Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project

With a mandate to preserve and protect all petroglyphs on Mesa Prieta, north of Espanola, the project implements two educational programs and a large recording program.

• Our 4th grade STEM-based curriculum, "Discovering Mesa Prieta: The Petroglyphs of Northern New Mexico and the People Who Made Them", is currently taught in about 10 local Pueblo and community schools.
• Teacher Training is held yearly in September at Historic Los Luceros in Alcalde. Spanish translations are ongoing to increase the use of the curriculum.
• Our Summer Youth Intern Program is held each summer for two weeks.  Local Pueblo, Hispano and Anglo youth, age 13-18 are trained to record petroglyphs. Skills learned include teamwork, outdoor skills, digital photography, mapping, metrics, GPS use, Geographical Information System (GIS) data gathering, entry and manipulation, scientific terminology and petroglyph categorization. Students receive a small stipend.
• Tours of the Wells Petroglyph Preserve, a state and national registered heritage property of petroglyph concentrations, serve about 1500 children and adults across the state and beyond each year. Petroglyphs and other archaeological features such as trails and structures are recorded on private land. It is estimated that there are some 75,000 glyphs existing, about 45,000 of which have been recorded.These data will increase the knowledge base of historic and prehistoric remains in New Mexico.