A good hunt meant the difference between a starving winter and food to store away until spring thaw. The meaning of animals and arrows is clear, and it’s not surprising that so many of the figures are of animals. They agree that the spiral, vibrating in every part of the globe, is a symbol of energy. We ask Indigenous people, alive now, what these symbols mean. The images, like hieroglyphs, may represent conversations with the spirit world, recount stories, record events, or mark trails, territorial boundaries, or locations where water could be found. They didn’t have time to make fanciful doodles. We do know that the hunter-gatherers who lived back then had a harsh existence, straddling the edge between life and death. Does it speak to you? Some, in the vast and quiet desert, believe they have seen Kokopelli dance across a wall, carrying his bag of lusty seeds. But imagine this: Rock art with the same symbols is seen in Australia. This marks those who made this art as being ancient. Most rock art was created by people from the Fremont and Anasazi cultures-they lived from 600 AD to 1,200 AD. Some rock art in the Southwest’s canyon country is several thousand years old, made by people of the Mesquite Flat Culture, from 3,000 BC to 1 AD. We believe these caves, which truly do feel like going through the birth canal, were used to enhance magical thinking for successful hunts, to honor the spirit of animals, and to acknowledge the power of birth. And there, on dim walls, are massive, magnificent animals, hunters, and images of childbirth.

You have never experienced such total and absolute darkness. Wiggle into one of these caves on your belly. The best examples of pictographs are deep in underground caves. We believe their brushes were made from yucca and animal hair. Mixing local minerals, and combining them with oils, gave long-ago people colored pigments to paint with. Art, painted on a flat rock surface, is called a pictograph. Rock art that’s been chipped, pecked or etched into the surface of a rock, probably with quartz, is called a petroglyph. In between, quiet as a secret, the undesignated space is filled with those who went before. To the east is the Colorado National Monument, and to the west is that marvel, Arches National Park. This area was a center of population, and those who lived here told their stories on walls. The canyons punctuating the Colorado and Utah borders may seem empty, but there lies the mystery. The best place to see rock art in the United States is the American Southwest.

Petroglyphs ancient space men