Petroglyph site in Utah got me thinking about ancient graffiti

I was hiking near Moab last spring and stumbled on a whole panel of petroglyphs that looked way newer than the ones around it, like someone carved a smiley face on a 1,000-year-old rock. Is that something archaeologists see often, or was I just lucky to spot a modern tag on an old site?

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2 Comments

the_morgan23d ago

Stepping right off that point about weathering, the coolest part is how they can literally see the difference in the rock varnish. That dark patina that forms on those old petroglyphs takes hundreds of years to build up, sometimes thousands. So when someone carves a fresh smiley face or their initials, the rock underneath is still bright and light colored, it's basically screaming "I'm new here." I read once that in some places they can even use special cameras to see old carvings that have faded almost completely back into the rock, which is wild to think about. It makes you realize that most of the stuff we think is ancient might just be really really old, and there's a whole layer of history we can't even see yet.

nancym3423d ago

Actually the smiley face thing is way more common than people think. I've seen photos from the Four Corners area where someone carved "2020" next to actual Ancestral Puebloan art. Archaeologists call that "modern defacement" not a new petroglyph. It's vandalism plain and simple. The really interesting part is how they can tell the difference based on weathering and tool marks.