Petroglyphs and Pictographs

This example of Native American pictographs can be found just above The Dalles Dam on the Columbia River. Much of the early Native American art has been covered by the waters behind the hydroelectric dams of the region. There were not many references to art in the journals of Lewis and Clark, but they undoubtedly saw many examples as they camped along the waterways of the area. In a number of locations petroglyphs (pecked into the rock) and pictographs (painted on the rock) have been combined, much the way we add paint or stain to present day sculpture. We can only guess at the meaning of the illustrations, but even the present day oral histories do not address the origin. In a lot of cases the art is attributed to the "Ancient Ones". We proceeded on to visit the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center Museum, Tom McCall Nature Conservancy Preserve, and then down through the waterfall area of the Columbia River Gorge.