Preserving A Legend
Chaz Evans
The Conservancy, government agencies, and a private landowner team up to preserve all of Legend Rock.
These complex human figures are examples of Dinwoody Tradition rock art.
T
he Legend Rock site is an approximately 1,600-yardlong cliff that contains more than 330 prehistoric petroglyph panels and over 900 petroglyphs. Due to the age and diversity of the rock art, it is one of Wyoming’s most important archaeological sites. Back in the early 1970s landowners Ramul and Eddie Dvarishkis transferred the central portion of the site to the State of Wyoming to preserve it.The site became a state park called the Legend Rock Petroglyph Site, and in 1973 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Three distinct concentrations of rock art, which include all of the artistic traditions known in Wyoming, were identified at the site. These concentrations are on lands owned by the state, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and private property owned by Richard D. Wagner. In 1988, in advance of building a visitor’s center and
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bathrooms at the state park, Danny Walker, Wyoming’s assistant state archaeologist, led a cultural resource inventory that included test excavations and recordation of the rock art on state land. Radiocarbon dating of samples taken from hearth materials and anthropogenically-modified deposits indicate the site was used over a long period of time.The great majority of the dateable artifacts at Legend Rock appear to be from 7,000 to 1,500 years old. There is a bison processing area in one section of the site indicating that, in addition to being a place of shamanistic power and symbology, it was, unlike many other rock art sites throughout the Great Plains, also used as a habitation site. There are also features that appear to be red ochre processing pits. Red ochre has been utilized in the caching of lithic material, burials, and pictograph production. Microlamination varnish analysis and radiocarbon dates derived
spring • 2016
