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 applied by finger painting.