While investigating a site in the US Southwest, archaeologists discovered a series of ancient rock carvings that early Native Americans may have used as a calendar.
The site, known as the Castle Rock Pueblo, is on the Mesa Verde plateau straddling the Colorado-Utah border and is best known for the Ancestral Pueblo settlements that are carved into the surrounding canyon walls, according to a statement.
The Ancestral Pueblo were a group of Indigenous peoples who inhabited the Castle Rock Pueblo from about the 1250s to 1274, according to a 2020 study in the journal Antiquity.
In an unthinking act of destruction by a hopeful treasure hunter/looter, a 1,000-year-old archaeological site in Utah's Fort Pearce Wash Area has suffered irreversible damage. The perpetrator, a 51-year-old man, dug a massive 15-foot-deep trench in search of treasure, disturbing a site rich in history and significance.
The area, renowned for its collection of over 100 petroglyphs dating back 500 years or more, is now tainted by this reckless act. The vandalism has disrupted crucial archaeological evidence, potentially erasing invaluable insights into the region's ancestral Puebloan culture.