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Our class visited Deer Valley Rock Art Center. It is located about 5 miles from our school in Phoenix, Arizona. It is a historical site featuring a museum and a trail through the desert to an area that has about 1,500 petroglyphs.The first thing we did was tour the museum at the Rock Art Center. We saw displays of petroglyphs and explanations of how and why they were made. As we walked farther we saw broken pottery with designs on it. On the wall we saw a cardboard picture made by the museum staff to show us how we could make our own petroglyphs at home. We saw a movie from Arizona State University about petroglyphs. We found out that the "glyphs" were probably done by the ancient Hohokam tribe. As we stepped out into the cool fall air, we looked around at the beautiful desert scenery. There were many different kinds of bushes and trees. The trees we saw the most were Palo Verde and Mesquite. The bushes we saw the most were Creosote and Wolfberry. We saw many animals too. The specific animals we saw were lizards, cactus wrens, sparrows, and annoying little insects.
A creek runs along the dusty trail. This tiny creek is dry most of the time. It is called Skunk Creek, but all we smelled was the creosote in the air. Since the area is named Deer Valley we think deer were native to this area. The native Americans probably came here because of the water, deer, and the rocks in this area. The McDowell Mountains and Pinnacle Peak could be seen on the distant horizon. They looked purple and majestic in the distance. At one point on the trail we began to see petroglyphs on the rock-tumbled hills. (Petroglyphs are images carved or pecked in a rock or stone covered in a special natural desert varnish.) These ancient petroglyphs were carved by Native Americans 700 to 5,000 thousand years ago. There are 1,550 petroglyphs that have been identified so far. Some of the shapes are spirals, deer, ladders, snakes, and men, as well as various geometric shapes. We think the petroglyphs were carved to tell about celebrations, religion, for keeping records and just for fun. The petroglyphs are beautiful. We feel lucky to live in the beautiful Arizona desert. 4/5/6 Project Potential Students Jeffrey, Patrick, Jennifer, Veronica, Ryan, Kreg, Neil, Bryan, John, Anthony, Brandi, Sarah, and Laura. * For more information visit these Web pages: * http://www.primenet.com/~gehlker/rockart/rockart.html * http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/g/h/ghb1/southwest/anasazi.html
