Assessing the Patterns and Variation of a Common Pecos River Style Motif

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Art of Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Lower Pecos canyonlands of southwest Texas are home to over 350 identified rock art sites containing various pictographic styles. The Pecos River Style is the most well-known and contains many diagnostic characteristics. One of the most ubiquitous is a motif that has been interpreted as a prickly pear pouch, gourd rattle, catfish on a string, dart-headed figure, and a datura seed pod. Shumla classifies this motif as a powerbundle. This referent is not an interpretation, but is solely used as a descriptor. While the names differ, each describes a figure consisting of a line or set of parallel lines extending from a perpendicular line, terminating in an ovoid shape. Over 200 instances of powerbundles have been identified among the 100-plus rock art sites recorded by Shumla in the past 2 years. This presentation discusses new insights into powerbundle attributes and variation, their distribution across the landscape, and patterns in motif association.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Art of Archaeology

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25734