Three Rivers Petroglyph Site

The single biggest surprise during our trip to White Sands and Alamogordo, NM was the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. We posted a couple of pictures from Three Rivers in our last post, but we wanted to share more. 

It is believed that these petroglyphs were made between about 900 and 1400 AD by a people that were probably assimilated into, but have no known relationship to, surviving Native American cultures. The glyphs were made by using rocks to chip the black surface off of larger rocks. By the time that the Spanish arrived here, the site had been abandoned for at least 100 years and their culture no longer existed. There are believed to be about 21,000 individual glyphs here, on about 50 acres. There are two marked trails: One into the fields of rocks, and another to the ruins of the tiny village where these people lived. The trails were easy, but when the heat of the day arrived (even in March) we were reminded that in the desert one needs to be very careful about exposure. 

There are a few picnic tables and campsites and a restroom at the parking lot, but this is a primitive area in the middle of nowhere and with no staff on site. One just wanders about and finds what one finds. What they might mean is open for discussion.