National Parks 2021: Petroglyph National Monument

It’s time for the annual National Parks Club/KAL!

Every month from May-August, we’ll be releasing 4 new parks colorways. We have exhausted all of the traditional US National Parks, save one, so this year, we’ll be showcasing other National Parks areas, such as National Recreation Areas, Heritage sites, etc. Most will fall under one of 4 categories:

National History – Eastern USA
National History – Western USA
Indigenous Culture
Human Rights Leaders/notable people

Check out our Socks and Hats on Vacay/Staycay summertime KAL with our friend Shannon Squire, too: https://shannonsquire.com/socks-hats-on-vacay-staycay-2021/

Thanks for exploring parks and making socks with us once again this summer! To get your yarn, check out our list of LYS’s offering National Parks (Parks yarn will ONLY be available at our LYS partners through the summer): https://knittedwit.com/parks-2021/

Where is it located?

Petroglyph National Monument stretches 17 miles along Albuquerque, New Mexico’s West Mesa, a volcanic basalt escarpment that dominates the city’s western horizon.

Whose land does it reside upon?

Puebloans have lived in the Rio Grande Valley since before 500 A.D., but a population increase around 1300 A.D. resulted in numerous new settlements.

When was it established?

June 27, 1990

Why is it amazing?

Petroglyph National Monument protects one of the largest petroglyph sites in North America, featuring designs and symbols carved onto volcanic rocks by Native Americans and Spanish settlers 400 to 700 years ago. These images are a valuable record of cultural expression and hold profound spiritual significance for contemporary Native Americans and for the descendants of the early Spanish settlers.

Petroglyphs are rock carvings (rock paintings are called pictographs) made by pecking directly on the rock surface using a stone chisel and a hammerstone. When the desert varnish (or patina) on the surface of the rock was chipped off, the lighter rock underneath was exposed, creating the petroglyph. Archaeologists have estimated there may be over 25,000 petroglyph images along the 17 miles of escarpment within the monument boundary.

The vast majority of the monument’s petroglyphs were believed to have been created by the ancestors of today’s Pueblo people. It is believed that the majority of the petroglyphs were carved from about 1300 through the late 1680s. The Spanish colonizers carved some of the petroglyphs as well, although that practice was stamped out with the rise of christianity.