Jeffers Petroglyphs in southwestern Minnesota preserves more than 4,000 pre-contact Native American carvings pecked into a glacially smoothed sheet of Sioux quartzite on Red Rock Ridge. The images span a long period, from some estimated to be 9,000 to 7,000 years old to later carvings linked to traditions associated with peoples including the Otoe, Sioux, and Iowa. Motifs include thunderbirds, dragonflies, turtles, and shamans. Archaeologists have suggested connections to hunting magic, ceremony, or the recording of important events, though none is proven. For many Native people, especially Dakota, the place remains a sacred landscape of deep spiritual meaning.