Aiken's Wash facts for kids
Quick facts for kids |
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Aiken's Wash National Register District
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 Location in California
Location in the United States
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| Nearest city | Baker, California |
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| Area | 1,450 acres (590 ha) |
| NRHP reference No. | 82002239 |
| Added to NRHP | May 24, 1982 |
Aiken's Wash is a special place in the Mojave National Preserve in San Bernardino County, California. It's a dry riverbed, also called a "wash," that is important for both its ancient history and its geology.
This area has many amazing pictographs and petroglyphs. These are ancient drawings and carvings made on rocks by people who lived here long, long ago. It's quite rare to find both pictographs and petroglyphs so close together in the Mojave Desert. Because of its importance, Aiken's Wash was added to the National Register of Historic Places. This means it's a protected area called the Aiken's Wash National Register District. The district covers about 1,450 acres and includes all the main ancient sites in the wash.
Ancient Rock Art and Homes
Aiken's Wash is famous for its rock art. The two biggest groups of rock art are found at Aiken's Arch and Milky Way Caves. Other important spots include Aiken's Cove, Aiken's Tank, Metate Cliff, Shadow Cave, and The Dikes.
The rock art shows different kinds of pictures:
- Petroglyphs are carvings made by scratching or cutting into the rock. They often show circles, wavy lines, grids, and sometimes animals or plants.
- Pictographs are paintings, mostly made with red dye. They show similar patterns to the petroglyphs, including human-like shapes.
Besides the rock art, Aiken's Wash also has places where people used to live many centuries ago, before Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas.
- Three rockshelters have been found. These are natural caves or overhangs in the rocks that people used for shelter. All of them are near rock art sites.
- Near Aiken's Arch, archaeologists found a house site. It includes several round rings, which are the remains of ancient homes.
Volcanoes of Aiken's Wash
Aiken's Wash is also a very interesting place for studying volcanoes in the Mojave Desert. The area has several cinder cones, which are cone-shaped hills made from volcanic ash and rocks. These volcanoes are now "extinct," meaning they are no longer active.
The volcanoes here formed during two different periods:
- Some formed a very, very long time ago, during the early Pleistocene epoch (the "Ice Age").
- Others formed more recently, during the late Pleistocene or Holocene epoch (our current geological period).
The most recent volcanic activity in this area probably happened between 800 and 1,000 years ago.
