200,000 years ago, a crack in the earth's crust, hot molten lava poured out in volcanic corruption's. -- in a series of six of volcanic eruptions. some spreading a couple of miles to the east. --these irruption's took place, they flowed out over layers of soil in the rio grande valley. as they hardened, they hardened into what we have here. an escarpment of black, both salt boulders. the story of petroglyph national monument is not about petroglyphs. it is also including the volcanic cones and mesa top that spreads out towards albuquerque. they would come up. we have evidence of them carrying water and farming.

sometimes, they would send their children up here to get the rabbits away. we see many ancient trails. this is part of a larger, spiritual landscape to the web look equal. -- the pueblo people. we are going to be walking on a trail. we see a volcanic expert -- escarpment. these black boulders came from several flows from the volcano. this is the easiest place to see petroglyphs. most of our hundred 50,000 bidders -- 150,000 visitors stop here. it is a carving on the rock. pueblo people use stone chisels

and hammers to carve out the dark, black patina, exposing the rock. some people ask us how these petroglyphs were discovered. for the pueblo indians, they are as old as time. they have known about them since their creation stories. modern-day archaeologists date these images from 1200 to 1650. in the 1970's, archaeologists came out to the west mesa and begin to inventory these images. interest in these group. eventually, they became a national monument. to the pueblo people, they believed that the petroglyphs choose when and to whom to reveal themselves. sometimes it is the shadow.

sometimes it is just the attitude and sensitivity with which we look at these petroglyphs images. sometimes telling people not to touch the petroglyphs is not enough. we know that nobody should touch the petroglyphs. we do give people an opportunity to touch an artificial boulder that we created for such purposes. they get the touching out of the way. we want people to understand that these are sacred images. they continued to be important to the pueblo people. over time, a patina will form. that is what is meant to happen. until then, we asked people not to touch the petroglyphs. petroglyph national monument is one of the few national park units that is actually owned and operated not solely by the park services.

petroglyph national monument managed by the city of albuquerque and the national park service. we work together with the city to help protect and preserve these resources for the future. in the last 20 years, we have had several challenges. land acquisition, being everything for everybody, the creation of trails, vandalism, the construction of roads through the monument, the expansion of the general aviation airport. our biggest challenge is storm water runoff from suburban developments. we are completely surrounded by the city of albuquerque. as you walk the trail of petroglyph national monument looking along the escarpment, you might notice large concentration of rock boulders. that is where we often see concentrations of petroglyphs. we are in the heart of a canyon, where there is a dense concentration of petroglyphs. we have documented over 24,000 petroglyphs within the monument boundary. this canyon is home to 5000 of

them. you see an animal here. i'm not sure what it means. one thing that looks like a cross might have been carved by early sheepherders. you see something that looks like a bird. an unidentified animal on that rock. here we see a concentration of boulders with many hand images of different sizes. some of them have an additional appendage. the pueblo people believed if a child is born missing a finger or with an additional toe that that was a sign of power. with a concentration of hand images here, we have to wonder why. maybe it was because people pastor this way. maybe it is a type of a calendar. we do not really know. only the people who carve these images know for sure.

what we do know is that if you follow it, you would in the end of 1100 room structure on the rio grande. it was a location for the petroglyphs. it is where mother earth meets father sky. they would come up here and follow spirits. they would say prayers. they would make offerings. they would carve images into the rock. sometimes it is a form and map, a counting mechanism, or image. the spirits would leave this world and go on to the next world to these petroglyph images. the forever people called the space the place that people speak about. it belongs to all of us. all americans. not just today, but future generations. a place of respect. a place of solitude. a place of wonder.

>> today's look at the people, places, and events of native americans as part of c-span's city tour. you can see more from c-span's city to her on our website, c-span.org. c-span's american history to her continues with a historian talking about his book on the little shell tribe of chippewa indians and their struggle to become a federally recognized tribe. >> little shell tribe little shell tribe the -- a fascinating group of people. their name has come into formal use only in the 1970's.

it is part of the way this tribe deals with the federal government and petition for federal recognition. there are a group of chippewa indians of their baster they are a poly ethnic group that represents what was occurring on the northern plains in that 17/18 -- 17th, 18th, 19th century. this is that they move their way west. indians relocated, dislocated, intermarried, confederated, and became new peoples. this group, the little shell tribe of chippewa indians, is more complicated than the name suggests.

the eastern slope we're on is the first time the federal government negotiated with the peoples who were already living here. this was as part of the isaac stevens and treaties to come to terms with who was where so that the united states could assure safe acids for the northern route of the railroad coming through. all the way from chicago to minneapolis to puget sound seattle. there was a tree to -- treaty -- that treaty was not about land, although the government has use that information to say who was where. the people who are the ancestral people of the little shell tribe tribe were part of that gathering.