You can make a donation to help preserve the Nat Canyon petroglyph site by using the donation button above. Clicking the button will take you to a secure PayPal webpage where you can donate using your PayPal account or a debit/credit card.

 

 

Nat Canyon

The Nevada Rock Art Foundation received $5,500 to record the Nat Canyon petroglyph site in southern Nevada. The NARA Foundation awarded NRAF a matching-funds grant, yielding a potential of $11,000 to fund the project. The NARA Foundation has supported Nevada's rock art heritage by awarding matching grants to NRAF for recordation work at Crows Nest and Valley of Fire State Park (see Glyph Notes 14:1 and 15:1).

The match was met, thanks to member contributions and internal funding from the Foundation. Thank you to everyone who contributed to this matching-funds campaign!

Nat Canyon is a medium-to-large rock art site in southern Clark County on public lands. The site has not been formally recorded to contemporary professional archaeological standards and its cultural resource and spatial extent are poorly defined.

NRAF conducted fieldwork in April 2017 and will return in 2018 to finalize recordation.Two loci were identified and recorded, one with approximately 20 panels and one with more than 160 panels, as well as other archaeological features. The loci that has not been recorded yet presents challenges in access.

Is it Nat, Nap, or Knapp Canyon?? Jeanne Howerton reports that after the Mormon Fort in the area was abandoned in 1858, it sat empty until 1860 when William Knapp (pronounced 'nap') returned to open a trading post. There was mining in El Dorado Canyon and Knapp carried on trade with El Dorado and other settlements in the area. Hearing the name orally and not seeing it in print, Knapp Canyon morphed into Napp Canyon, then to Nap Canyon, and now Nat Canyon.

Stewardship of archaeological resources requires archival-standard documentation to ensure a future for the past. An intensive recordation of Nat Canyon in Clark County will contribute to the management of the area and build the archaeological record of Nevada.


Last updated 10/24/2017.