Traveling through the Southwest: A Student’s Take on Rock Art

A regional rock art bibliography extracted from the Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database.

The text offers an overview about Mexican rock art research during the period 2000-2004

A regional rock art bibliography extracted from the Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database.

Rock Art Research In Mexico (2010-2014)

Rock art has become a popular topic in Mexico. After decades of almost total abandonment, research and publications about Mexican rock art have notably increased during the past fifteen years and particularly during the last five. Not only that – congresses, colloquia and symposia about rock art – besides becoming a regular part of the Mexican academic world – have been well attended by students, presenters and the general public with an interest in the topic. Further, the number of new sites recorded on the National Register has increased considerably in the last five years, the product of research and thesis projects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, making this one of the most fruitful periods, in this respect.

A regional rock art bibliography extracted from Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database

Journal of California and Great Basin …, 1983

Style, considered broadly, is a fundamental tool in anthropological and historical research. Indeed, it is fair to say it is and always has been archaeology's bread and butter, at least in the Greater Southwest. We recognize it-whether explicitly or not-in a wide range of material culture attributes, from the forms and decorations on pottery to the hafting techniques of

2019

Redacted version with site location information removed: contact the BLM Carlsbad Field Office or lead author for an unredacted copy. This report presents the results of the archaeological documentation and interpretation of 21 rock art sites on lands in the Guadalupe Mountains and Azotea Mesa regions administered by the Carlsbad Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management. The comprehensive documentation of rock art at 21 sites was a multidisciplinary and multiphase effort over the course of two years that involved several specialists as well as field and post-field consultations with Native American Tribal Historic Preservation Offices, elders, and other representatives. The rock art and surrounding occupation areas of 21 sites were documented. This vast and varied panorama of rock art paintings and engravings spanned a period of at least 4,000 years. A total of 168 rock art panels with 1,045 individual elements were drawn, photographed, and described. The artistic and symbolic content of the panels include abstract paintings, zigzag elements, and polychrome paintings dating to the Archaic Period; possible representational images and masks from the Formative/Ceramic Period; and dynamic scenes of humans, horses, and other animals dating to the 1800s. Ten pictographs were directly dated using plasma oxidation radiocarbon dating of paint samples. In addition to the rock art, other evidence of past human interaction with the landscapes of southeastern New Mexico is presented. The rock art panels are surrounded by shrine features, cairns, rock walls, house structures, and agave baking pits. Most of the rock art is associated with distinctive natural features such as caves, rockshelters, cliffs, and boulder outcrops. When considered together, the rock art, shrines, striking vistas, and dynamic settings provide profound insights into the ways in which the past inhabitants of the canyons and mountains of the Guadalupe Mountains engaged with the natural and spiritual world.

A regional rock art bibliography extracted from the Rock Art Studies Bibliographic Database

El Estado de Sonora cuenta entre su riqueza arqueológica con más de un centenar de sitios con manifestaciones gráfico rupestres, a pesar de ello, hasta el día de hoy no se ha elaborado un trabajo que contenga su gran diversidad, más bien los estu-dios realizados han sido aislados, con una metodología distinta que ha impedido unificar la información. En los últimos tres años se ha iniciado una catalogación sistemática de estos sitios, primero con la recopilación de la información ya exis-tente, después con el estudio de sitios, que a pesar de ser conocidos localmente no habían sido registrados ni descritos y por último, en un futuro se explorarán las regiones que aún no se han conocido, como la sierra entre Sonora y Chihuahua. En este trabajo se hace una descripción de algunos de los sitios localizados en Sonora, tanto con petroglifos y pictografías, como de la existencia de geoglifos en la región desértica del noroeste sonorense, tratando de hacer una regionalización a base de sus técnicas de manufactura y estilos. The state of Sonora has more than a hundred sites with manifestations of rock art as part of its archaeological wealth. Even though, nobody has done an investigation that describes its great diversity. There are some isolated studies with a different methodology that have prevented from unifying the information. In the last three years, a systematic cataloguing of these sites has been carried out, in first place, with the summary of the information already existent, and later, with the study of the sites. These sites have been known by the locals but have not been recorded or described. In the future, these unknown regions will be explored as the highland between Sonora and Chihuahua. In this paper we make a brief description of the petrographs and pictographs of some of the sites located in Sonora as well as the geoglyphs located in the dessertic region of northwestern Sonora. We will try to accomplish a classification by region according the techniques and styles.