June 16 – VELARDE – Spread out in three small groups on a rugged slope overlooking the lush green forest along the Rio Grande, student interns slowly navigate and examine the large basalt boulders scattered along Mesa Prieta.
With cameras, GPS devices, tape measures, pencils, map sheets and photo data sheets, the teens use the skills they have recently acquired to document the markings they find on the rocks that are touchstones for the people who inhabited or passed through this important area . course hundreds to thousands of years ago.
The 12-square-mile mesa north of Española has been identified as the largest petroglyph site in New Mexico and is estimated to contain more than 100,000 petroglyphs.
For most of the 17 students in the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project’s two-week summer internship program, many of whom come from nearby pueblos, this is the first chance they have had to see the impressive place where they are so close to all their lives. lived life. lives without even knowing it.
It made quite an impression.
“Our ancestors had come here and left their mark on these places, physical marks that you can see,” said Zakaila Tapia, 16, Ohkay Owingeh, who will be a junior at Santa Fe Indian School this fall. “There’s evidence of our culture even in different areas where we don’t live, which is really cool.”
About 80% of the petroglyphs and other archaeological features of Mesa Prieta, which means “dark mesa,” are on private property. Much of the remaining 20% is on Bureau of Land Management land. A small portion of the mesa is on land owned by Ohkay Owingeh, and more than 180 hectares are owned by The Archaeological Conservancy.
Katherine Wells, an artist and founder of the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project, purchased a 188-acre parcel of land on the mesa when she moved to New Mexico in 1992. She quickly noticed the presence of a high concentration of petroglyphs, and over time more than 10,000 have been identified on the site.
Realizing the site’s significance, Wells founded the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project in 1999 with the help of local archaeologists and neighbors. The goal was to document all petroglyphs and archaeological sites on Mesa Prieta and educate the community about their importance.
Wells donated 156 acres of her land to The Archaeological Conservancy in 2007 to forever protect the petroglyphs on the property. The area is now known as the Wells Petroglyph Preserve. The Archaeological Conservancy has since acquired even smaller parcels of land to add to the land under its protection.
Immersed in history
Martinez, who was previously an associate professor of Pueblo Indian Studies at Northern New Mexico College, said this year’s internship program included much more than recording petroglyphs.
The students toured nearby Ancestral Pueblo settlements, visited the nearby Los Luceros Historic Site with an 18th-century Territorial-style adobe house on a 148-acre ranch, and participated in a workshop to make their own obsidian arrowheads.
On Thursday, the students attended Ohkay Owingeh’s Corn Dance, where Martinez said they were able to recognize many of the same symbols and images they had seen in the form of petroglyphs on the dancers’ regalia and kilts.
“There’s corn, there’s clouds in regalia, there’s different feather images in our dance kilts. You see feather images, you see turkey tracks,” Martinez said. “So it’s another way to make these connections for students so that it’s not just a thing of the past, but there’s longevity to that.”
On Monday, the interns will visit a herd of bison in Pojoaque Pueblo. Martinez said bison are among the many different species carved into the stone on the petroglyph.
The interns were enthusiastic about the practical, personal experiences in the outdoors. They said the immersive opportunities to learn the history of their home region are something that can’t be recreated in a classroom.
“We never had field days where we came to these places,” said Alyssa Guerrero, a recent graduate of Mesa Vista High School and this year’s student mentor. “I wish we did that, especially when you get New Mexico history in seventh grade. It would have been nice to come here because you could have seen real physical things from our history and not just pictures in a book or photos. on a screen it would have been much more useful to see it.”
“I like walking, just looking at the petroglyphs, seeing what it means and then guessing. It’s quite interesting,” added Malachi Martinez Ohkay Owingeh, who will be a sophomore at Santa Fe Indian School. “I just like being outside. It’s quiet here; it’s peaceful.”
Matthew Martinez said the petroglyph project has developed relationships with a number of schools in Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara and Taos pueblos and regularly offers free tours to them. He encourages more schools to set up other educational options.
Self-guided tours are not allowed at the petroglyph site. Private tours with docents can be scheduled for a fee, and tours for Native American individuals or communities can be scheduled for free.
Many of the summer interns said their time in the program sparked their interest in archeology and that they would be open to similar opportunities in the future.
Mary Sandoval, a rising senior who said she is one of about 10 Indigenous students at McCurdy Charter School in Española, said the experience has also made her more aware of the need to be good stewards for Mesa Prieta and other locations that contain important cultural resources.
“It’s a desire to protect and preserve our culture,” she said, “because we don’t have much left from before residential schools and we are one of the few indigenous people who still have that bond, who still we always have kivas and such. So we want to preserve as much as possible.”
