Indigenous Rock Imagery of the Sonoran Desert

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Petroglyphs and pictographs are integral to the cultural traditions of Indigenous communities the world over, and especially so in the Sonoran Desert where they abound on the countless chocolate- and charcoal-colored rocks. It’s natural to ask what they may mean, but perhaps a more appropriate question is what do they do? These images move us in remarkable ways, and therein lies some of their significance. This presentation will review the diversity of rock imagery across the Sonoran Desert with one eye on common threads and the other on unique regional qualities.

Aaron Wright is a Preservation Anthropologist with Archaeology Southwest, where he leads the organization’s research and conservation efforts along the lower Gila and lower Colorado Rivers in western Arizona. He earned a BA from The Ohio State University and MA and PhD from Washington State University. Aaron converted his dissertation on petroglyphs into the award-winning Religion of the Rocks: Hohokam Rock Art, Ritual Practice, and Social Transformation (University of Utah Press, 2014). He is also an editor (with Tim Kohler and Mark Varien) of Leaving Mesa Verde: Peril and Change in the Thirteenth-Century Southwest (University of Arizona Press, 2010) and most recently Sacred Southwestern Landscapes: Archaeologies of Religious Ecology (University of Utah Press, 2024).