Ep. 23- A large DWELLING SITE with a bunch of of ROCK IMAGERY.

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:19]Hey guys, Matt from No Lonely Roads here.

[00:00:22]Back at it, baby.

[00:00:24]We are in for a nice special day today. Uh we've got a lot of different sites we're going to check out. It's going to be a mix of some ancestral dwellings and rock imagery.

[00:00:38]Should be a very full, interesting day.

[00:00:42]I'm really looking forward to it.

[00:00:44]And I hope you are, too. All right, let's go check it out.

[00:00:50]Hi everyone.

[00:00:51]My name is Matt Relkin, but I'm better known as No Lonely Roads on Instagram.

[00:00:57]I've spent the last two decades seeking out and documenting indigenous cultural sites, mostly focusing on rock imagery.

[00:01:06]My main goal for sharing these videos is to help educate and spread awareness of proper etiquette when visiting these sacred places.

[00:01:14]But I also just want to share the wonder and beauty of these irreplaceable national treasures.

[00:01:20]I'm no expert, nor am I a spokesman for indigenous cultures.

[00:01:25]I'm just a dude who's become obsessed with rock imagery, and I like to share my adventures finding these sites with all of you.

[00:01:33]So please join me on this journey into a world of history, mystery, and wonder.

[00:01:39]This is No Lonely Roads.

[00:01:54]Found a trail.

[00:01:57]Cryptobiotic soil.

[00:02:00]Trail.

[00:02:02]We don't want to step on that.

[00:02:13]Got a little bit of a walk ahead of us, so I'd like to take a moment to remind everyone that I'm not an expert.

[00:02:19]I uh really enjoy this stuff.

[00:02:23]I do as much research as I can, which is reading the work of experts and speaking to people that are a lot more knowledgeable than I am about this stuff.

[00:02:32]I try my best not to spread misinformation. Any dates that I share are not dates that I've created. They're dates that I have found from research books, from actual experts.

[00:02:48]So I'm not just arbitrarily choosing numbers here.

[00:02:55]And again, I'm going to make mistakes, a lot.

[00:03:00]I'm still learning. I'm always going to be learning.

[00:03:03]One of the reasons for making these videos is to help me learn.

[00:03:07]This is what I care about. This is what I think about all the time.

[00:03:11]It's what I do in all my free time. So trying my best to help educate, but in the meantime, I'm being educated as well. So just wanted to remind you all of that.

[00:03:29]Thanks.

[00:03:39]So we're too high. We're up here.

[00:03:42]We got to get down to this level down here.

[00:03:47]Looks like I can scramble down these boulders to get to it.

[00:03:55]Oh, wow. I already see something on top of a boulder.

[00:04:02]See those stacked rocks up there?

[00:04:06]It's kind of nuts.

[00:04:08]It's another one of those.

[00:04:10]Possibly a defensive site where they kind of had a lookout up there or something. I mean, I doubt they would be living up on that, but you can see the rocks are still up there.

[00:04:26]The bricks are still stacked.

[00:04:39]There's some rocks.

[00:04:42]Stacked rocks up there. They probably had a ladder cuz there's no other way to get up there.

[00:04:49]And I guess that's the point.

[00:04:52]It was a defensive site, meaning >> [snorts] >> it was supposed to be very difficult to get to that site.

[00:05:02]Can't even see the wall.

[00:05:05]Got to get further away.

[00:05:07]There you go.

[00:05:14]There's a bunch of structures and rock imagery out there, and then then there's this kind of prominent point here, and I just wanted to walk out here and just check out the view of the canyon.

[00:05:35]And you can imagine with all those structures being there, there's probably a lot of people that came out to this point.

[00:05:49]It's really cool to think about.

[00:05:52]I'm sure I'm sure many many people sat out here and looked at this view.

[00:06:09]This site's cool because it's just multiple levels. It's I was up on the the top level. Now I'm going to the next one to see a site.

[00:06:17]Then there's more stuff below on the next level.

[00:06:21]It's uh it's pretty fun to kind of figure out how to get to everything.

[00:06:31]Still too high up.

[00:06:34]Now I got to get to that level down there.

[00:06:39]Okay.

[00:06:41]I think we are on the right level.

[00:06:50]So we will find out.

[00:06:52]Just kind of step out here and get a clear view.

[00:07:03]Oh, I see some stacked rocks already.

[00:07:10]Right up there.

[00:07:13]Have a clear path.

[00:07:15]Okay.

[00:07:19]Look, you can see some soot on the back.

[00:07:31]There's a um storage in there, some walls.

[00:07:38]See that?

[00:07:42]Oh yeah, look at that.

[00:07:49]Some walls, some stacked rocks.

[00:07:58]Stacked over here.

[00:08:01]Ooh, that wind. Feels great.

[00:08:06]Some rocks and some wood left over.

[00:08:12]I don't want to step on any structures, so that looks like pottery sticking out of the sand right there.

[00:08:36]Hey, petroglyphs.

[00:08:40]All right.

[00:08:41]We're going to go the other way. Oh, man.

[00:08:45]That's nuts.

[00:08:47]Let me zoom in.

[00:08:50]There's a multi-room dwelling site directly next to where I just climbed down. I totally missed it.

[00:09:02]Dude, this is pretty awesome.

[00:09:15]I've So I don't know if I've mentioned I try not to Let me just check in here real quick.

[00:09:22]Okay.

[00:09:23]I try not to see too many photos or do too much research as far as what a place looks like.

[00:09:30]Um I definitely research locations and stuff, but I don't want to know exactly what I'm going to see when I come up on something, and that's why like for site like this, I've never looked up photos of it, and walking up to this is just crazy.

[00:09:50]And there's pictographs. This is Dude.

[00:10:00]And sorry if I'm like blubbering. Oh man, look at that.

[00:10:07]Still got a roof.

[00:10:10]Looks like a uh BLM sign.

[00:10:18]Which is good. I mean, it's not like I'm discovering these sites. They're known sites, but I'm discovering for myself. And this blows my mind.

[00:10:29]Look at this.

[00:10:31]So, there's a collapsed doorway.

[00:10:36]Damn, these are so cool.

[00:10:42]Wow, this is just nuts. Oh, there we go.

[00:10:45]Check it out.

[00:10:46]Remember I was talking about chinking these little stones? [music] We got some decorative chinking there.

[00:10:52]So, they still filled in gaps, but they made them I mean, they made them look nice. Look at that.

[00:10:58]There's a design there.

[00:11:01]Another sign.

[00:11:03]Don't go in there. $500 minimum fine. It should be a lot more.

[00:11:07]>> [music] >> And check this one out. See how it's got mortar around it?

[00:11:12]That would have been easy to seal. They could have put a stone [music] there and then just filled it in.

[00:11:19]Oh man.

[00:11:21]>> [music] >> Look at that. More chinking.

[00:11:28]>> [music] >> That's cool.

[00:11:32]Weird. Some sort of scratching in the wall there.

[00:11:43]Yeah, this is really pretty. They went all the way up and then this is just natural.

[00:11:50]We're going to keep going around, then we'll come back. I just want to see what else we can find here.

[00:11:55]Looks like there were some stacked stones here that might have fallen.

[00:11:58]Yeah.

[00:12:01]And there's wood in there. So, this would have been another structure.

[00:12:08]Man.

[00:12:09]This just takes my breath away.

[00:12:15]So, we're going to go back to that main structure. I just want to follow along this uh ledge and just see what else we can find.

[00:12:25]That could have been something or could have just collapsed on there. It's hard to tell.

[00:12:33]I mean, we know that the ledge ends cuz I went over to the end of it. Oh, look.

[00:12:38]There's a petroglyph.

[00:12:41]It almost looks like a a bird but with a long tail. Huh.

[00:12:51]Interesting.

[00:12:55]Oh, dude. Look at the top of this.

[00:13:00]Wow.

[00:13:03]These are old.

[00:13:04]So, you could see the color of this rock.

[00:13:07]And then look at the color of the pecked out areas. It's already got patina over it, which means it's already starting to get a new varnish. Look, that's like a little sheep. You can see the two little horns. Little zoomorph.

[00:13:22]Um sorry if I'm getting ahead of myself here cuz I'm so excited.

[00:13:27]But uh they darken up the older they get.

[00:13:31]You know, that compared to that.

[00:13:34]This was exposed a lot earlier than that was, and this is starting to get dark again.

[00:13:40]Um when they start to get dark like this and they start to match the patina around them, that means they're quite old.

[00:13:49]That was probably a spiral.

[00:13:51]This could have been one, too, and it just fell out.

[00:13:56]Man, that's cool.

[00:14:00]Looks like there's some more up there.

[00:14:04]God, look at this.

[00:14:07]Just this area is it's awesome. Sorry.

[00:14:12]But it is. It's just so cool.

[00:14:15]This is my absolute favorite thing to do is just kind of exploring these overhangs.

[00:14:29]Also, it's like you got to look for so much. You got to look at the walls. You got to look at the ground. You got to look for artifacts. You got to look for grinding stones and it's hard. It like uses all aspects of your brainpower just to kind of not miss something, which I'm sure I'm missing plenty.

[00:14:57]All right. Um Oh, yeah.

[00:15:01]Prints.

[00:15:09]Child's prints. Look at how small those are.

[00:15:15]Children. Child's.

[00:15:19]Look at that.

[00:15:24]Damn.

[00:15:27]That just, you know, it's cliché, but it's like the handprints, man.

[00:15:37]The handprints get you.

[00:15:40]I mean, there's nothing that reminds you that these are, you know, these places were inhabited by other people. There's nothing that reminds you better than seeing these handprints.

[00:15:54]It really just brings you so close to these sites and so close to the people that used to live here.

[00:16:05]Oh, look at that.

[00:16:12]Honestly, those look like fish.

[00:16:19]I don't know what that is, but we say that we don't see a lot of fish.

[00:16:25]Those look like fish.

[00:16:28]I mean, tell me they don't look like fish.

[00:16:36]Not sure what they're supposed to be. It doesn't really matter.

[00:16:39]It could be figures. To me, they look like fish, but uh you don't see fish very often. That's very cool.

[00:16:48]Those are painted on there.

[00:16:50]It's like there's some more stuff there, but it's kind of eroded away.

[00:17:00]>> [gasps] >> Okay, so you have a wall remnant here.

[00:17:03]Nothing here.

[00:17:04]But there was probably a wall remnant here. So, if you look up here, you can see the two lines.

[00:17:14]That would be the outside of the stones.

[00:17:16]The stones would be pushed up against there, and the mortar would be on either side.

[00:17:20]Same thing over here.

[00:17:23]The stones were here, and then the mortar was on either side, kind of sealing them in. So, it probably went down like that.

[00:17:32]Same thing with this one. The mortar goes all the way up.

[00:17:36]And then you can see the mortar line as well.

[00:17:44]So, there was probably a structure here, maybe multiple structures.

[00:17:51]And that's what this is the remains of, and then you have some more over there.

[00:17:59]Okay.

[00:18:01]So, we're going to start with the rock imagery that's at this site.

[00:18:10]We got two sheep.

[00:18:13]Big and small.

[00:18:17]It's actually quite big. It's like uh I don't know. 2 ft across.

[00:18:24]This one's more like 12 in across.

[00:18:27]Maybe 16 in. Maybe Then around the corner here, then we got this, which to me it looks like a lizard, but it could be a kind of lizard human hybrid.

[00:18:46]Or it could be a very well-endowed human. Um which, you know, anthropomorphs are human figures, zoomorphs are animals.

[00:18:56]There are different terms for when the two are combined. One of them is fantasmamorph or fantasmorph, I don't know.

[00:19:04]And that's kind of like a blend between animal and human or just kind of like a fantastical like monster.

[00:19:13]But that's not uncommon in uh ancestral Puebloan rock imagery.

[00:19:22]It's a motif that you'll see often.

[00:19:26]Maybe not that large.

[00:19:28]But then we go to the structures.

[00:19:34]They're pretty cool.

[00:19:36]I got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

[00:19:46]Seven doors. And the reason why I'm saying there's seven doors, I know you can only see 1 2 3 4 that's collapsed. 5 These might have been doors that are sealed up.

[00:20:02]And then 6. So, where's the seventh door?

[00:20:06]Well, I didn't notice that until I was looking a little closer at this and check that out.

[00:20:17]And it's completely framed in with wood.

[00:20:21]I don't know if I've ever seen that before, that top entry.

[00:20:25]It's really small, so it would have been storage.

[00:20:31]But, that is not something I've seen too often is a top entry.

[00:20:37]And this could have been the uh the door stone that went over it. I'm not sure, you know, I I didn't move anything and I'm not going to move anything.

[00:20:48]Um it's crazy that these still have a roof on them. Also, they're so close to the top of the alcove, why didn't they just build all the way up? Instead, they built a roof.

[00:21:04]And you can look inside and see how it's constructed and see that it is starting to collapse. Those beams are kind of falling down, but that's just nuts and I just I wonder why they did that.

[00:21:18]Also, you can see here you see that little circle taken out of there?

[00:21:26]That means they took out a uh core sample from that wood for dendrochronology. That's how they can accurately date some of these sites by the wood that's used in the construction by I guess the tree rings, counting those and they can compare them to drought years and wet years. Um it's pretty complicated, but that's one of the most accurate ways to establish age at least on the wood used in the structures. We don't know if you know, the the day that the wood was cut down they built the structure, but generally speaking, when the wood was cut was around when it was used in the structure is what the assumption is there.

[00:22:13]Um you also have these signs here.

[00:22:16]They put them here at these isolated sites to kind of remind people not to go in the sites and you should not be crawling in these sites.

[00:22:23]You shouldn't be touching the walls.

[00:22:25]Notice I'm sitting here. I am making sure that I'm not leaning on anything.

[00:22:31]Um I mean, these are from almost let's say 1150 to 1300.

[00:22:42]So, you know, 7 to 850 years old. They've lasted this long. They're under overhangs, that helps.

[00:22:51]Um you know, it protects them from the elements, but it doesn't protect them from people bumping into them and vandalizing them and knocking them over.

[00:22:58]Um so, 800 years of surviving, why would you ever want to be the person that causes these to crumble? And they could easily crumble with a touch.

[00:23:10]They should not be touched. I can't stress that enough.

[00:23:16]So, this doorway collapsed.

[00:23:21]You can still see the bottom.

[00:23:24]Got some burnt wood in there, that's interesting.

[00:23:27]A lot of large stones were used in these. Like you can see that, you can see over here.

[00:23:32]You can see in this doorway we have these large stones. It's really cool.

[00:23:41]Another nice one with another closed for entry sign.

[00:23:46]It's got some mortar around it.

[00:23:49]There's no I don't see any wood.

[00:23:52]Oh, there's wood up there. There's those lintels.

[00:23:57]Look inside.

[00:24:00]Obviously, this was a dwelling space. I don't think I need to say that. I mean, there's so many rooms, they wouldn't be just And they're huge rooms, so people were living in these.

[00:24:11]Damn, look at how big the wood is.

[00:24:13]Those are some nice sticks for those lintels. And then you have uh that was probably where the door stone for this one because look, there's mortar here.

[00:24:25]Looks like some around the edge that maybe was used when that stone was placed in there.

[00:24:30]That's a guess.

[00:24:33]>> [sighs] >> There could have been more paintings up here, too, that have eroded away.

[00:24:40]This is that nice chinking, that decorative stonework.

[00:24:45]I love that.

[00:24:47]These details, man. I mean, all around here.

[00:24:51]Look at how they rounded that and that could have been to put a you know, seal it off as well.

[00:24:57]Look inside. Don't see a lot.

[00:25:02]>> [sighs and gasps] >> Come over here.

[00:25:11]I like this design. Kind of cool.

[00:25:18]Some random chinking there. There's some abrasions in there. I don't know if it was just decorative or if it was functional, like maybe they were sharpening something or smoothing something down like a tool.

[00:25:31]I don't know why they would do it on the side of their structure, but who knows?

[00:25:34]Um and then I noticed over here we have a little design scratched in there.

[00:25:43]Um but even better, look at this.

[00:25:48]Indentations from corn cobs.

[00:25:51]Isn't that cool?

[00:25:54]But, I think the the best part of this structure is going to be this.

[00:25:59]The footprint.

[00:26:02]Now, there are there are actually five toes. You can see the fifth toe there.

[00:26:10]And I was you know, I was trying to figure out I guess [music] it would be close to an adult-size foot, [music] maybe like an adolescent's foot.

[00:26:25]Or maybe it is a kid's foot. I mean, I don't know how big kids' feet are these days. Why would I know that?

[00:26:32]I assume that they're smaller than my hand and that one is almost the size of my hand, so I don't think it's like a little kid like those hand prints.

[00:26:47]I like this corner, too. Like uh they kind of did this with the mortar, smeared it on both sides and you have this little edge right here and it's lasted. Look at that.

[00:26:59]It's still there. It hasn't eroded off.

[00:27:03]Looks like there might be little chunks of charcoal in the mortar.

[00:27:07]Uh just the longer you're here, the more you see. I've been hanging out here for about an hour. I'm going to turn off the camera.

[00:27:14]I'm just going to sit here and be with the space quietly. I don't want to hear my own voice anymore and I don't think this site wants to hear it.

[00:27:21]So, if something else pops up that I notice, I'll I'll film it, but right now I just want some alone time with this space.

[00:27:30]Thanks so much.

[00:27:33]Another detail that I find interesting about this site is it looks like there were at least two different builders. I mean, you look at these rooms and look how chunky the construction is.

[00:27:46]You know, you've got those big stones. Here looks a little different than those. There's like big stones sticking out. Except that. But, this and this big stone sticking out.

[00:27:57]This one looks like they tried to make the walls a little more uniform, a little more flat and smooth and on the same plane.

[00:28:05]And then this one is a whole 'nother design, you know, you have very smooth mortar. You have decorative elements like the chinking, the footprint.

[00:28:16]So, I would say three different builders at least.

[00:28:20]Um I thought that was kind of cool.

[00:28:23]And I guess to end it all, this is the last part of this site that I wanted to show you.

[00:28:35]See those?

[00:28:40]All that?

[00:28:45]Corn cobs.

[00:28:47]Yes, corn cobs last that [music] long.

[00:28:50]They last at least 800 years cuz they're at a bunch of these sites.

[00:28:59]Um the ancestral Puebloans were an agricultural culture or community.

[00:29:06]Uh they grew corn.

[00:29:09]They grew beans. They grew squash.

[00:29:13]Uh the three sisters, I believe, is what those are called.

[00:29:17]Or maybe it's the three mothers.

[00:29:20]Um but those were the three main crops that they grew. And we find corn cobs at these places all the time.

[00:29:29]It's really cool.

[00:29:32]Um all right.

[00:29:35]Think we're done here.

[00:29:37]I've been hanging out for a while.

[00:29:39]It's been a mighty long and full day.

[00:29:44]I'm going to be honest with you, I haven't showered for 5 days.

[00:29:47]Um I've just been camping and I've been out in areas where there's wasn't the opportunity to do that. So, I'm a disgusting person once in a while, you know?

[00:29:59]It's not that big of a deal.

[00:30:01]Um I'm going to get a hotel tonight and I'm going to get a dinner from a restaurant.

[00:30:06]And I'm going to take a shower. So, that's it. We're going to hike out of here.

[00:30:14]And that's the end of our day.

[00:30:18]Okay.

[00:30:22]Uh it's still really nice out. [music] But we're done. I'm bushed.

[00:30:28]I think this was a good video. Um it feels like this was a good one.

[00:30:34]>> [music] >> Hopefully you all think so.

[00:30:36]Thanks so much.

[00:30:38]Um [music] like and subscribe.

[00:30:43]Leave me your comments. If you have uh you know, any kind [music] of feedback, anything you'd like to see more of, less of, let me know.

[00:30:52]I'd love to hear from all you. I really appreciate everyone [music] who follows and who watches these videos. Um I'm really starting to enjoy making them, which is pretty cool.

[00:31:03]Uh so, we'll see you next time.

[00:31:06]>> [music] >> Take care, everybody.