Cynthia St. Charles Store

Friday, July 6, 2007

Road Trip - Medicine Lodge State Archaeological Site

We treated ourselves to a Wyoming Road Trip on July 4. Our first stop was at the Medicine Lodge State Archaeological Site . Back in the 70's, a series of archaeological digs uncovered human habitation artifacts indicating that this location has been used by humans for more than 10,000 years! They dug through about 26 feet of soil and rocky sediments, discovering 60 cultural levels . The excavation site has been refilled, but the petroglyphs and pictographs remain. Here are some of my better images from that location.
There are a series of human forms along this wall.

This animal is clearly of the deer family - with horns, and it's body appears to be pierced with several arrows.

Such expressive figures!

There were a lot of shield images.

We noticed a couple of young birds nesting in a fissure right above a group of petroglyphs.
I've been told that these are falcon babies - probably peregrine falcons.

Looks like they are guarding the petroglyphs!

There is a beautiful stream running through the site. Great for a refreshing wade. It is easy to understand why this narrow canyon would be chosen as home to so many civilizations.

We enjoyed our picnic lunch at a table along the stream, under the cool shade of a majestic cottonwood tree. Note Joe's new arm brace - he has some mobility now! Yipee!

The rock formations in this area were really interesting.


This was really interesting - one of the lower layers has eroded away - making it appear that the upper strata are floating on air!


I took a lot of pictures and the ideas for quilts are filling my brain!

Left to right - our road trip party - Joe, Caleb and Michelle.

2 comments:

Joyce said...

That looks like a fascinating site. WHere is it exactly? There is a park in Southern Alberta called Writing on Stone park which has some similarities. We are always looking for places like that to visit.

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