Strat is where its at: Analyzing and Managing Complex Mural Stratigraphy at Rattlesnake Canyon, TX

Summary

Pecos River style murals are highly-ordered, complex compositions of layered figures composed of different pigments. Through analysis of sequential ordering and stratigraphic relationships of these figures, researchers can gain insights into the technical history of a mural and the artistic and cognitive processes that led to its creation. The Pecos River style mural in Rattlesnake Canyon spans 32 meters and contains more than 250 finely-executed, polychromatic figures. Shumla is investigating the technical history of this mural by capturing stratigraphic data through digital field microscopy and development of Harris Matrices. Using these tools, Shumla is not only developing new standards for identifying and managing layered pigments in complex rock art murals, it is revealing a sophisticated network of relationships within and among rock art figures. The larger context of mural stratigraphy provides evidence for a greater complexity of painting style and deliberately executed compositions planned by Archaic hunter-gatherers.

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