Buckhorn Wash Rock Art

The Buckhorn Wash Panel is located in a remote desert canyon without all that much else around. Chances are you will only be passing between two places, but you should certainly stop by Buckhorn Wash to check out the ancient pictographs. Also, those who paddle the San Rafael River can see them on the way out.

The Barrier Canyon Style, in which these unusual pictographs were painted, dates back 7,000 years and was painted by the archaic and enigmatic ancestors of the modern Native Americans. The paint was made from a mix of natural pigments in oxidized iron, blood, pitch, plants, minerals, and many other unknown substances. It is amazing that the paint has lasted this long in the exposed environment. There are many figures here, and they are common to the other nearby sites in the same style, where serpents, snakes, and strange ceremonial anthropomorphic creatures abound.