1.
Pre-Columbian era
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For this reason the alternative terms of Precontact Americas, Pre-Colonial Americas or Prehistoric Americas are also in use. In areas of Latin America the term used is Pre-Hispanic. Other civilizations were contemporary with the period and were described in European historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Maya civilization, had their own written records, because many Christian Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical, men like Diego de Landa destroyed many texts in pyres, even while seeking to preserve native histories. Only a few documents have survived in their original languages, while others were transcribed or dictated into Spanish, giving modern historians glimpses of ancient culture. Indigenous American cultures continue to evolve after the pre-Columbian era, many of these peoples and their descendants continue traditional practices, while evolving and adapting new cultural practices and technologies into their lives. Now, the study of pre-Columbian cultures is most often based on scientific. Asian nomads are thought to have entered the Americas via the Bering Land Bridge, now the Bering Strait, genetic evidence found in Amerindians maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA supports the theory of multiple genetic populations migrating from Asia. Over the course of millennia, Paleo-Indians spread throughout North and South America, exactly when the first group of people migrated into the Americas is the subject of much debate. One of the earliest identifiable cultures was the Clovis culture, with sites dating from some 13,000 years ago, however, older sites dating back to 20,000 years ago have been claimed. Some genetic studies estimate the colonization of the Americas dates from between 40,000 and 13,000 years ago, the chronology of migration models is currently divided into two general approaches. The first is the short chronology theory with the first movement beyond Alaska into the New World occurring no earlier than 14, 000–17,000 years ago, followed by successive waves of immigrants. The second belief is the long chronology theory, which proposes that the first group of people entered the hemisphere at an earlier date, possibly 50. In that case, the Eskimo peoples would have arrived separately and at a later date, probably no more than 2,000 years ago. The North American climate was unstable as the ice age receded and it finally stabilized by about 10,000 years ago, climatic conditions were then very similar to todays. Within this timeframe, roughly pertaining to the Archaic Period, numerous archaeological cultures have been identified, the unstable climate led to widespread migration, with early Paleo-Indians soon spreading throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct tribes. The paleo-indians were hunter-gatherers, likely characterized by small, mobile bands consisting of approximately 20 to 50 members of an extended family and these groups moved from place to place as preferred resources were depleted and new supplies were sought. During much of the Paleo-Indian period, bands are thought to have subsisted primarily through hunting now-extinct giant land animals such as mastodon, Paleo-Indian groups carried a variety of tools
2.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
3.
Navajo
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The Navajo are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States. After the Cherokee, they are the second-largest federally recognized tribe in the United States, the Navajo language is spoken throughout the region, with most Navajos speaking English, as well. The states with the largest Navajo populations are Arizona and New Mexico, over three-quarters of the Navajo population reside in these two states. The Navajos are speakers of a Na-Dené Southern Athabaskan language known within the language as Diné bizaad, the language comprises two geographic, mutually intelligible dialects. It is closely related to the Apache language, as the Navajos and Apaches are believed to have migrated from northwestern Canada and eastern Alaska, speakers of various other Athabaskan languages located in Canada may still comprehend the Navajo language despite the geographic and linguistic deviation of the languages. Additionally, some Navajos speak Navajo Sign Language, which is either a dialect or daughter of Plains Sign Talk, archaeological and historical evidence suggests the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajos and Apaches entered the Southwest around 1400 CE. The Navajo oral tradition is said to retain references of this migration, until contact with Pueblos and the Spanish, the Navajos were largely hunters and gatherers. The tribe adopted crop-farming techniques from the Pueblo peoples, growing corn, beans. When the Spanish arrived, the Navajos began herding sheep and goats as a source of trade and food. Sheep also became a form of currency and status symbols among the Navajos based on the quantity of herds a family maintained. In addition, the practice of spinning and weaving wool into blankets and clothing became common, in the 18th century, the Spanish reported the Navajos maintaining large herds of livestock and cultivating large crop areas. Navahu comes from the Tewa, meaning area of cultivated lands. By the 1640s, the Spanish began using the term Navajo to refer to the Diné, during the 1670s, the Spanish wrote that the Diné lived in a region known as Dinétah, about 60 miles west of the Rio Chama valley region. In the 1780s, the Spanish sent military expeditions against the Navajos in the Mount Taylor, the Navajos came into contact with the United States Army in 1846, when General Stephen W. Kearny invaded Santa Fe with 1,600 men during the Mexican–American War. The treaty was not honored by many young Navajo raiders, who continued to steal livestock from New Mexican villages, New Mexicans, on their part, together with Utes, continued to raid Navajo country, stealing livestock and taking women and children for sale as slaves. In 1849, the governor of New Mexico, Colonel John MacRae Washington—accompanied by John S. The treaty acknowledged the jurisdiction of the United States and allowed forts, the United States, on its part, promised such donations such other liberal and humane measures, as may deem meet and proper. While en route to this treaty signing, Narbona, a prominent Navajo peace leader, was killed, during the next 10 years, the U. S. established forts on traditional Navajo territory
4.
Flood myth
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A flood myth or deluge myth is a narrative in which a great flood, usually sent by a deity or deities, destroys civilization, often in an act of divine retribution. Most flood myths also contain a culture hero, who represents the human craving for life, the Mesopotamian flood stories concern the epics of Ziusudra, Gilgamesh, and Atrahasis. In the Sumerian King List, it relies on the motif to divide its history into preflood and postflood periods. The preflood kings had enormous lifespans, whereas postflood lifespans were much reduced, in the Atrahasis version, the flood is a river flood. In the Genesis mythology of the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh decides to flood the earth because of the depth of the state of mankind. Righteous Noah is given instructions to build an ark, when the ark is completed, Noah, his family, and representatives of all the animals of the earth are called upon to enter the ark. When the destructive flood begins, all life outside of the ark perishes, after the waters recede, all those aboard the ark disembark and have Gods promise that he will never judge the earth with a flood again. He gives the rainbow as the sign of this promise, in the 19th century, Assyriologist George Smith translated the Babylonian account of a great flood. Further discoveries produced several versions of the Mesopotamian flood myth, with the account closest to that in Genesis found in a 700 BCE Babylonian copy of the Epic of Gilgamesh, the vessel would save Utnapishtim, his family, his friends, and the animals. In Platos Timaeus, Timaeus says that because the Bronze race of Humans had been making wars constantly Zeus was angered and decided to punish humanity by a flood. Prometheus the Titan knew of this and told the secret to Deucalion, after 9 nights and days, the water started receding and the ark was landed at Mount Parnassus. In ancient Mesopotamia, the Sumerian King List reads After kingship came down from heaven, the kingship was taken to Shuruppak. In Shuruppak, Ubara-Tutu became king, he ruled for 5 sars and 1 ner, in 5 cities 8 kings, they ruled for 241,200 years. Excavations in Iraq have revealed evidence of localized flooding at Shuruppak, a layer of riverine sediments, radiocarbon dated to about 2900 BC, interrupts the continuity of settlement, extending as far north as the city of Kish, which took over hegemony after the flood. Polychrome pottery from the Jemdet Nasr period was discovered immediately below the Shuruppak flood stratum, other sites, such as Ur, Kish, Uruk, Lagash, and Ninevah, all present evidence of flooding. However, this comes from different time periods. Geologically, the Shuruppak flood coincides with the 5.9 kiloyear event at the end of the Older Peron, in Israel, there is no such evidence of a widespread flood. Given the similarities in the Mesopotamian flood story and the Biblical account, floods in the wake of the last glacial period may have inspired myths that survive to this day
5.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
6.
Idaho
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Idaho is a state in the northwestern region of the United States. It borders the state of Montana to the east and northeast, Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, to the north, it shares a small portion of the Canadian border with the province of British Columbia. With a population of around 1.7 million people and an area of 83,569 square miles, Idaho is the 14th largest, the states capital and largest city is Boise. Idaho prior to European settlement was inhabited solely by Native American peoples, in the early 19th century, Idaho was considered part of the Oregon Country, an area disputed between the U. S. and the United Kingdom. Idaho was eventually admitted to the Union on July 3,1890, forming part of the Pacific Northwest, Idaho is divided into several distinct geographic and climatic regions. In the states north, the relatively isolated Idaho Panhandle is closely linked with Eastern Washington, the states south includes the Snake River Plain, while the south-east incorporates part of the Great Basin. Idaho is quite mountainous, and contains several stretches of the Rocky Mountains, additionally, around 38 percent of Idahos land is held by the United States Forest Service, the most of any state. Industries significant for the economy include manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry. Idahos agricultural sector supplies a number of different products, but the state is best known for its potato crop, the official state nickname is the Gem State, which references Idahos reputation for gemstones and, more broadly, its many wilderness areas. The exact origin of the remains a mystery. Willing later claimed that he had invented the name. Congress ultimately decided to name the area Colorado Territory when it was created in February 1861, thinking they would get a jump on the name, locals named a community in Colorado Idaho Springs. However, the name Idaho did not fall into obscurity, the same year Congress created Colorado Territory, a county called Idaho County was created in eastern Washington Territory. The county was named after a steamship named Idaho, which was launched on the Columbia River in 1860 and it is unclear whether the steamship was named before or after Willings claim was revealed. Regardless, a portion of Washington Territory, including Idaho County, was used to create Idaho Territory in 1863. Despite this lack of evidence for the origin of the name, the name Idaho may be derived from the Plains Apache word ídaahę́, which means enemy. The Comanches used this word to refer to the Idaho Territory, a 1956 Idaho history textbook says, Idaho is a Shoshoni Indian exclamation. The word consists of three parts, the first is Ee, which in English conveys the idea of coming down
7.
Colorado
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Colorado is a state in the United States encompassing most of the Southern Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains. Colorado is part of the Western United States, the Southwestern United States, Colorado is the 8th most extensive and the 21st most populous of the 50 United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the population of Colorado was 5,540,545 on July 1,2016, the state was named for the Colorado River, which Spanish travelers named the Río Colorado for the ruddy silt the river carried from the mountains. The Territory of Colorado was organized on February 28,1861, Colorado is nicknamed the Centennial State because it became a state in the same year as the centennial of the United States Declaration of Independence. Colorado is noted for its landscape of mountains, forests, high plains, mesas, canyons, plateaus, rivers. Denver is the capital and the most populous city of Colorado, residents of the state are properly known as Coloradans, although the term Coloradoan has been used archaically and lives on in the title of Fort Collins newspaper, the Coloradoan. Colorado, Wyoming and Utah are the states which have boundaries defined solely by lines of latitude and longitude. The summit of Mount Elbert at 14,440 feet elevation in Lake County is the highest point in Colorado, Colorado is the only U. S. state that lies entirely above 1,000 meters elevation. The point where the Arikaree River flows out of Yuma County, Colorado and this point, which holds the distinction of being the highest low elevation point of any state, is higher than the high elevation points of 18 states and the District of Columbia. A little less than one half of the area of Colorado is flat, East of the Rocky Mountains are the Colorado Eastern Plains of the High Plains, the section of the Great Plains within Nebraska at elevations ranging from roughly 3,350 to 7,500 feet. The Colorado plains were mostly prairies, but they have many patches of forests, buttes. Eastern Colorado is presently covered in farmland and rangeland, along with small farming villages. Precipitation is fair, averaging from 15 to 25 inches annually, corn, wheat, hay, soybeans, and oats are all typical crops, and most of the villages and towns in this region boast both a water tower and a grain elevator. Irrigation water is available from the South Platte, the Arkansas River, and a few other streams, however, heavy use of ground water from wells for irrigation has caused underground water reserves to decline. As well as agriculture, eastern Colorado hosts considerable livestock, such as cattle ranches. Roughly 70% of Colorados population resides along the edge of the Rocky Mountains in the Front Range Urban Corridor between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Pueblo, Colorado. This region is protected from prevailing storms that blow in from the Pacific Ocean region by the high Rockies in the middle of Colorado. The Front Range includes Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, Loveland, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, Greeley and other townships, on the other side of the Rockies, the significant population centers in Western Colorado are the cities of Grand Junction, Durango, and Montrose
8.
Ancestral Puebloans
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The Ancestral Puebloans are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture. They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger structures to house clans, grand pueblos, the Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. They held a distinct knowledge of celestial sciences that found form in their architecture, the kiva, a congregational space that was used chiefly for ceremonial purposes, was an integral part of this ancient peoples community structure. In contemporary times, the people and their culture were referred to as Anasazi for historical purposes. The Navajo, who were not their descendants, called them by this term, reflecting historic traditions, the term was used to mean ancient enemies. Contemporary Puebloans do not want this term used, archaeologists continue to debate when this distinct culture emerged. The current agreement, based on terminology defined by the Pecos Classification, suggests their emergence around the 12th century BC, beginning with the earliest explorations and excavations, researchers identified Ancestral Puebloans as the forerunners of contemporary Pueblo peoples. Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the United States are credited to the Pueblos, Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Taos Pueblo. Pueblo, which means village in Spanish, was a term originating with the Spanish explorers who used it to refer to the particular style of dwelling. The Navajo now use the term in the sense of referring to ancient people or ancient ones, Hopi people used the term Hisatsinom, meaning ancient people, to describe the Ancestral Puebloans. The Ancestral Puebloans were one of four major prehistoric archaeological traditions recognized in the American Southwest and this area is sometimes referred to as Oasisamerica in the region defining pre-Columbian southwestern North America. The others are the Mogollon, Hohokam, and Patayan, in relation to neighboring cultures, the Ancestral Puebloans occupied the northeast quadrant of the area. The Ancestral Puebloan homeland centers on the Colorado Plateau, but extends from central New Mexico on the east to southern Nevada on the west. Structures and other evidence of Ancestral Puebloan culture has been found extending east onto the American Great Plains, in areas near the Cimarron and Pecos Rivers, terrain and resources within this large region vary greatly. The plateau regions have high elevations ranging from 4,500 to 8,500 feet, extensive horizontal mesas are capped by sedimentary formations and support woodlands of junipers, pinon, and ponderosa pines, each favoring different elevations. Wind and water erosion have created steep-walled canyons, and sculpted windows, in areas where resistant strata, such as sandstone or limestone, overlie more easily eroded strata such as shale, rock overhangs formed. The Ancestral Puebloans favored building under such overhangs for shelters and defensive building sites, all areas of the Ancestral Puebloan homeland suffered from periods of drought, and wind and water erosion. Summer rains could be unreliable and often arrived as destructive thunderstorms, while the amount of winter snowfall varied greatly, the Ancestral Puebloans depended on the snow for most of their water
9.
Nine Mile Canyon
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Nine Mile Canyon is a canyon, approximately 40 miles long, located in the counties of Carbon and Duchesne in eastern Utah, in the Western United States. Promoted as the world’s longest art gallery, the canyon is known for its rock art, most of it created by the Fremont culture. The rock art, shelters, and granaries left behind by the Fremont make Nine Mile Canyon a destination for archaeologists and tourists alike, the canyon became a main transport corridor in the region during the 1880s. Settlers established a number of ranches in Nine Mile, and even a town named Harper. No longer heavily traveled, the canyon road was used mostly for recreation. The discovery of deposits of natural gas deep beneath the Tavaputs Plateau has brought an influx of industrial truck traffic since 2002. The large amounts of fugitive dust produced by the passage may be damaging the rock art. Public debate is ongoing about how best to balance development in the canyon against the preservation of its cultural resources. Nine Mile Canyon runs roughly southwest to northeast, with winding turns, just to the north of the Book Cliffs. The full 78-mile canyon route, formerly SR-53 through Gate Canyon, Nine Mile Creek, the stream that formed the canyon, is by no means a major body of water. Its importance lies in the fact that it is one of the few water sources in the region that are reliable year-round, Nine Mile Creek is actually a minor tributary of the Green River, emptying into Desolation Canyon on the east. A number of tributary canyons branch off Nine Mile itself, including Argyle Canyon, Cottonwood Canyon, Minnie Maud, significant rock art sites are frequently located near the junctions where they meet the main canyon. There are at least an estimated 1,000 rock art sites in the canyon, the true figures may be ten times as high, but there is no question that rock art is more concentrated here than anywhere else in North America. Much is in the form of pecked petroglyphs, and there are many painted pictographs as well, researchers have also identified hundreds of pit-houses, rock shelters, and granaries, although only a limited amount of excavation has been carried out. Many of these structures are located high above the floor on cliff ledges, pinnacles. They were built by the Fremont, whose presence in Nine Mile has been dated at AD 950–1250, indeed, Nine Mile Canyon was one of the locations most heavily occupied by the Fremont. In contrast to the purely hunter-gatherer cultures that surrounded them, the Fremont practiced agriculture, growing corn and squash along the canyon bottom. Compared to other Fremont areas, relatively little pottery is found in Nine Mile, suggesting that beans, the Fremont left irrigation ditches and earthen lodges on the canyon floor that could be seen as late as the 1930s, but are no longer visible after generations of modern cultivation
10.
Rock art
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In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural stone, it is largely synonymous with parietal art. A global phenomenon, rock art is found in many diverse regions of the world. It has been produced in many contexts throughout history, although the majority of rock art that has been ethnographically recorded has been produced as a part of ritual. Such artworks are often divided into three forms, petroglyphs, which are carved into the surface, pictographs, which are painted onto the surface. The oldest known rock art dates from the Upper Palaeolithic period, having found in Europe, Australia, Asia. Archaeologists studying these artworks believe that they likely had magico-religious significance, Rock art continues to be of importance to indigenous peoples in various parts of the world, who view them as both sacred items and significant components of their cultural patrimony. Such archaeological sites are significant sources of cultural tourism, and have been utilised in popular culture for their aesthetic qualities. Normally found in cultures, a rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief sculpture carved on solid or living rock such as a cliff. They are a category of art, and sometimes found in conjunction with rock-cut architecture. However, they tend to be omitted in most works on rock art, a few such works exploit the natural contours of the rock and use them to define an image, but they do not amount to man-made reliefs. Rock reliefs have been made in many cultures, and were important in the art of the Ancient Near East. Rock reliefs are generally large, as they need to be to make an impact in the open air. Most have figures that are over life-size, and in many the figures are multiples of life-size, the vertical relief is most common, but reliefs on essentially horizontal surfaces are also found. The term typically excludes relief carvings inside caves, whether natural or themselves man-made, natural rock formations made into statues or other sculpture in the round, most famously at the Great Sphinx of Giza, are also usually excluded. Reliefs on large boulders left in their location, like the Hittite İmamkullu relief, are likely to be included. The term rock art appears in the literature as early as the 1940s. It has also described as rock carvings, rock drawings, rock engravings, rock inscriptions, rock paintings, rock pictures. The defining characteristic of rock art is that it is placed on natural rock surfaces, as such, rock art is a form of landscape art, and includes designs that have been placed on boulder and cliff faces, cave walls and ceilings, and on the ground surface
11.
San Rafael Swell
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The San Rafael Swell is a large geologic feature located in south-central Utah about 30 miles west of Green River, Utah. Since that time, infrequent but powerful flash floods have eroded the sedimentary rocks into numerous valleys, canyons, gorges, mesas, the swell is part of the Colorado Plateau physiographic region. Interstate 70 divides the Swell into northern and southern sections, the swell lies entirely within Emery County. The Dirty Devil River flows southward into the Colorado River, while the San Rafael River joins the Green River before it flows into the Colorado. Muddy Creek cuts into the edge of the Swell, exits at Muddy Creek Gorge. The San Rafael Swell was formed when deeply buried Precambrian dike swarm rocks faulted, or broke, during the Laramide orogeny, about 60 million years ago. These basement rocks below the present-day Swell moved upwards relative to the surrounding areas, the resulting structure is analogous to a series of blankets draped over a box. Many of the most impressive landforms are composed of resistant rocks, including the Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, Jurassic Wingate Sandstone. The folding is much steeper on the edge of the Swell than in the west. Part of the Swell has geographic features that resemble Mars, the Mars Society decided to set up the Mars Desert Research Station in the area as a Mars analog for such reasons. The San Rafael Swell is an area of plant endemism. An example is the endangered San Rafael cactus, evidence of Native American cultures, including the Fremont, Paiute, and Ute, is common throughout the San Rafael Swell in the form of pictograph and petroglyph panels. An example is the Buckhorn Draw Pictograph Panel, with rock art left by the Barrier Canyon Culture, from about 1776 to the mid-1850s the Old Spanish Trail trade route passed through the Swell. In the past 150 years, areas of the Swell have been used for the grazing of sheep and cattle, many of the gravel roads in the interior of the swell were originally used to service the uranium mining activities. Although surrounded by the communities of Price, Green River, Hanksville, Ferron, Castle Dale, and Huntington, the Swell itself does not support permanent residents. The Swell has been used by Hollywood filmmakers as a setting for alien planets, including the Planet Vulcan in the 2009 film Star Trek. The area is managed by the U. S. Bureau of Land Management, although the Swell as a whole does not currently enjoy special protection, parts of it are protected as wilderness study areas. Cattle grazing is only allowed in parts of The Swell that are not designated as such, the San Rafael Swell is also dotted with sections of land managed by The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration, as is much of the state of Utah
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