Here in southern New Mexico, we're never far from scenes like this one at Three Rivers. The photos can't really convey the immense stillness and silence and isolation. No one is nearby. No one.
Long ago there was a village here, inhabited by the Jornada Mogollon people between 900 and 1400 AD.
Take the trail up the hill and look at their art work, painstakingly picked onto the rocks using stone tools. More than 21,000 glyphs have been found here, showing "birds, humans, animals, fish, insects and plants, as well as numerous geometric and abstract designs are scattered over 50 acres of New Mexico's northern Chihuahuan Desert." (New Mexico True: The Three Rivers Petroglyph Site).
A petroglyph—derived from the words “petro,” or “rock,” and “glyph,” to “carve,” or “carving”—is essentially just that, a rock carving. (Whispers of the Past Engraved in New Mexico Petroglyphs).
Looking back down the hill you can see the site of the village where the ancient rock artists lived. You can almost imagine the busy sounds of their neighborhood breaking through the vast silences we experience today.
6 comments:
I was born in NM, and have lived here most of my life. I have never been to Three Rivers. Shame on me. This looks amazing. xoxo Oma Linda
It is good to see you posting here again!
You don't mention any water source; I wonder if that is why the people moved on?
Oma Linda, I would recommend a trip to Three Rivers--take a lunch, there are picnic tables, restrooms, and water available. The Valley of Fires near Carrizozo, where you can see huge black lava flows, is just thirty miles away and the two places can be combined for an interesting day of exploration. They say that there are white lizards and black lizards that are of the same species, but differing in color depending on whether they live on the white gypsum at White Sands or on the black lava fields!
Margie, thank you for visiting. I'm always around--doing a lot of knitting these days and lots of genealogy research.
Mrs. Shoes, if you look at the first photo up above, you will see a line of cottonwood trees that grow along a stream. I am assuming that the Jornada Mogollon peoples used that stream--however large it was centuries ago when they lived there--for their water source. As far as I know, archeologists are still trying to figure out where some of these people went and why.
Your photos and descriptions are very atmospheric - calm and quiet and vast.
What a wonderful site -- we missed it completely on our visits to wonderful NM ... I would have loved to experience the awe which you beautifully evoke in words and pictures. I wonder where they went.
Post a Comment