Petroglyphs (also called rock engravings) are pictogram and logogram images created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, and abrading. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions of the technique to refer to such images. Petroglyphs are found world-wide, and are often associated with prehistoric peoples. The word comes from the Greek words petro-, theme of the word "petra" meaning "stone", and glyphein meaning "to carve", and was originally coined in French as pétroglyphe.
The term petroglyph should not be confused with pictograph, which is an image drawn or painted on a rock face. Both types of image belong to the wider and more general category of rock art and Petroforms, or patterns and shapes made by many large rocks and boulders over the ground, are also quite different.
– From Wikipedia
Petroglyph National Monument
View of petroglyphs in the environmental context.
Petroglyph National Monument protects a variety of cultural and natural resources including volcanoes, archeological sites and an estimated 24,000 carved images. Many of the images are recognizable as animals, people, brands and crosses; others are more complex. These images are inseparable from the cultural landscape, the spirits of the people who created, and who appreciate them. Visit official site.
Archeologists believe ancestral Puebloans made most of these petroglyphs 400 to 700 hundred years ago.
Petroglyph NM is on Albuquerque's west site and is ideal for a few hours to a half-day's visit.