Prehistory

The prehistoric ancestors of the River Yuman are known as the Patayan, a poorly defined archaeological culture found in the lowland region along the Colorado River and in the adjacent upland regions of northwestern Arizona. Like the Yumans, the Patayan people made buff-colored pottery and practiced floodwater farming. Little is known about this culture, however, because the flooding and re-working of the Colorado River channel has largely obliterated their archaeological sites. What little we do know of this culture comes from sites away from the river, in the California deserts. There, we find trails littered with broken pieces of Patayan pottery and intaglios etched in the desert pavement. These intaglios (large images made in the desert surface) were made by removing the dark colored rocks to expose the lighter desert surface that lay beneath.

picture shows Intaglio near Blythe, California of a human figure measuring 171 feet long on the ground.

"Intaglio near Blythe, California of a human figure measuring 171 feet long.

Source - Dr Harry's personal collection

 

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