Archeology
Dotted throughout Great Basin National Park are a number of pictographs and petroglyphs from the park’s ancient inhabitants. The team had a chance to carefully study these as they navigated through the park on various hikes. The painted examples are pictographs, and the etched rock is an example of a petroglyph. These images can be as old as 10,000 years, and they represent some of the earliest examples of human habitation at Great Basin National Park.
Pictographs and Petroglyphs
Ward Charcoal Ovens
During the weekend in the middle of the expedition, the team packed up camp, and they visited Ward Charcoal Ovens State Historical Park. Ward, now a ghost town, used to be a silver mining town, and the ovens were used to make charcoal to keep the smelters burning. These ovens are some of the best preserved examples in Nevada, and they were originally sculpted by Swiss Italian masons known as the carbonari. The team enjoyed this little detour before they went to Ely to rest and recharge before a second exciting week of citizen science!
