Macaw Trail

Macaw Trail. Boca Negra Canyon. , Boca Negra Canyon , Macaw Trail , Native vegetation is commonly featured in petroglyphs. This yucca pod image conveys the importance of many native plant species to the Ancestral Puebloans. The entire plant, from its root to the tip of its flower stalk, was used by the people. The root, flowers, fruits, and seeds could all be eaten. Yucca leaves were woven into baskets, mats, sandals, hunting nets or made into paint brushes and needles. In addition to being a source of food, native plants were also used medicinally. Grinding slicks (bowl-shaped basalt boulders with smooth light-gray patches) may have been used to grind native plants into a powder or mush which could then be prepared into medicine., The Ancestral Puebloans were an agricultural society who lived along the Rio Grande and planted corn, beans, and squash in large fields. They also constructed agricultural terraces along parts of the escarpment to build-up soil and slow down storm runoff. These agricultural terraces were also successful in producing small farming areas where crops could be grown without the use of irrigation, referred to as dry land farming.