Pictographs of Texas' Lower Pecos River: Narrative, Toponyms, and Connections to Mesoamerica

Featuring Carolyn E. Tate, Professor Emerita of Pre-Columbian History at Texas Tech University. Hidden in hundreds of rock shelters along the Devils and Pecos Rivers near Texas’ border with Mexico are some of the most spectacular and oldest polychrome pictographs of North America. There are several distinctive styles among these pictographs, but the most complex and interesting is called Pecos River style. Many questions remain unresolved, including who made them. This presentation addresses who saw these pictographs in ancient times. It proposes that Uto-Aztecan speakers, including Nahua speakers, journeyed to this remarkable place and that they regarded this region of deep canyons and gushing rivers as a primordial place of origins. Carolyn E. Tate began her career as an art historian of ancient Mexico as a Mayanist, working under Linda Schele. She produced a dissertation and later a book titled Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City. Her study of Mesoamerica’s oldest major civilization culminated in a book entitled Reconsidering Olmec Visual Culture: The Unborn, Women, and Creation. Please subscribe to our Aztlander YouTube channel. To receive FREE monthly issues of The Aztlander: Magazine of the Americas, contact host Jim Reed at: [email protected]