The False Kiva is a human-made stone circle of unknown origin in a cave in a remote area of Canyonlands National Park, which is located in U.S. state of Utah. It was closed by Canyonlands National Park rangers in early August 2018, as a result of vandalism. [1]
It requires some hiking knowledge or special directions to find.
It has become a popular spot for photographers capturing the Southwest, offering a unique frame for the dramatic thunderstorms or clear skies beyond.
While located in a naturally occurring alcove, the name False Kiva arises from the uncertainty about the circle of stones' origins and purpose, whether it is really an authentic kiva, a location used for religious purposes.
Debate rages on whether to disclose the exact location of False Kiva as it enjoys a semi-protected status.[ citation needed ] Park rangers are not required to disclose the location of site, and it does not appear on official maps of the park. Because of the remoteness of the location, the site is not protected from vandalism. Canyonlands National Park's official management policy is the closure of the site to the public via a series of stanchions. Entering the Archeological Site beyond the stanchions is a violation of the Archeological Protection Act of 1979, and violators may be subject to fines and jail time.
Local guides cannot take interested parties to the site, risking losing their permits from the National Park Service if they do so. The trailhead to False Kiva is not marked or signed from park roads, but the route itself is marked by cairns in several locations, and can be accessed without technical climbing equipment. [2]
Logan, Utah artist Keith Bond was commissioned in 2006 to paint a landscape for the Senate Chamber of the Utah State Capitol. He painted False Kiva in a mural titled Ancestral Home which hangs on the western end of the ceiling above the senate floor. [3]
A photograph of False Kiva by Wally Pacholka, entitled "A True Image of False Kiva," [4] was featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on September 29, 2008, [5] giving an almost otherworldly view into the Milky Way.
Mesa Verde National Park is an American national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Montezuma County, Colorado. The park protects some of the best-preserved Ancestral Puebloan ancestral sites in the United States.
Canyonlands National Park is an American national park located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab. The park preserves a colorful landscape eroded into numerous canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green River, and their respective tributaries. Legislation creating the park was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 12, 1964.
A kiva is a space used by Puebloans for rites and political meetings, many of them associated with the kachina belief system. Among the modern Hopi and most other Pueblo peoples, "kiva" means a large room that is circular and underground, and used for spiritual ceremonies.
Capitol Reef National Park is an American national park in south-central Utah. The park is approximately 60 miles (100 km) long on its north–south axis and just 6 miles (10 km) wide on average. The park was established in 1971 to preserve 241,904 acres of desert landscape and is open all year, with May through September being the highest visitation months.
Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America. The structure built by the Ancestral Puebloans is located in Mesa Verde National Park in their former homeland region. The cliff dwelling and park are in Montezuma County, in the southwestern corner of Colorado, in the Southwestern United States.
Bandelier National Monument is a 33,677-acre (13,629 ha) United States National Monument near Los Alamos in Sandoval and Los Alamos counties, New Mexico. The monument preserves the homes and territory of the Ancestral Puebloans of a later era in the Southwest. Most of the pueblo structures date to two eras, dating between 1150 and 1600 AD.
Upheaval Dome is an enigmatic geological structure in San Juan County, Utah, United States, that has been variously interpreted as a meteorite impact structure or a salt dome. The structure lies 22 miles (35 km) southwest of the city of Moab, Utah, in the Island in the Sky section of Canyonlands National Park.
Navajo National Monument is a National Monument located within the northwest portion of the Navajo Nation territory in northern Arizona, which was established to preserve three well-preserved cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloan people: Keet Seel, Betatakin, and Inscription House. The monument is high on the Shonto plateau, overlooking the Tsegi Canyon system, west of Kayenta, Arizona. It features a visitor center with a museum, three short self-guided trails, two small campgrounds, and a picnic area.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is a national monument protecting an archaeologically significant landscape located in the southwestern region of the U.S. state of Colorado. The monument's 176,056 acres (71,247 ha) are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, as directed in the presidential proclamation which created the site on June 9, 2000. Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is part of the National Landscape Conservation System, better known as the National Conservation Lands. This system comprises 32 million acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management to conserve, protect, and restore these nationally significant landscapes recognized for their outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values. Canyons of the Ancients encompasses and surrounds three of the four separate sections of Hovenweep National Monument, which is administered by the National Park Service. The monument was proclaimed in order to preserve the largest concentration of archaeological sites in the United States, primarily Ancestral Puebloan ruins. As of 2022, over 8,500 individual archeological sites had been documented within the monument.
Chetro Ketl is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. Construction on Chetro Ketl began c. 990 and was largely complete by 1075, with significant remodeling occurring in the early and mid-1110s. Following the onset of a severe drought, most Chacoans emigrated from the canyon by 1140; by 1250 Chetro Ketl's last inhabitants had vacated the structure.
Horseshoe Canyon, formerly known as Barrier Canyon, is in a remote area west of the Green River and north of the Canyonlands National Park Maze District in Utah, United States. It is known for its collection of Barrier Canyon Style (BCS) rock art, including both pictographs and petroglyphs, which was first recognized as a unique style here. A portion of Horseshoe Canyon containing The Great Gallery is part of a detached unit of Canyonlands National Park. The Horseshoe Canyon Unit was added to the park in 1971 in an attempt to preserve and protect the rock art found along much of its length.
Painting in the Americas before European colonization is the Precolumbian painting traditions of the Americas. Painting was a relatively widespread, popular and diverse means of communication and expression for both religious and utilitarian purpose throughout the regions of the Western Hemisphere. During the period before and after European exploration and settlement of the Americas; including North America, Central America, South America and the islands of the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the West Indies, the Antilles, the Lesser Antilles and other island groups, indigenous native cultures produced a wide variety of visual arts, including painting on textiles, hides, rock and cave surfaces, bodies especially faces, ceramics, architectural features including interior murals, wood panels, and other available surfaces. Many of the perishable surfaces, such as woven textiles, typically have not been preserved, but Precolumbian painting on ceramics, walls, and rocks have survived more frequently.
The World At Night (TWAN) is an international project to produce and present a collection of high-quality photos, videos, and virtual reality (VR) images of the night sky taken at various natural, cultural, and historic locations worldwide.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Canyonlands National Park.
The Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum located in Dolores, Colorado, is an archaeological museum of Native American pueblo and hunter-gatherer cultures. Two 12th-century archaeological sites, the Escalante and Dominguez Pueblos, at the center were once home to Ancient Pueblo peoples. The museum's permanent and special exhibits display some of the 3 million mostly Ancestral Puebloan artifacts curated at the facility. The center also houses a public research library, educational resources and a museum shop. Wheelchair-accessible facilities include a picnic area and an interpreted nature and cultural trail.
The Pueblo I Period was the first period in which Ancestral Puebloans began living in pueblo structures and realized an evolution in architecture, artistic expression, and water conservation.
The Pueblo III Period was the third period, also called the "Great Pueblo period" when Ancestral Puebloans lived in large cliff-dwelling, multi-storied pueblo, or cliff-side talus house communities. By the end of the period, the ancient people of the Four Corners region migrated south into larger, centralized pueblos in central and southern Arizona and New Mexico.
The Lagomarsino Petroglyph Site (26ST1) is a 65-acre (26 ha) archeological site of petroglyphs, located in Storey County, Nevada near Virginia City. It was listed for its potential to yield information in the future and includes one contributing site with approximately 2000 items.
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the Anasazi, were an ancient Native American culture that spanned the present-day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southeastern Utah, northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. They are believed to have developed, at least in part, from the Oshara tradition, which developed from the Picosa culture. The people and their archaeological culture are often referred to as Anasazi, meaning "ancient enemies", as they were called by Navajo. Contemporary Puebloans object to the use of this term, with some viewing it as derogatory.