Newspaper Rock

Newspaper Rock State Historic Monument sits along Utah State Route 211, about 28 miles northwest of Monticello in San Juan County. A dark, varnished sandstone panel there carries hundreds of petroglyphs, carved by Archaic, Basketmaker, Fremont, and Ancestral Puebloan peoples from roughly the start of the current era through about 1300 CE, with Ute, Navajo, and Anglo additions layered on afterward. The panel was designated a Utah State Historical Monument in 1961 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. Researchers have also studied it for a recurring six-fingered hand motif linked to polydactyly among some of its carvers.