Past History

Gustave Baumann

Bandelier National Monument, while not a National Park, is managed by the National Park Service. Bandelier was designated by President Woodrow Wilson as a national monument on 11 February 1916 and is named for Adolph Bandelier, a Swiss-American anthropologist who researched the area and authored The Delight Makers.

Bandelier National Monument is known for mesas, sheer-walled canyons, and several thousand ancestral Pueblo dwellings, this monument also has over 33,000 acres of designated wilderness. Bandelier’s human history extends back for over 11,000 years when nomadic hunter-gatherers followed migrating wildlife across the land. This monument protects part of what is the ancestral and traditional lands of a least twenty-three nations. Visitors to Bandelier can encounter old dwellings, petroglyph engravings, and pictograph images within the canyon.

Baumann first visited Frijoles Canyon in October of 1918 and his drawings of pictographs he discovered in the caves were illustrated in El Palacio magazine in December. The location of Baumann’s color woodcut Past History is the south-facing wall of Long House in Frijoles Canyon. The petroglyphs have hardly eroded but are best seen in raking light.