Archeologist Mark Parsons stands in one of the many looter holes that left the interior of Fate Bell Shelter looking like a WW I trench warfare scene. The brown layers and patches are plant fiber deposits of no interest to artifact collectors but very informative for archeologists. The back of the shelter is blackened by countless fires and also covered in pictographs, so many that they were often painted on top of one another. In fact, archeologists began to determine the relative ages of different styles of rock art by noting which style was covered by another. Photo from ANRA-NPS Archives at TARL. |