains, and for rock art enthusiasts everywhere who wish to broaden their understanding of the prehistoric world. It is both an authoritative overview of these ancient wonders and an unprecedented benchmark in southwestern rock art research at a single geographic location.

Sixty color and 15 bandw photographs utilize natural light and show Utah's prehistoric rock art images in the context of the surrounding canyons. The photos are presented with brief captions, and with the words of Ute, Paiute, Hopi, and Northwest Shoshone individuals who describe the what the art means to them personally. An introductory essay discusses the various artistic styles of native peopls of this region over a period of 8,000 years. N. Scott Momaday supplied the foreword. A lovely book. No index or references. 10x11" Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Imagine seeing the varied landscapes of the earth as they used to look throughout hundreds of millions of years of earth history. Tropical seas lap on the shores of an Arizona beach. Immense sand dunes shift and swirl in Sahara-like deserts in Utah and New Mexico. Ancient rivers spill from a mountain range in Colorado that was a precursor to the modern Rockies. Such flights of geologic fancy are now tangible through the thought-provoking and beautiful paleogeographic maps, reminiscent of the maps in world atlases we all paged through as children, of Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau.Ron Blakey of Northern Arizona University is one of the world's foremost authorities on the geologic history of the Colorado Plateau. For more than fifteen years, he has meticulously created maps that show how numerous past landscapes gave rise to the region's stunning geologic formations. Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau is the first book to showcase Blakey's remarkable work. His maps are accompanied by text by Wayne Ranney, geologist and award-winning author of Carving Grand Canyon. Ranney takes readers on a fascinating tour of the many landscapes depicted in the maps, and Blakey and Ranney's fruitful collaboration brings the past alive like never before.Features: More than 70 state-of-the-art paleogeographic maps of the region and of the world, developed over many years of geologic research Detailed yet accessible text that covers the geology of the plateau in a way nongeologists can appreciate More than 100 full-color photographs, diagrams, and illustrations A detailed guide of where to go to see the spectacular rocks of the region