Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Ah. Geronimo. Or more to your comment, tracmag, Geronimo's wife. Can't say I heard a lot about her, but I suspect (not knowing what clan she was 'born to') she was nothing less than a stone fox!

Did set security for Walter Hill's 1993 production of 'Geronimo: An American Legend' movie --in, uhm, "back in the day"-- and got to hang out with one or three of the production's principles --Wes Studi was a HOOT! And so was his horse! Robert Duvall was a fun piece of work, too-- a time or three--, but I never got to share a quip with whomever might've played Geronimo's wife. Then again, heck, I dunno if Dahteste was ever portrayed in the flick.

Memory is like that sometimes. As Jorge Luis Borges said, memory is like a sieve.........

West of the Sierra Blancas, you say? Is it nice there? What lens should I bring????

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Ootah-ian Nat'l Pork..... er, PARK......... er, parking lot............. is just west of over there. And is a hunnert or so miles north of Moneymint Valley.

It's one of Ootah's "Mighty Five", don'tcha know.

I suggest you bring your ultra-wide, 'taco. Either that, or go in hock for that 600mm f/2.8 you've been jonesing for lo these many years.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

A beautiful shot

CCPhotoist Loc: Cape Cod

That's pretty cool, nice shot.

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

I like it Jim, What's the speculation on the age of the culture that made these petroglyphs. Current thought is that these could be up to 15K But, while unrelated, there are some similar to this in French caves that are ~ 35,000 years old. Then again, the horse was supposed to be reintroduced into the Americas with the Spanish after going extinct 80K ago on this continent.

Retired CPO Loc: Travel full time in an RV

I should have been more clearly spoken. Yes, I have seen lots of horses in rock art. But nothing even close to the style of these horses. And I know(?) that horses appearing in Native American RA only occur after the Spanish invasion in the 1500's. So that gives a pretty good starting point for attempting to date them.
I think that this artistic impression gives some insight into the relationship between Native Americans and their horses.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Very generally speaking, Reuss, I'd 'speculated' that these particular horse figures were produced by a person of the Ute culture because that is the culture who lived --and still live-- in the area where these figures were made. Other peoples --earlier cultures-- lived here previous to the Ute people's 'arrival' (which I and others 'speculate' began, gradually, in the 1200-1300's), but during those times, neither those earlier cultures nor the Ute had or even knew of the horse, and that remained the case in this area until around 1650 or thereabouts. You're aware that there had been a species of horse that had gone extinct in N. America; you're also aware (?) of some "current thought" that some rock art (in the Americas) could date as far back as (a Pre-Clovis period of) 15,000 b.c., but those sites are not in this immediate region. Paleo sites of that very early age --Pre-Clovis-- have been documented in NV, Virginia, Texas, &etc., and likewise in S. America in Brazil's Nordeste and at Chile's Monte Verde site; even scientists and researchers who knew the well-known Paleo 'cave painting' sites in Europe (Lascaux, Alta Mira, etc.) were somewhat blown away by the discovery of the art in Chauvet Cave (35,000 b.c.) because it predated what they knew by several thousand years. And then there's a site in Indonesia that's been tested/dated as being older still.

Culture is, in large part, defined by the technologies a people have. Even the Utes had to have undergone a cultural shift of sorts with the acquisition of the horse, though what those adaptions would've been would be a subject for someone better versed in Ute culture than me. What is known, however, is that linguistically, Ute speakers are part of a long line of Uto-Aztecan language groups. They're linguistically 'related' to people who migrated up --prehistorically, obviously-- from Meso America, through the deserts of western California and central Nevada. That language group is entirely different from the Athabaskan language groups (the Navajo, the Apache, &etc) who migrated down through America's Great Plains, generally west of the Rockies. And both those language groups are distinctly different than the Kersean (and similar) linguistic groups of the people --the Hopi, the Zuni, the Pueblo tribes generally-- who were already in place before the arrival of the Utes or the Navajo (etc), and were most closely related to the so-called 'Anasazi' or 'Fremont' cultures.

Reuss Griffiths Loc: Ravenna, Ohio

Thanks for getting back to me Jim. The whole subject of "native" American cultures is fascinating and changing in dramatic ways. When it comes to the influence horses had on culture you can't beat the Nez Perce who weren't satisfied with what was available and created their own breeds (twice). And there is growing evidence that migrations from the south may have had their origins in the South Pacific predating those across the Bering Sea land bridge. A fascinating book on Pre-Columbian Americas, if you haven't already read it, is 1491 by Charles C. Mann (Amazon) and is all about what North and South America were like prior to 1492. Tenochtitlan (Mexico City) was bigger with a larger population than London. In my neck of the woods, we had the mound builders who were just as active or more so than their western cousins.

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Ah. Okay. Now I understand. Where you're using the word 'style', Cheepfster, I'd suggest instead you use the word 'manner'. Rock art 'Styles' are grouped by a variety of formal and/or thematic 'iconographic traits' that were utilized and/or culturally held in common, while 'manner' is more diverse, and is more an individual sort of thing, dependent mainly on the 'skill' level of the individual as much as anything else.

Think of it this way: if someone asked you and me to draw a horse, yours might look exactly like a horse while mine might look more like cow or a dog or some stick-figured thing drawn by a pre-schooler. (Which would mean that were we to sell the drawings we'd made, yours might sell for $5 and mine would be considered priceless and be prominently displayed in the Louvre.)

Cany143 Loc: SE Utah

Yup; the whole peopling of the Americas thing is indeed fascinating stuff. Likewise, the peopling of everywhere else is, too. Theories get tested, evidence comes to light, and some of it works and some of it doesn't. (Can you pronounce "Eoanthropus dawsoni" correctly and with a straight face?) Re: the Mann book --1491-- yup again. I have the First Edition copy I bought (and read) in 1997. I just went and looked, and there it was on the shelf right next to Christy Turner's Man Corn. Someday, maybe I'll but my books into alphabetical order or something....

Bubalola Loc: Big Apple, NY

topcat Loc: Alameda, CA

Nice capture