Honoring ancient petroglyphs in Utah to be mammoth event
Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford Fort Lewis College Professor Andrew
Gulliford, who wrote earlier this year about the discovery of
mammoth petroglyphs near Bluff, Utah, is tickled by the creative
offering some residents of the town are making to the ancient
rock art. On Dec. 21 - the winter solstice - they will burn a
16-foot-tall mammoth effigy. "Who needs to go to Nevada for the
Burning Man Festival when you can go to Bluff and burn a
mammoth?" Gulliford wrote in an email with a photo of the
mammoth attached. Joe Pachak, a rock expert and local artist who
was the first to discover the petroglyph, said the idea of the
burning is to draw attention to the petroglyphs. "This will
promote more recording by scientists of rock art in the future,"
he said. The petroglyphs, first of discovered in 1987, have long
been a subject of controversy. Scientists question whether these
illustrations really depict mammoths, and many residents of the
town have advocated for f