Uncovering Ancient Secrets: The Petroglyphs of Crow Canyon

Ever wondered what ancient secrets lie hidden in the rugged landscapes of New Mexico? Join me, Craig the Natural Medic, as we unlock the mysteries etched into the stone walls of Crow Canyon. Marvel at the intricate petroglyphs left behind by the ancient Pueblo and Navajo peoples, showcasing everything from corn plants to enigmatic deities. Through this immersive journey, you'll uncover the historical context and artistic techniques that birthed these fascinating carvings, alongside some thought-provoking connections to modern pop culture. 

Our adventure takes us through the awe-inspiring panels of Crow Canyon, with unique insights into the significance of these images, from the stick-like prehistoric figures reminiscent of the Blair Witch lore to majestic depictions of native wildlife. As we traverse this ancient gallery, you'll gain a deeper understanding of the tools and materials used by these ancient cultures, as well as the timeless stories they might hold. Whether you're a history enthusiast, an art lover, or simply curious about the prehistoric world, this episode promises to captivate and enrich your understanding of New Mexico's hidden treasures.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Natural Medic Adventures. My name is Craig the Natural Medic and I'm here at Crow Canyon in San Juan County, on the border of San Juan County and Rio Arriba County here in New Mexico, the northwestern part of the state. Supposedly this is an area that has one of the greatest concentrations of petroglyphs, definitely in the state of New Mexico and maybe in the southwest, maybe even in the United States. Let's go take a look. Hope you'll follow me down to Crow Canyon to see some really cool petroglyphs. You drive across the wash to get to this junction. Here To the left you can see the main panel. To the right you have the Crow Canyon Pueblito, the Big Warrior panel and the 44 panel. I think I'm going to go check out the main panel first and then come back and look at the other panels. You don't want to attempt this area when it's wet. The wash you have to drive through was mushy today. I'll show you on the way out what it looks like, but with my truck not a big deal. I have it in automatic four-wheel drive and it went through just fine. You could probably make it with a small car, but I would recommend you probably need something with a little bit higher clearance. So pretty cool.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Right here you see some representative petroglyphs here. Petroglyphs are where it's been chipped out of rock. I'm not going to touch this, but you can see the detail here. They've been chipped out of rock. I'm not going to touch this, but you can see the detail here. They've been chipped out. It looks like footprints here. This looks like corn. Different figures here Looks like a person, maybe over there, and then different swirls or something. Maybe that's clouds, I don't know, but that's pretty cool, all right. So here actually is depictions of different things you might see. You have these prehistoric people on the top left there Navajo, buffalo with arrows, spanish horsemen, elk, shield figure, corn plants, unknown meanings, female and male deities. The exact knowledge of what these actually represent is not really known, but pretty fascinating. But you can see those over there on the rock. That's pretty amazing. There's a panel over here. Let's take a look to see what it says.

Speaker 1: 2:35

So, rock art they're commonly called petroglyphs and they are chipped out of the rock. The pictographs are used like a paint, using the rock as a canvas. Lower cliff faces is where they're found. There's a ton in here. So most of these here are Pueblo or Navajo. The Pueblo period was 500 to 900 AD, navajo 1500 to 1750. And the largest percentage of the drawings are Navajo. Many of them are similar to traditional sand paintings that they would do and they used hard stone tools, bone, wood and sometimes knives. The paint that they used and they did actually did was developed from animals and plants and things like that.

Speaker 1: 3:31

So here you have more figures. You have these ancient figures which are more stick-like, looks like you have some kind of maybe a turtle or something of that nature, not really sure and you have some writing and some names. I'm not sure what that's to do with. That bigger one looks like some kind of deity that they recognized and worshipped. Definitely some more figures here, got some more of those kind of prehistoric looking figures, some corn, and then some more of the other ones over here and there's actually a crane right there, some kind of bird. That's pretty neat. This one to me looks to use a modern reference, looks like the Blair Witch, those stick figures that they did in the movie. Leave it to me that I want some pop culture references. And there's another one over here that looks Similar. It's the sun and they're more inside of the shape of it. That's pretty wild. It's like there's a figure with a bow down below. Then there's another figure that's bigger in the sun.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Lots of interesting images here. You have some birds of some sort I'm assuming those are maybe quail, definitely some native birds. That looks like some kind of deity figure because it's got that kind of a wide head, maybe some kind of headdress on, same as up above, and there's arrows. Here's lots of figures that are arm and arm. More deity figures, more deity figures. Just wow, just amazing.

Speaker 1: 5:23

Here's some graffiti up there. Somebody scratched their name in there. Bad human, don't do that. This is sacred. This is interesting. It looks like some more deity figures there. And then back in the corner, right there, some kind of animal Looks, maybe like an elk, maybe a dog, I'm not sure. Wow, those are cool.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Some more human-type figures Maybe some elk prints, elk footprints, maybe bighorn sheep, I don't know Something with a large hoof print, then more of a celestial type object, stars maybe, or the sun Not sure. It's like a sun figure, maybe. Right there You've got a native person holding a bow with a headdress coming off, and then over here you've got a really big panel with a lot of different detail on there. Somebody score scratched in there 22510. Why the hell they would do that? I don't know. These people are idiots.

Speaker 1: 6:37

But you have lots of deity-type figures, among other things. Not sure what that circle represents, but very interesting, very interesting. That's another view from the bow-holding figure all the way over here to the waves, corn plants and the horseback riders Maybe that was Spaniards that they saw coming through. Wow, even more figures. There Got some more of those little small people figures. You've got people on horseback. It's like he has something in his hand. I don't know what that is. Slingshot, maybe, I don't know. Then you have some other interesting symbols up there, upside down, people. Wow, super cool. So what do you think about this?

Speaker 1: 7:38

One Seems a little inappropriate for the site. It's a similar, like vaguely similar, style, but it looks like it's probably something that maybe was graffitied because it doesn't have the distinctive look of the other ones. This might have been from early settlers to the area, the distinctive look of the other ones. This might have been from early settlers to the area Looks like February 20th 1906. Which would have been about the time that Farmington was being founded. Somewhere around there, which is where I live currently Trying to make out what it says.

Speaker 1: 8:15

There Looks like it says Kandaria. I can't make out the first name. You might make the first name out? Let me know in the comments. It's like Juan was here, but there are some other glyphs that are there. Hard to tell what they are. Maybe corn, maybe some other type of plant. I also like a hot dog or a corn dog. All right, just check out the main panel.

Speaker 1: 8:41

Now I'm going to go check out the Crow Canyon Pueblo, the Big Warrior panel, 44 panel. You can definitely see how rugged it is out here. Can you imagine what it would have been like for the Pueblo people and then the Navajo to live out here? Maybe there was more water and other resources around, but I think it would be tough. So, walking to the 44 panel now, the 44 panel is supposedly the biggest panel out here. There's three panels out here and a Pueblito which is a little pueblo which was used for defensive positions against the Utes which the Navajo were in battle with them for quite a while. Battle over territory. I believe the US government used the Utes to move the Navajo further south into what is now New Mexico and Arizona. They developed defensive positions in some of these places, which they call Pueblitos. We just walked down the wash here and that's what you can see Beautiful cottonwood tree turning golden yellow orange.

Speaker 1: 10:06

As it is October 27th when I filmed this and it's pretty warm today, it's 70 to be. A record high today of 77, beating the previous record of 76. It said a 1976. How about that one? It's supposed to be a .8 mile hike. I don't know if that means one way or if that means two ways. We'll find out. This is what I'm walking on. It's dry sand. It has been a little wet in places, but I guess it absorbs into the ground pretty quickly. Did get a pretty good rain here last weekend. I guess things have already been

Speaker 1: 10:56

absorbed. Okay, the famed 44 panel. I'm not sure what the significance of 44 was, but it's definitely been etched in there. It seems to be similar, dating to in construction, to the other ones nearby. Looks like you have a deity here standing on top of maybe a mountain lion or a bobcat, because there's some tracks below it that look like cat tracks. Over here you have a bison with several arrows in it, and then you have Juan. Again, juan is here. Thank you, juan, for blessing us with your presence. It looks like this lion or bobcat or whatever the deity is riding is shooting out fire or lightning or something Interesting Right out through the side there and we have a crescent moon kind of thing right there. I don't know if that was something that was there that broke off. Looks like there's some chip holes in here, so it could have been broken off at some

Speaker 1: 12:07

point. The panel continues over here. You have lots of different things over here. You have a warrior with his bow, you have elk with arrows in them I don't know what that is exactly there's more bison and there's a shield over there or a sun shield. I'm not really sure what we're looking at here, but to get up here, walk through this little side part of the wash, which is the wash, is over there and at the .8 miles and just walked over here it's not very well marked, but it is here

Speaker 1: 12:45

Pretty fascinating. Up here, above maybe hard to see in the light above that panel, well, to the left and above it, you have this. It almost looks like a salt and pepper shaker to me. I know that's not what that is, but some kind of figure with little dots all in it. There's definitely some figures up there and some goats. There is some kind of a plant right there. Got some more interesting shapes up here. We've got looks like a bison over there or a goat on the far side of that deity figure other deities which is almost like half man, half animal. Got a bird up there I'm assuming it's a turkey and you have other, either goats or rabbits or something like that, and a snake there's a snake up there, pretty cool. So 44 panel. It's about a 1, 1.6 mile

Speaker 1: 13:47

round trip. You go up the trail here, just basically stick to the wash. At about 0.8 you're going to head over to your left and you'll see the panel. Yeah, right here is the Crow Canyon, plebito, which is a defensive structure that was used as a lookout against the Utes, because the Navajo and the Utes were in a kind of a territory battle and they used that as a lookout point. I'm going to go check it out. You can barely see the top of it Over the top of those rocks right there. It's built on top of another rock. See if I can get a better view for you, and in order to get up there you're going to have to figure out the easiest route. There it is. I don't know if you can see it, let's see if we can zoom in. Yeah, anyway, there it is, the Pueblita Got one more stop that I want to do, which is the

Speaker 1: 14:54

Warrior Panel. It looks like it's just off the side of the road as you go out, so I'm going to check that out and then give you a summary at the end. So here's the big warrior panel, obviously named for this guy who is a big fella Two large spears. He's got a very round body, horns on top of his head, and maybe he caught these creatures over here, this crane maybe, so it looks like to me. Well, there's a lizard, or over here you have some several looks like deity figures. You have this one, you have this one, yeah, some sort of shape, geometric shape, almost looks like a seven. Then you have another deity figure and perhaps this one, yeah, some sort of shape, geometric shape, almost looks like a seven. Then you have another deity figure and perhaps another one, I don't know, pretty interesting, and you do have over here, past the big warrior, a couple of more figures you've got. Looks like almost like hands that are like growing things. You have a warrior with a bow, looks like perhaps that's a deity and another looks like somebody's hands. It's pretty interesting. Okay, there's the wash pretty packed and it's not super wet. I would not attempt to cross this if it's wet or has water in it, because you're probably going to get stuck and maybe you'll get swept away and maybe even lose your life. So

Speaker 1: 16:35

be careful. Crow Canyon is a pretty cool and unique place. What did you think about it today? Make sure to leave me a comment below. Let me know what you thought. Let me know if you've been here before. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up. Let YouTube know that you approve of my content and it gets out to more people. Definitely appreciate that. But what are your thoughts? Why did they leave all of these petroglyphs out there on the rocks? Was it to communicate with other people? Was it to give worship or praise to their deities that they believed in? Was it to be a language that passed on, or kind of a written record of what happened to others of their kind, to their future generations? What was it? I'm curious of your thoughts. If you have those, leave those below. Hope you enjoy the adventure and see you next time on the trail. Bye-bye for now.