Palatki tours are free with a Red Rock (or comparable) Pass.
THE EARLIEST—Look carefully. See the very fine scratch-like marks? Whatever they represent, these are among the oldest markings at Palatki; thus, they are extremely important.
Archeologists call them entoptic—or what you can see in your eye if you’re hit very hard on the head, have a near-death experience, or have a vision of light or a hallucination. Archeologists are scientists who try to deal strictly in fact, in an arena requiring great inductive reasoning.
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Here’s another photo of the very fine hachures, or entoptic art. Notice how the rock has repatinated, or experienced a surface transformation called rock varnish, so that the abrasions on the rock seem embedded rather than on top. (A non-repatinated, and therefore more recent sample, will appear below.)
This condition designates the collection of fine hachures as the oldest at the site, very likely Paleo-Indian (prehistoric, i.e., before written history). That puts them roughly at 9000-12,000 BC.
A close-up of one of the images above and one of the few painted images for which we believe we have a factual interpretation.
A woman riding or being carried on the arching tail of an animal—The Mother of All Game Animals.
“Facts” are determined by corroborating evidence from other sites, written history, or verified oral tradition.
