This Santa Rosa petroglyph site is located on a private ranch in eastern New Mexico, west of the city of Santa Rosa. Most of the petroglyphs at this site are carved into sandstone walls along a two mile stretch of this remote, parched canyon. Once well protected by its remoteness, this canyon has recently come under attack by vandals who have intentionally damaged several panels. There are ranchers with petroglyph sites on their property who had been willing to share viewing the petroglyphs with the public, but vandalism, littering and trespassers leaving cattle gates open have seriously dampened the ranch owner's good will. Always get the owner's permission before going on someone else's property.
Photos by Ron Hutchison. Next 10 photos. |
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| Deer or elk and canines are depicted. The circles with vertical lines may represent atlatls (predecessors to the bow and arrow) or where a shaman entered the the spirit world through the rock. |
Close up of heard shown in picture to right, canine head in upper left . New Mexico cattlemen believe these petroglyphs indicate good hunting sites. |
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| The ranch owner points to a heard of deer or elk depicted with human-like feet and forward bending hind legs |
Meandering parallel lines are indicative of archaic hunter -gatherer cultures, the corn plant (far left and outline face left top) are typical of the Rio Grade style in Mogollon culture times. |
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| Animal tracks as petroglyph subjects occur throughout the southwest. This track may be that of a bear. |
Hand, spiral and what seems to be an antelope skull. The skull eyes are unpecked, dark natural grooves in the stone and give this petroglyph an eerie appearance. |
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Books about Rock Art and Mogollon petroglyphs
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| The center sheep seems to have two short parallel lines emanating from it's shoulders. |
Parallel wavy & straight lines, and unidentifiable shapes often indicate an archaic origin. |
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| this panel includes footprints, a possible snake, concentric circles attached to a wavy line and a lizard or turtle at the bottom center. |
This petroglyph located in the mouth of the canyon is called the "Barbed Buffalo" by local ranchers. |
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Atlatls or 'throwing sticks' are 18" long flat wooden sticks that functioned as an extra arm segment and were used to propel a four foot long stone tipped dart toward the hunters query. A hook at the top represents the notch that held the feathered end of the dart and finger grips are sometimes depicted at the opposite end. The disk in the center represents a weight attached to the atlatl to add mass for increased thrust. The bow and arrow starting replacing the atlatl around 200 BC in California and spread eastward into New Mexico by AD 1000.
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