CULTURAL RESOURCES |
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| The Red Rock Canyon National
Conservation Area provides scenic and recreational opportunities for
hundreds of people each day. Modern visitors are drawn to the Red
Rock area for the recreational change of pace and beautiful scenery it
has to offer. But, the Red Rock area has been utilized to meet
man's needs for thousand of years. It is an area rich in cultural
resources. Cultural resources are anything that man has used, made or
altered. These resources tell a story of prehistoric Americans in
a desert land. Over the thousands of years of human activity in
southern Nevada, as many as six different Native American cultures may
have used the Red Rock area. (For who and when, see the cultural
chronology on the
last page.)
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WHY WERE THEY HERE? |
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The key to the area's prehistory is water. In the desert areas surrounding Red Rock Canyon and the Spring Mountains water is scarce. However, the Red Rock Canyon area contains over 40 springs, as well as many natural catchment basins (known as tanks or tinajas). With the presence of dependable water, plant and animal life is richer and more concentrated than in the surrounding desert. The abundance of plant and animal food sources made the Red Rock Canyon area very attractive to hunters and gatherers such as the historical Southern Paiute and the much older Archaic, or Desert Culture Native Americans. These peoples traveled in small mobile groups that ranged over large areas of land following the ripening of various plant foods. Red Rock was an important stop on their seasonal round. Even the more settled agricultural groups such as the Payayan Culture, from the banks of the upper and lower Colorado River near Hoover Dam, and the Anasazi either traded or traveled to Red Rock for its resources. Red Rock is considerably higher in elevation than the river valley homelands of these two groups. Because of the increased elevation Red Rock has several higher altitude plant and animal types that would have been unavailable at the lower elevations.
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HOW DO WE OBTAIN KNOWLEDGE OF EARLY NATIVE AMERICANS? |
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| Since the Southern Paiutes
were still in the area when the first non-Indians (Europeans) entered
southern Nevada, we have some written records of their presence and
lifestyle here. For the most part, however, all of our knowledge
of ancient Native Americans comes from the cultural resources they left
behind. For example, we know that the Anasazi Indians
either visited the Red Rock Canyon area or traded with its
residents because we have pieces of broken pottery that can be
identified as their type of ceramics. Some pieces of pottery not
only tell us who was in the area, but when they were there.
Pottery decoration styles, clay color and manufacturing techniques
change with periods of time and vary from group to group. Even
projectile points (arrowheads) can serve as time markers to
archaeologists familiar with the prehistory of the area. Since
these resources are our only source of information on American's
prehistory, it is important to preserve and protect them in their
original location. But, cultural resources are more than
storehouses of information. They can also be part of a very
important and personal experience of Red Rock Canyon National
Conservation Area. Seeing a projectile point where it was dropped
or shot hundreds or even thousands of years ago can provide the basis
for a meaningful experience linking you with a person who walked or
hunted here long ago. If you choose to remove the point from
its place, not only have you broken the law and caused the loss of
potential scientific knowledge, you have denied others a similar
experience. Any artifact loses almost all of its value when it is
removed from its original location. We all have the
responsibility to preserve and protect these resources.
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ROASTING PITS |
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| Roasting pits are perhaps
the most common cultural resource found in Red Rock Canyon National
Conservation Area. Roasting pits are circular areas of
fire-cracked and whitened limestone. They can vary in size from
ground level circles five to six feet in diameter, to huge piles
several yards high with large sloping sides. Roasting pits were
used to roast various foods such as agave hearts, desert tortoise and
possibly other plant and animal foods. The limestone was
gathered, heated by the fire and then used to cook the foods.
After prolonged heating, the limestone was raked aside and replaced
with new rocks. This process caused the circular ring of rocks to
grow with use. There are several roasting pits at the Willow
Spring picnic area, including one of the largest in southern Nevada.
The large pit is located at the base of the sandstone cliffs just
behind and downhill from the restrooms.
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ROCK ART |
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| Rock art comes in two
varieties, petroglyphs and pictographs. The difference between
the two types is the manner in which they were made. Petroglyphs
were pecked into the surface of the rock. Pictographs were
painted on the rock. In Red Rock Canyon a coating of dark "desert
varnish" on lighter sandstone provides the perfect medium for
petroglyphs, which are the most common of the two types of rock art
found at Red Rock. If you want to discover some petroglyphs
firsthand, the Red Spring area has a wide variety of different styles
on the cliff faces and fallen boulders. Rock art is both enduring and fragile. It has lasted hundreds of years; yet many panels have been recently defaced by graffiti. Climbing on panels can also damage the art, as can attempts to embellish the petroglyphs for photographic purposes. These practices are destructive and should not be done.
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OTHER CULTURAL RESOURCES |
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| In the places where Native Americans who
visited Red Rock Canyon camped and lived, they left behind the tools
and trash of everyday living. Broken pots and stone tools are
pieces of the puzzle that, when put together, tell the story of ancient
ways of life and human adaptation to the desert. If you see these
cultural resources, enjoy them, but please leave them to tell their
story and to be appreciated by others.
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THE CULTURAL CHRONOLOGY OF SOUTHERN NEVADA |
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The above dates are approximate and subject to considerable debate. Some are likely to be modified as our understanding of this region's prehistory increases. These dates are based on a number of techniques and methods including references in early historic writings, radiocarbon dates, ceramic (pottery) cross dating and comparisons with surrounding areas that have more established chronologies. Two other groups were present in southern Nevada and probably utilized the Red Rock Canyon area, although no evidence of their presence has yet been found.
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UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE
INTERIOR
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BLM/LV/Gi-99/023+8300 *U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1999-785-499 |
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