Petrified Forest expansion may yield treasures Mark Shaffer, Republic Flagstaff Bureau

Two weeks ago, Congress gave its long-anticipated blessing to a bill that will more than double the size, to 222,000 acres, of this northeastern Arizona national park, famed for its calcified wood, dinosaur remains and petroglyphs.

The expansion will protect the new acreage, allow blight removal and yield many new archaeological sites. …

On a tour this week of the stark snow-covered area, park officials excitedly pointed out many of the features that soon will receive federal protection.

Like a 14-mile strip of the multicolored badlands of the Chinle formation, rich in petrified wood and fossils. And all the ruins and rock art from Native American cultures of nearly 1,000 years ago on distant ridge lines. And even a few extinct volcanoes, curving gently upward from the high desert. …

Hays-Gilpin said there are at least 50 rock-art panels within the new lands that are more extensive and of better quality than the national park’s Newspaper Rock. That petroglyph contains hundreds of ancient Indian carvings and is visited by tens of thousands of tourists annually.

“This is some of the best rock art in the world,” Hays-Gilpin said.

The congressional action also didn’t happen a day too soon to protect what’s left of Anasazi ruins, primarily east of the existing boundary.

Pothunters dug into about 300 ancient graves in the Wallace Tank area three years ago, and Hays-Gilpin said that a 300-room pueblo northeast of Wallace Tank has been pillaged by vandals in recent years.

“But we still have a lot out there that’s intact or half-intact,” Hays-Gilpin said. “A lot of times the pothunters don’t get to the floor, and that’s where we find a lot of information about the environment of the time.”

Parker said the new lands are expected to double the more than 700 archaeological sites already documented within Petrified Forest.

Hays-Gilpin also said there was a lot of excitement about the potential of more discoveries about so-called “paleoindians,” who lived 7,000 to 10,500 years ago in the area when it was considerably cooler and wetter.