|
Gold Butte is a 500 square mile area 50 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Nevada, where the Sonoran, Mojave and Colorado Deserts meet. This is a desert and mountain wilderness. Much of the area is covered with red and buff sandstone formations with lesser amounts of limestone and granite metamorphic formations which are heavily eroded and fault twisted. The lower desert area is transected with many shallow, dry washes. Surface water is difficult to find, except for the Virgin River in the western margin. Winter temperatures are in the 60°s during the day and can drop into the 20°s at night. Summer midday highs often exceed 110°. The low desert vegetation includes creosote, bursage and cactus, which provide habitat for reptiles and small mammals. At mid elevation Joshua trees, blackbrush, cliffrose, serviceberry, oak, and manzanita provide a home for a multitude of birds and larger mammals such as deer and mountain lion. On the rocky slopes at the highest elevations are found bighorn sheep, small forests of Pinion and Juniper, and occasional stands of Douglass fir. Bands of Archaic hunter-gatherers lived here, followed by the Virgin
Branch of the Keyenta Anasazi. When the Anasazi left sometime around
1000AD the Patayan and southern Paiute made Gold Butte their home. |
|
|
|
|
|
Gold Butte is a barren but majestic red sandstone landscape and natural petroglyph repository. |
The darker stained areas of red sandstone appear to be the preferred canvass for prehistoric rock art makers. |
|
|
|
|
Many of the designs are are pecked into the rock with enough precision to make the images sharp and clear. |
Nicknamed "the falling man", this petroglyph could represent an actual event, a wish that this event would occur, a shaman descending to or from the spirit world, or something entirely different. |
|
|
|
|
This Kohota Circus panels seems 'cluttered' and has been weathered by the elements over the last millennia. |
Over the years different people utilized the resources of Gold Butte making it difficult to determine Who made What rock art. |
 |
 |
|
In some place level ground is not to be found and petroglyph panels are located on difficult to reach locations. |
This Whitney-Hartman panel includes some superimposition of petroglyphs pecked over older images. |
 |
 |
|
One of the nicest and best made Anasazi
panels in Gold Butte is situated high above a dry wash. see a replica of this panel |
With images almost the same color of the rock, some panels are difficult to detect. |
 |
|
| This grand panel of 21 bighorns in a line contains several sheep of different styles. | |
|
See...
Petroglyph Replicas Carved in Stone
opens a new window |
Learn More... |
Petroglyph CDs & Books  click image |
|
|
©2009 All rights reserved. Reproduction, distribution or other use of images without permission from the artist is prohibited. |
|||