Hidden away in the canyons of a top secret military base on the edge of the Mojave Desert is the largest concentration of rock art in North America. Created over thousands of years by a now vanished culture, it represents the oldest art in California. TALKING STONE explores the remote canyons and mysteries surrounding these amazing images.

The leading expert on the rock art of the Cosos, Dr. Alan P. Garfinkel, has teamed up with the accomplished film maker Paul Goldsmith ASC, to explore and explain this ancient and elegant rock art. Some 35,000 petroglyphs have been formally recorded, but estimates suggest an excess of over 100,000.

The Coso petroglyphs, consisting of rock carvings depicting animals, abstract symbols and anthropomorphic figures, is located both throughout the higher elevation uplands and the broad volcanic lowland drainages to the south. It is typically found on large outcrops of basalt that form extensive escarpments. These outcrops have developed a dark brown patina - or desert 'varnish' - that when pecked or scratched reveal the lighter heart rock beneath.

Why was this area, now known as the Coso Range, adorned with such a concentration of strikingly beautiful and highly consistent rock engravings, predominantly those of bighorn sheep? TALKING STONE examines the salient theories associated with this particular rock art, bringing to light the importance of the powerful bighorn sheep, and the animal ceremonialism that existed in this region for the many generations of the Coso people.

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