The walls lining Picture Gorge display pictographs, painted by an American Indian culture centuries old. The gorge is named for these pictographs.

Pictographs are rock art painted with pigments made from various minerals. The red pigment is derived from crushed iron oxide. The oxides were then added to water, or an organic binder. Many different organic agents could be used as a binder, such as eggs, blood, fat, or plant juice. This differs from petroglyphs, which is a type of rock art that has been drilled into or has punctured the rock wall.

After the paint was made it would typically be appliced by finger painting. This is apparent, because the lines are finger-width.

These pictographs are images which are located in Picture Gorge. They depict human, animal, and geometric designs.

The pigment, when freshly applied, is absorbed by the small pores of the rock, consequently staining the rock. When the water or the organic binder evaporates it leaves the iron oxide pigment, which becomes part of the rock. The pictograph then weathers away at the same rate the rock does. Some of the remaining pictographs may be thousands of years old.

Who were the American Indians of the John Day Basin?

The Northern Paiutes, Umatilla, Wasco and the Warm Spring Indians are some of the tribes known to have frequented the John Day River basin in the recent past. Evidence of an American Indian influence in the basin is provided by the pictographs and discovered artifacts. Seasonally, American Indians used the John Day River basin as a means of subsistence and passage. The basin provided riparian, rangeland, and forested habitat for fishing, hunting, and gathering food.

Pictographs are protected by law on all federal land... Preservation of the pictographs is vital since they represent a direct bond between our world and a previous culture, and many questions have not yet been answered regarding the pictographs. Some of the rock are has endured a thousand years of weathering. It would only take minutes for someone to destroy them. Should you discover a pictograph, examine and enjoy the rock art, but also remember its cultural importance.

The best way to protect pictographs is to look, but do not touch.