Getting Up-Close and Personal with Pecos River Style Rock Art

Summary

Pecos River style rock art in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico is arguably one of the most famous and complex pictograph styles in North America, if not the world. Thirty-two radiocarbon assays obtained from 19 figures range from 4200 ± 90 to 1465 ± 50 RCYBP. Many characteristics of the style have remained almost unchanged throughout that time. What attributes define the Pecos River style, however, are still debated, despite a seemingly iconic appearance. Shumla has been collecting attribute data for seven years and entering these data into a searchable rock art database. We can now begin to identify diagnostic attributes for the Pecos River style assemblage, as well as detect inter- and intra-site patterning of these attributes. Chemical, microscopic, and attribute analyses converge to clarify what defines a figure as Pecos River style.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Rock Art: Methodology and Interpretation in the Archaeology of the Site

Keywords

Spatial Coverage