Rock Art Sites in the Permian Basin, New Mexico

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Role of Rock Art in Cultural Understanding: A Symposium in Honor of Polly Schaafsma" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Sacred Sites Research, Inc. and Versar Inc., working in cooperation with the Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Hopi Tribe, recorded and evaluated 17 rock art sites in New Mexico's Permian Basin, a project supported through the Bureau of Land Management programmatic agreement. Sixteen of the sites contain paintings, mostly in shades of red, but some with yellow, black and white figures. One petroglyph site is unusual because it is away from mountains on a flat surface where the figures face up toward the sky. The sites contain images that range from the Archaic through the Historic periods. An especially important site has 30 panels with a range of ages, including several horses and riders. One horse with a conquistador-like rider is accompanied by dogs attacking a pedestrian Indian camp. Overall the sites add considerably to the knowledge about rock art in the Guadalupe Mountain-Permian Basin region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Role of Rock Art in Cultural Understanding: A Symposium in Honor of Polly Schaafsma   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22853