SAN MARCOS, TEXAS—The oldest rock art discovered in limestone shelters in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwestern Texas and northern Mexico have been radiocarbon dated to some 6,000 years ago, according to a Live Science report. The hunter-gatherer artists continued to paint in the same style, known as the Pecos River Style tradition, for more than 4,000 years, or about 175 generations, said Carolyn Boyd of Texas State University. She and her colleagues suggest that the images of symbols and animal-like and human-like figures reflect a library of works describing rituals and a sophisticated cosmology. “Many of the 200-plus murals in the region are huge; some span over 100 feet long and 20 feet tall and contain hundreds of skillfully painted images,” Boyd said. The researchers were also able to link elements of the belief system recorded in the paintings to belief systems in later Mesoamerican civilizations and modern communities. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. For more on the Pecos River Style, go to "Reading the White Shaman Mural."
