Ignorance Leads to Pictograph Destruction

i-c2486dfb44eaccf5dc9460b8ddfdcca5-graffiti.jpgI'd planned to spend the day discussing ancient rock art, but this isn't how I wanted to start. Earlier this month in Fruita, Colorado (located on the I-70 corridor on the western slope) a group of graduating high school seniors took a can of spray paint and marked their legacy on a couple of rocks outside of town. Kids will be kids, right? The trouble is, they weren't the first to leave a legacy on those rocks. Someone else had left their mark there, about a thousand years before.

Petroglyphs and pictograms, left by a people known collectively as the Fremont Culture, are scattered across the western slope of Colorado, the canyons of Utah, and the deserts of eastern Nevada. I've written about Fremont art before, here (I'll repost it here at some point.) I also visited an elaborate panel in Utah last weekend, which I'll discuss later. Fremont art is magnificent, even when it is difficult to find. So, it saddened me greatly to hear about the careless disrespect these students had for their local ancient treasures.

Not to mention, they were just downright stupid about it:

The alleged vandals, who were not taken into custody, reportedly left behind their John Hancocks, "2006" and profanities in shades of blue, white and black spray paint on a large boulder and nearby sandstone wall that displays fragile pictographs. Lloyd said the suspects' choice of words -- their first and last names and graduation year in Fruita Monument's colors -- clued authorities to whom was behind the vandalism. (via the Grand Junction Sentinel

Um... duh, guys. Leave your names at the scene of the crime, good idea. (The names released to the media were Christopher Browning and Amber Gile, both 18 years old.)

To their credit, their ignorance may not be their fault. They might not have even known the art was there:

Lloyd said the teens did not know they were vandalizing a significant archaeological site. She suggested youth and ignorance about the historical and cultural value of the area may have contributed to the suspects' oversight.

In addition, she said, the actual art is not immediately apparent to people who do not know it is there.

"The images aren't obvious," Lloyd said. "They're not bold and at eye level. It is difficult to find the images. Some of them are up very high and very faded."

So, the real problem isn't that Browning and Gile wanted to destroy fragile rock art, but that they never learned to care. No one ever told them about the signs of ancient cultures in their neighborhood, or taught them to be passionate about local history. No one cautioned them about preserving the past to enrich the future.

One of my biggest concerns about our society today is the lack of physical community. We meet online as often (or more) as we do in person. We can study a culture a thousand miles away as easily as we can in our own backyards. While this influx of diverse information is an amazing thing, we seem to be forgetting about our backyards. If we aren't responsible for sharing the information found immediately around us, then who is? (I'll be writing more about this next week--I've been looking in my backyard.)

What about the Fruita pictograph? It appears to have been spared the worst:

The suspects did not paint over any images, but they came close. BLM staff managed to clean and scrub the spray-painted sandstone boulder and wall using a topical agent that permits the removal of much of the paint without destroying the ancient art on the fragile sandstone.

"Staff did a great job," associate field manager Raul Morales said. "It's difficult to see where the graffiti was, and the sacred images were spared direct damage."

Browning, Gile, and a third, underage companion have an appointment with the federal court next Tuesday, under suspicion of destruction of US property:

The suspected vandals could face up to one year in prison and fines up to $100,000.

A more appropriate sentence might be 100 hours of community service, researching local history and educating the public, and a 10 page research paper. And they thought they were done with school....muahaha.

Image note: The shot above is a slab of sandstone from my garden, not a pictograph panel. I didn't actually spray paint it, either.

Update (6-22-2006): The kids pleaded guilty and admitted they weren't aware that the rock art was there. They had to pay a fine and pay for cleanup. No community service, no research papers. Oh well.

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Trisha, the Sentinel didn't specify the age of the pictographs, but the Fremont in that area disappeared sometime around 950. So, it's likely that they were between 1000 and 1300 years old.

Jane, that's a really good question. There's a number of comparisons I could make, such as time it takes to create natural pigments with limited materials versus the time it takes to whip out a can of spray paint, or the difference between symbols used in animism rituals (or as road markers or histories, etc) and initials and profanities stemming from teen angst. (Although maybe the Fremont were sneaking out of the pithouse and writing "you suck", who can say?) The real problem I have with this incident, though, is these graffiti artists knew nothing about the prior artists, and could have painted right on top of the pictographs as easily as not. If they'd been more aware, and wanted to put the two types of art in the same place, wouldn't they have chosen an adjacent boulder?

I can really pinpoint which is the biggest crowdsourcing website (in terms of brand recognition). There are always seem to be a new one popping up which I've never heard. This time it's Crowdflower. The learning continues...