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The Archaeology of People: Dimensions of Neolithic Life, Whittle

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<< Other Photo Pages >> Black Dragon Canyon - Rock Art in United States in The Southwest

Submitted by bat400 on Wednesday, 26 August 2015  Page Views: 2504

Rock ArtSite Name: Black Dragon Canyon
Country: United States Region: The Southwest Type: Rock Art
Nearest Town: Green River, UT
Latitude: 38.938000N  Longitude: 110.423W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
3 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
4

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rrmoser visited on 2nd Jun 2016 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 4 Access: 4

Black Dragon Canyon
Black Dragon Canyon submitted by bat400_photo : Compiled DStretch images that show the rock art drawings in their entirety. From left to right, notice the two quadrupeds, the tall person, the supplicating person and the snakelike figure. The style of these images matches other Fremont culture rock-art paintings in the region. Credit: Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, Paul Bahn and Marvin Rowe, "The death of a pterodactyl," Antiquity, Volume 89, p 872-88... (Vote or comment on this photo)
Rock Art in Emery County Utah.
Black Dragon Canyon contains several examples of Barrier Canyon style pictograms, many done in red pigment. The figures are attributed to the Fremont culture (circa A.D. 1 to 1100).

The figures tend to be placed high on the canyon wall and many panels are protected with labyrinth "cattle fences."

Many of the figures have been damaged or deliniated in chalk, or have simply faded over the years to the point where the figure is almost impossible to make out with the naked eye. [Note: Although chalking was often done in the past, visitors should never "re-chalk" or attempt to remove old chalking unless part of a sanctioned and professional restoration activity. Chalking is illegal in both state and federal law.]

One figure in particular, the "Flying Serpent" was chalked in the mid 1940's to better deliniate a figure variously claimed as a "weird bird," "monster," or "pterosaur." Recently, the use of X-ray fluorescence detectors and computerized separation of pigment materials have clearly revealed separate small figures that were interpretted in error as a single image. See the news comment below.

Before you visit, keep in mind that the "monster" image described above is almost impossible to see with the naked eye. Bring binoculars to better appreciate the other figures.

The canyon is on Bureau of Land Management property west of Green River on a dirt road turning off of I-70 westbound, near mile marker 147. Contact the Vernal BLM for hiking and topo maps that show this road. There is a parking area (near the location for this site listing) and canyon is accessed on foot via an old jeep trail.

Note: The site listing location reflects the general location of the trail head and does not reflect the specific location of any rock art panel. Do not use this locational information alone to travel to the site.

Note: 'Winged Monster' Rock Art Finally Deciphered. See comment below.
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The Archaeology of Death and Burial, Parker Pearson

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'Winged Monster' Rock Art Finally Deciphered by bat400 on Wednesday, 26 August 2015
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Researchers and creationists have debated whether the vibrant red pictographs of Utah's Black Dragon Canyon are images of humans and animals, or rather, depictions of a winged monster, possibly a pterosaur.

Now, using cutting-edge technology, researchers suggest the red paintings show five separate images, including a tall bug-eyed person, a smaller person, a sheep, a dog and a serpentlike figure.
"It is not a single figure. It is not a pterodactyl," said co-lead researcher Paul Bahn, a freelance archaeologist. "It's a beautiful set of images."

Amateurs discovered the painting in 1928, and soon after talk of the "winged monster" arose. In 1947, a man named John Simonson traced over the paintings with chalk and said the end result looked like "a weird bird."

Chalking rock art was a common practice in earlier years but today it's illegal, Bahn said. "It's one of the worst things you can do, because it damages the art, it imposes what you think you can see on it, it messes up the chemistry of the rock, probably, and it just doesn't disappear."

The chalking may have influenced subsequent viewings of the art. In 1979, geologist Francis Barnes said it looked "very much like a pterosaur, a Cretaceous flying reptile."
The fossils of pterosaurs, living from 228 million to 66 million years ago, are found in the region. Some creationists began saying that the painting was a real-life impression of pterosaurs.

But to many researchers, the painted area clearly shows separate images, not a single image of a pterosaur.
"I myself visited the site in person a few years ago," said Phil Senter (Fayetteville State University in North Carolina, not associated with the study.) "There's no pterodactyl there at all. It's a collection of other images."

Bahn and his colleague Jean-Loïc Le Quellec, a rock-art expert at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, traveled to Black Rock Canyon for their new TV documentary series, "On the Rocks".
The new study is the first to use cutting-edge techniques, including a tool called DStretch and a portable X-ray fluorescence device, Bahn said.

With DStretch, researchers can photograph a pictograph and upload it onto a computer. The program then helps researchers highlight the original pigmentsin the painting, in this case ochre, even when the colors aren't visible to the naked eye. Users can also disentangle colors from unwanted additions, such as chalk.

"Where you've got paint that has faded over the hundreds or thousands of years, DStretch will make them very clear and visible," Bahn said.
The DStretch results showed "What was supposed to be one wing of this pterodactyl is actually two little four-legged animals. The so-called head and beak and neck of the pterodactyl [are] actually a human figure with its spindly legs and its two arms stretching out."

Marvin Rowe, rock-art expert and professor emeritus of chemistry (Texas A&M University,) scanned the art with portable X-ray fluorescence, which reveals an artifact's chemical makeup.
"He showed that where there are paintings, you get a tremendously high reading of iron, of course, because it's iron oxide, this paint," Bahn said. "In other areas, between the so-called neck of the pterodactyl and its body, there's nothing, because there is no paint there."

With these two methods — the DStretch and the X-ray fluorescence — the researchers say in the study that they removed the "interpretational bias" that is inherent with eyeballing rock art, and used a scientifically replicable process instead.
"Things are sometimes exactly what they seem to be," Senter said.

The study was published in the August issue of the journal Antiquity.

For more, see http://www.livescience.c

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