Pictograph Cave State Park
National Historic Landmark · Billings, Montana
Three sandstone rock shelters in a small canyon south-east of Billings, occupied on and off for something over four thousand years and painted with more than a hundred pictographs — hunters, animals, shield-bearing warriors and a rifle, which dates one of them to the historic period. A federal excavation between 1937 and 1941 took some thirty thousand artefacts out of the floor of Pictograph Cave and established the sequence of Plains occupation that archaeologists still work from. A short paved loop takes you to all three.
3401 Coburn Road, Billings, Montana, 59101, United States
Open daily year round on a Montana state park vehicle fee, generally sunrise to sunset for the grounds, with the visitor centre keeping seasonal hours and reduced opening in winter. The paved interpretive loop is about a third of a mile. Ranger programmes run in summer. The pictographs are viewed from behind barriers and have faded considerably — the visitor centre reproductions are worth seeing first.
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