As a child growing up on Navajo Land, I was privileged to see first-hand the history of The People preserved on the sandstone that defined my environment. Whether I was running up and down White House Trail in Canyon de Chelly, or catching a ride in the back of a four-wheel drive vehicle to go deep into the Canyon, or exploring the outer edges of Chinle Valley, up into the Chuska mountains, Round Rock, or up behind the old Rock Point trading post, I would see the “writings on the wall” – stories carved in soft red-orange stone, or stained by natural pigment and the patina of age - that testified to the human presence in the otherwise empty landscape; the reverberations of human life and intelligence from the centuries past. Antelope, big horned sheep, human figures, and symbols – arrows, lightning, spears, whirling logs and more- all spoke of the rich and busy lives of people who had come and gone before.

Rock art, in the form of petroglyphs and petrographs, is found all over the world, and often is more mysterious than revealing about the humans that lived before us.

Petrographs were created when natural pigments, such as ochers and iron oxides, were used to paint stories, in the form of pictures, on the surface of a rock wall, usually beneath an overhang, in a cave, or otherwise somewhat protected from the elements. Since rock is porous, over time the colors seeped into and stained the rock.

Petroglyphs are carvings, inscriptions, or engravings; an image or symbol carved directly into the rock.

Anthropologists believe that both petrographs and petroglyphs were used as a communication system to convey messages and set territorial boundaries, or had sacred use in ceremonial capacities. Advancement in modern methods have allowed anthropologists, archeologists, climatologists, and other scientists with a vested interest in learning more about our ancestors and how they related to their environment, to date these ancient “newspapers” with increasing accuracy, and with minimal damage to our collective history.

Now, when I’m at work, I have the privilege of seeing contemporary Native art every day, and to watch it come alive from conception to production. Now and then I still see echoes of the past, a connection to our ancestors, in the designs and stylized images that adorn or shape the jewelry, pottery, and rugs that inhabit our space.