Picture Canyon

Picture Canyon in southeastern Colorado preserves a rare shortgrass-plains record of human use stretching from about 12,000 to 400 years ago. Evidence in its grasslands, shelters, and open sites traces Paleo-Indian hunting, later seasonal occupation, food processing, and farming. Apishapa people built small rim-top dwelling groups and cultivated the canyon floor, while later tipi ring period camps left stone circles and trade goods linked to Pueblo communities. The canyon is especially known for its red and black pictographs, petroglyphs, and Crack Cave carvings aligned with the spring and autumn equinoxes, combining archaeology, rock art, landscape, and astronomy in one significant cultural place.

Colorado · United States