Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve celebrates milestone with new exhibit

The Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve serves the community as a nature preserve, learning opportunity and connection to our land’s past. With petroglyphs ranging in age from 500 to 5,000 years old, the preserve helps to honor and educate visitors on the Indigenous communities who lived on the land, then and now.

John Bello, Assistant Director at the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve, joined “Arizona Horizon” to talk about the new exhibit.

“A petroglyph is an etched image on a rock face,” Bello explained. “…imagine a rock carving. In modern terms you might equate it to an emoji on text message.”

For 30 years, ASU has helped protect and manage the preserve. To celebrate this milestone, a new exhibit will open at the preserve called “Tales from the Land.” This exhibit serves to showcase how land has the power to bring people together across time and space to build community and connections.

“The exhibit tells a story of the communities that have come to Deer Valley to engage with one another to leave their marks, and to travel all across the state,” Bello said.

Visitors can view moving photographs of the petroglyph site from across time and learn about how the site was formed and eventually turned into the preservation site it is today. There are more than 1,500 petroglyphs at the preserve and visitors can walk a path to see them.