Jun. 16—VELARDE — Spread out in three small groups on a rugged slope overlooking the lush green bosque along the Rio Grande, student interns slowly navigate and investigate the large basalt boulders scattered along Mesa Prieta.

With cameras, GPS devices, measuring tapes, pencils, mapping sheets and photo data sheets, the teens use the skills they’ve recently acquired to document the markings they find on the rocks that are touchstones to the people who inhabited or passed through this significant corridor hundreds to thousands of years ago.

The 36-square-mile mesa north of Española has been identified as the largest petroglyph site in New Mexico, and is estimated to contain more than 100,000 petroglyphs.

For most of the 17 students in the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project’s two-week summer internship program, many of whom are from nearby pueblos, this is the first chance they’ve had to see the impressive site they’ve lived so close to their whole lives without even knowing it.

It’s made quite an impression.

“Our ancestors had come through here and made their mark on these places, physical marks that you can see,” says Zakaila Tapia, 16, Ohkay Owingeh, who will be a junior at Santa Fe Indian School this fall. “There’s proof of our culture even on different areas that we don’t live, which is really cool.”

About 80% of the petroglyphs and other archaeological features of Mesa Prieta, meaning “dark mesa,” are on private land. Much of the remaining 20% is on Bureau of Land Management land. A small portion of the mesa is on Ohkay Owingeh land, and more than 180 acres are owned by The Archaeological Conservancy.

Katherine Wells, an artist and the founder of the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project, bought a 188-acre parcel of land on the mesa when she moved to New Mexico in 1992. She quickly noticed the presence of a high concentration of petroglyphs, and over time more than 10,000 have been identified on the property.

Realizing the significance of the site, Wells formed the Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project in 1999 with the help of local archaeologists and neighbors. The goal was to document all of the petroglyphs and archaeological sites on Mesa Prieta and to educate the community about their importance.

Wells donated 156 acres of her land to The Archaeological Conservancy in 2007 to protect the petroglyphs on the property in perpetuity. The area is now known as the Wells Petroglyph Preserve. The Archaeological Conservancy has since acquired additional smaller plots to add to the land under its protection.

Immersed in history

Martinez, who previously served as an associate professor of Pueblo Indian Studies at Northern New Mexico College, said this year there’s been much more to the internship program than recording petroglyphs.

The students toured nearby Ancestral Pueblo settlements, visited the nearby Los Luceros Historic Site that features an 18th-century, Territorial-style adobe home on a 148-acre ranch, and took part in a workshop to create their own arrowheads out of obsidian.

On Thursday, the students attended Ohkay Owingeh’s Corn Dance, where Martinez said they were able to recognize many of the same symbols and images they’ve been seeing in the form of petroglyphs on the regalia and kilts of the dancers.

“There’s corn, there’s clouds in regalia, there are different feather images within our dance kilts. You see feather images, you see turkey tracks,” Martinez said. “So it’s another way to make these connections for students that it’s not just something of the past, that there’s longevity for that.”

On Monday, the interns will visit a bison herd at Pojoaque Pueblo. Martinez said bison are among the many different animal species that can be found carved in the stone at the petroglyph site.

The interns were enthusiastic in their praise for the hands-on, in-person experiences in outdoor settings. They said the immersive opportunities to learn the history of their home region is something that can’t be replicated in a classroom.

“We never had field days where we came out to these places,” said Alyssa Guerrero, a recent graduate of Mesa Vista High School who is a student mentor this year. “I wish we did, especially when you’re taught New Mexico history in seventh grade. It would’ve been nice to come out here because then you could have seen actual physical things of our history and not just pictures in a book or photos on a screen. It would’ve been a lot more helpful to see.”

“I like hiking, just looking at the petroglyphs, seeing what it means and taking a guess. It’s pretty interesting,” added Malachi Martinez Ohkay Owingeh, who will be a sophomore at Santa Fe Indian School. “I just like being outside. It’s quiet out here; it’s peaceful.”

Matthew Martinez said the petroglyph project has developed relationships with some schools in Ohkay Owingeh, Santa Clara and Taos pueblos and is offering regular free guided tours for them. He encourages more schools to reach out to set up other educational opportunities.

Self-guided tours are not allowed at the petroglyph site. Private, docent-guided tours can be scheduled for a fee, and tours for Native American individuals or communities can be scheduled for free.

Many of the summer interns said their time in the program has sparked their interest in archaeology and that they’d be open to pursuing similar opportunities in the future.

Mary Sandoval, an incoming senior who said she’s one of about 10 Indigenous students at McCurdy Charter School in Española, said the experience also has increased her awareness of the need to be good stewards for Mesa Prieta and other sites that contain important cultural resources.

“It’s a want to protect our culture and to preserve it,” she said, “because we don’t have much left from before the residential schools and we’re one of the few Natives that still have a connection like that, that still have our kivas and everything. So we want to preserve as much as we can.”