CHAPTER 2
ANCIENT TIMES, ANCIENT PEOPLES 17 or thousands of years h u m a n s have wandered through and sometimes lingered in Wayne County. As archaeologists continue to locate and examine additional sites and reevaluate data from past excavations, they will likely give us new insights into local prehistory, and they may eventually push the dates for the earliest h u m a n use of this area farther back in time. Hundreds of sites, from lithic scatters to caves to rock art panels, have been identified and studied. Some, like the Barrier Canyon rock art panels, are world renowned; other sites are mostly of interest to scientists. Although Wayne County lacks the monumental ruins of the Pueblo areas to the south in Arizona, New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado, it nevertheless has exerted a pull on archaeologists and has been the scene of significant discoveries.
Paleo-Indians In late Pleistocene times, as the glacial ice sheets that had covered m u c h of N o r t h America retreated, the climate a n d life forms in Wayne County were markedly different from those of today. It was a 25
