Best Great Basin
The Winnemucca Lake Petroglyphs are carved panels on tufa formations beside the former Winnemucca Lake subbasin in northwestern Nevada. Their deeply incised lines, cupules, and branching geometric forms have been dated through carbonate layers and associated lake deposits to intervals between about...
Found in Nevada, the Pyramid Lake Petroglyphs are among the oldest known rock engravings in North America, dating back at least 14,800 years.
The Coso Rock Art District preserves a remarkable collection of prehistoric petroglyphs carved into volcanic rock in California’s Great Basin. This site boasts an estimated 100,000 figures created by the Great Basin people between approximately 8,000 and 2,000 years ago. Researchers and archaeologis...
Ned Blackhawk is a Western Shoshone historian and professor at Yale University whose research concerns Indigenous peoples and the history of the United States. His 2023 book, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History, presents U.S. history with Indigenous nations an...
The Lagomarsino Petroglyph Site is an archaeological rock-art site in Storey County, Nevada, near Virginia City. It contains a large concentration of prehistoric rock engravings made on exposed stone surfaces in the Great Basin. The images form part of Nevada's record of indigenous visual traditions...
The sagebrush steppe is a diverse, semi-arid ecosystem located across western North America, particularly throughout the Great Basin and Snake River Plain. This biome is characterized by its dominance of Artemisia shrubs, commonly known as sagebrush, alongside native bunchgrasses and shallow-rooted...
Grimes Point Archaeological Area is a publicly accessible prehistoric site located east of Fallon, Nevada, managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The area is characterized by basalt boulders extensively carved with petroglyphs representing the Great Basin Curvilinear and Rectilinear traditions, e...
Grimes Point Petroglyphs is a rock-art site near Fallon in western Nevada, within the Great Basin region of the United States. The site contains numerous images pecked or carved into dark basalt boulders, including abstract and representational designs made by Indigenous people over a long prehistor...
Atlatl Rock is a prominent petroglyph site situated within Valley of Fire State Park in southern Nevada. The site is named after a specific, clearly visible rock carving of an atlatl, a prehistoric spear-throwing tool used by early indigenous hunters. Hundreds of other Basketmaker and Ancestral Pueb...
The Great Basin Shrub Steppe is a dry interior ecoregion extending across much of Nevada and western Utah in the United States. It is characterized by broad basins, isolated mountain ranges, sagebrush communities, salt desert shrubs, and limited surface drainage. Elevation strongly influences local...
Danger Cave is a major archaeological rock shelter located near Wendover in western Utah, USA. Excavated primarily in the late 1940s and 1950s by Jesse D. Jennings, the site revealed stratified layers representing over 10,000 years of continuous human occupation in the Great Basin. The artifacts rec...
The Chalfant Petroglyph Site, also known as CA-MNO-7, is an archaeological site in the Chalfant Valley volcanic tablelands above Bishop in Mono County, eastern California. Its rock art belongs to the Great Basin tradition and includes abstract and figurative designs carved into exposed stone surface...
Bombus centralis, commonly known as the central bumble bee, is a species found in the high-elevation regions of western North America, including the Great Basin. It belongs to the genus Bombus and is easily identified by its distinct yellow thorax and characteristic orange abdomen. This insect prima...
Hickison Summit Petroglyph Recreation Area is a Bureau of Land Management cultural site in central Nevada, located along U.S. Highway 50 about 24 miles east of Austin. Its rock art consists of images and designs carved into exposed rock by Indigenous peoples, and a short interpretive trail provides...
Located in Oregon's Lake County, Petroglyph Lake is notable for its hundreds of Indigenous Great Basin carvings, including depictions of snakes and bighorn sheep.
The Picture Rocks Retreat Petroglyphs are an Indigenous rock art site in the American Southwest, notable for preserving ancient shamanistic and spiritual carvings.
A volcanic butte in northern Nevada rising distinctly above the surrounding Basin and Range terrain, used historically as a navigation point by westward emigrants.
