Heritage, Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 1991 Page: 23
30 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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recruited volunteers from the Coastal
Bend Archaeological Society, who left the
humid shores of Corpus Christi Bay to
swelter on the hardscrabble.
The University of Texas at Austin provided
the search-and-rescue team. Lee
Bement and I were charged with clearing
dirt from areas of the site that we suspected
held buried petroglyphs. Bobbie MacGregor,
longtime aficionado of the Lower
Pecos and curator of Anthropology at the
Witte Museum, hefted her shovel and
came to our aid as did a number of other
volunteers.
Three days later, the site was cleared of
all loose debris and a reroute of the road
that once passed over the petroglyphs was
laid out. A basic site map had been made
and the outline of a grid installed, ready for
completion when we came back to photograph
the glyphs. Removal of the washed in
sediments from a large area had exposed
dozens of glyphs, buried before the first
European set foot on Lewis Canyon. The
goals of search and rescue exceeded our
wildest hopes and caused a rethinking of
our plan for site recording. It now became
apparent that we had a lot more dirt to
move before we could rest secure that all
the glyphs would be recorded.
In March, the same sturdy core group
will rendezvous at Louis Canyon. Our forces
will be augmented by new volunteers
from as far away as Lubbock, Huntsville,
and San Angelo. The objective will be to
expose as many glyphs as possible in four
days and to begin their photographic documentation,
a task made difficult by a number
of factors. Petroglyphs, and especially
those on a flat surface, are best documented
early in the morning and at dusk when
natural light casts shadows that accentuate
the shallow designs. Glyphs that have been
exposed for centuries have regrown the
darkened "skin," losing contrast. Lichen
flourishing in the grooves also obscures the
differences between the designs and the
surrounding bedrock. To combat these difficulties,
a specially built scaffold will be
used to elevate the camera and hold it parallel
to the ground. Strobe flashes will
bounce artificial light at an angle that emphasizes
the designs. Even with these aids,
we expect to document only about half the
known glyphs, much less the ones that are
still buried under the sands. Thus, the Lewis
Canyon project will continue until all
the designs are recorded and the site is
secured.The physical demands of site recording
are but a prelude to the ultimate task-that
of attempting to determine why such
prodigious effort was devoted to creating
these glyphs and what role art played in the
everyday life of the people who created
them. Dr. Joel Bass continues to pursue the
astronomical implications of the glyphs.
His best evidence is the alignment of two
projectile points towards the east, perhaps
marking the horizon where the sun rises at
the summer solstice. One of the newly uncovered
designs, commonly called the
bird-on-a-pole motif, has been traced by
Bass through a long line of ceremonies devoted
to the shamanic concept of the axis
of the world, a belief prevalent in North
American and Siberian hunting and
gathering societies.
Other interpretive avenues have been
suggested by ethnographic research in
South Africa and South America. The
most common glyphs at Lewis Canyon,
and in fact at most petroglyph sites, are abstract
geometric designs that cannot be
literally translated into objects or ideas
familiar to modern people. Aboriginal
inhabitants of both continents recognize
these motifs as hallucinogenic phenomena,
internally experienced while in
Left: Newly uncovered glyphs at
Lewis Canyon-animal tracks
and sinuous lines.
Right: The "bird-on-a-pole"
petroglyph, a newly
uncovered motif.
Below: Volunteers sweeping away
dirt to clear ancient petroglyphs.the trance state that is an integral part of
their social and religious ceremonies. If
these abstract designs are ritual expressions
of visionary experiences, Lewis Canyon
can be considered a sacred ceremonial site
even if we cannot literally decipher the
glyphs. Until the time machine is perfected,
we can only imagine the pilgrimages
that took place, the rituals that were
played out, and the prayers that were offered
to spirits whose power has been
eclipsed by more modern gods. Meanwhile,
the work of clearing the site and documenting
the glyphs continues.
Solveig Turpin is the associate director of the Texas
Archeological Research Laboratory at the
University of Texas at Austin. She is the foremost
expert on the rock art of the Lower Pecos region of
Texas and northern Mexico.
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, Volume 9, Number 2, Spring 1991, periodical, Spring 1991; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth45424/m1/23/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.