Ancient cave art sites dot landscapes all across the United States — one of the most beautiful can be found in Texas.
The 6,000-year-old Pecos River style murals near Del Rio date back thousands of years at the site of the famed grand White Shaman mural.
New research out of Texas State University identified concepts in its imagery that later influenced the belief systems of multiple Mesoamerican cultures.
Archaeologist Carolyn Boyd — the Shumla Endowed Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State — has studied the mural for years and helped interpret their meaning.
Boyd said the paintings are all highly sophisticated, complex murals that feature a wide range of colors and enigmatic figures.
“It’s an assemblage of all these types of images coming together to form a composition,” she said. “These are not just a random assortment of images that were painted over hundreds or thousands of years at each site. But in many cases, actual compositions that were well planned out and perhaps executed in a matter of weeks.”
Boyd, who is also a muralist, said she felt a connection over the centuries of tradition to the mural artists of the Lower Pecos.
“These are painted narratives, illuminated manuscripts,” she said. “Everything carried meaning: every color carried meaning … the sequence that they were applied to … the arrangement.”
Boyd and other researchers were able to obtain 57 radiocarbon dates for 12 murals — likely making it the best-dated painted rock art tradition in the Americas.
Public tours are offered of the Pecos River-style murals in West Texas. Click here and here for more information.
