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Archeological public forum upcoming
Published October 18, 2009
What’s so special about the prehistoric rock art found in the region?
Dr. Carolyn Boyd is inviting area residents to find out by attending the Texas Archeological Society Public Forum.
The public forum will feature presentations by Boyd and Dr. Jean Clottes, a world-renowned researcher of prehistoric rock art.
The forum will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at the Del Rio Civic Center, 1915 Veterans Blvd.
Boyd recently sat down with the Del Rio News-Herald and talked about the rock art of the region and why it is so important.
DRNH: Tell me your thoughts on the meeting that’s about to take place here.
Boyd: For me, it’s extremely exciting because we have here in this area of Texas probably the finest record of hunter-gatherer archeology in all of North America, and it’s truly the archeological heartland of Texas, so for the (Texas Archeological Society) meeting to come here is an extremely exciting opportunity to share with the archeological community, the avocational archeologist – these are just your average people that just love archeology – but there are also undergraduate students, graduate students and professors, professional archeologists in contract archeology, just a little bit of everything. It gives us an opportunity to showcase the treasures that we have here in this region.
DRNH: ‘Placing the Rock Art of the Pecos-Rio Grande Canyonlands on the World Stage’ is your topic for the public forum. Tell me how you plan to go about that, because it is already recognized as such in the professional archeology community, isn’t it?
Boyd: It is, but I think in our own state it’s maybe been a little underappreciated, recognizing the value of what we have here.
I don’t know how many years ago we had Dave Whitley here with the Pecos Experience. He came, and he’s a professional archeologist that works studying rock art around the world and has seen rock art all over the world, and he saw the rock art here for the first time and was blown away, just absolutely blown away.
The next year we had Jean Clottes come, who is going to be speaking at the forum, and I’ll never forget when he was standing in Panther Cave, and he just stood there with his mouth hanging, and he said, ‘This is spectacular, this is absolutely spectacular,’ and there was nothing anybody could do to distract him at that point. All he wanted to do was start taking photographs and run around that shelter like a kid. He said it’s second to none in the world.
As the result of that, and of course we’ve had subsequent visitors who’ve said the same thing – James Kaiser, said the same thing; Joe McDonald from Australia said the same thing – so these are all people seeing it for the very first time, people that are in the position to know. They see rock art all over the world, and their response has always been the same.
Because of Jean’s (Clottes) exposure, he then has talked a lot about the Pecos art, all over the country and all over the world.
I was at the Society for American Archeology meeting in Atlanta back in April where I was presenting a paper, and I was with the president of the society – and it’s huge, there were over 4,000 people at this meeting – and she said that when she was at the UNESCO meetings in Europe, it was over and over, ‘Pecos, Pecos, Pecos,’ everybody kept talking about the Pecos art.
She was extremely pleased, but also flabbergasted that there was so much interest and then I went into the rock art interest group meeting at these meetings where there were representatives from all over the world and the woman that was speaking was speaking on how to get national historic landmark recognition from the Department of the Interior and the first thing she said was ‘we want to see these rock art sites get recognized with national historic landmark status’ then she said, especially the Pecos paintings.
So they’re talking about this rock art at that level, internationally, everyone is starting to see that what we have here is unique, and the reason it’s unique, Karen, is that this is not just graffiti, this is not just individuals documenting a particular vision quest or episode. These are, we’re learning more and more, narratives. They are – I hate to use this analogy, but then again I don’t, but it’s something that people can relate to – they’re the oldest known ‘books’ in North America.
They contain myths and histories of the people and prescriptions for how to conduct rituals that are 4,000 years old.
If somebody came up to you and said, ‘Here, I’m handing you the oldest known book in North America, what would you do?’
DRNH: Try not to drop it, I guess. But no, I’d treat it like the most precious thing ever.
Boyd: Well, that’s what we have, and people don’t realize that, and that’s what we need folks to start recognizing: That these are precious, and they contain tremendous amounts of information about the prehistory of this area and, as far as I’m concerned, the later belief systems that we see in Mesoamerica, the Aztec, the Maya and so forth.
DRNH: I know that a lot of the work that you’ve done with the Shumla School has been bringing recognition to the rock art here from the other end of the spectrum, showing the people of the local area, especially children, the importance of that work. Are you hoping the public forum Friday will be a bridge of sorts between the local people and the international and national experts?
Boyd: Absolutely. I love Del Rio. This is our home. I love the people here, and I really want to provide more and more opportunities for the local community to participate in and to embrace it, to recognize that this is something that is in their own backyard.
And I don’t know exactly how to go about doing that, but this is one step toward that, is to provide an opportunity for people to attend this public form where they’ll hear Jean Clottes speak and see how this rock art fits into the world stage, to see, ‘Wow, this guy from France says there’s nothing like this and I can see why.’
DRNH: Would you recommend the public forum even to people who might not have gone personally to see the rock art yet?
Boyd: Absolutely. First off, I can tell you, Jean Clottes is a fabulous speaker. He is just one of the most likable people you’re ever going to meet. But it will be definitely worth going to the forum just to hear him speak, but also I think they will appreciate (the rock art) even more when they do go to see the rock art here. They’ll understand and be able to put it into context a little bit better and increase that appreciation.
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