January 2022

Rock Art in Texas Defaced
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Late last year vandals irreparably damaged a rock art petroglyph panel in Big Bend National Park. 2021 was a hard year for United States rock art with major instances of vandalism reported in Utah (here, here) and now closing the year in Texas. Anyone with information about the incident in Texas should contact the Big Bend National Park Communication Center at 432-477-1187. Detailed view of vandalism in Big Bend National Park, Texas photo via NPS The National Park Service reports that there have been over 50 instances of vandalism to rock art in Big Bend since 2015. Read more at Art News (here) and Texas Monthly (here). At the Ancient Art Archive, we believe that the only long-term solution to vandalism is education. We must build a long term and wide spread appreciation for the images our predecessors left written on the landscape. To that end we have built education...
pictograph handprint in El Castillo
Dating Rock Art, How Old Is It?
paintings in El Castillo in Spain are more than 40,000 years old, much older than previously suspected
What does it take to understand cave art?
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a glimpse into the mind of the paleolithic artist
Meet Dr Joe Watkins PhD
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At the Ancient Art Archive, we always knew we wanted the Mural of America stories to be told from an indigenous perspective, so we were beyond thrilled when Dr. Joe Watkins agreed to join our team to engage Native communities in building out each site's archaeological and cultural content.Joe's gentle personality, Choctaw ancestry, archaeological expertise, and decades of experience conducting collaborative work with indigenous communities make him ideally suited for this project. Read on to learn more about Joe and his journey! v Joe, what inspired you to become an archaeologist?When I was a kid, I would spend the summers with my grandmother out in the country on the edge of Cypress Swamp in southeastern Oklahoma. It was kind of fun. We had no electricity, We drew our water from a spring in the back, bathed in the river, and my grandmother cooked on a wood stove. We went to sleep...
Pictograph panel in Buckhorn Wash
Pictograph 3D Model on the San Rafael Swell
Meta optimized virtual reality model of Barrier Canyon Style pictograph rock art on the San Rafael swell in Emery County Utah
The handprint pictograph is the universal symbol for humanity
Handprints are the universal symbol of humanity. We have seen them across all of human history and on 6 continents