Some of the world’s most riveting and surreal art adorns the walls of 150 rock shelters north of the Rio Grande in Val Verde County, Texas. A limestone wall at a site called Panther Cave overlooking the river is painted with a 13-foot-tall red figure with a U-shaped head and tassels on its body holding an atlatl, or spear thrower, in its right hand. In its other hand, the figure clutches darts connected to what archaeologists call a power bundle. There are hundreds of known depictions in the region of figures wielding atlatls. Two miles north, in Black Cave, four strange, box-like figures seem to be draped with lengths of black, yellow, and red yarn. Halo Shelter, a site some 25 miles to the northeast of Black Cave near Devils River, features a painting of a two-legged feline with bristling hair exhaling red lines that researchers refer to as speech breath. These are just some of the enigmatic human, animal, and geometric figures that archaeologists have recorded in scenes that stretch as long as 100 feet and reach up to 20 feet tall.
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