Speech-Breath: Mapping the Multisensory Experience in Pecos River Style Pictography

Archaic period hunter-gatherers of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico, created complex rock art murals containing elaborately painted anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures. These figures are frequently portrayed with dots or lines emanating out of or into their open mouths. In this article, we discuss patterns in shape, color, and arrangement of this pictographic element and propose that artists used this graphic device to denote speech, breath, and the soul. They communicated meaning through the image-making process, alternating brushstroke direction to indicate inhalation versus exhalation or using different paint application techniques to reflect measured versus forceful speech. The choices made by artists in the production of the imagery reflect their cosmology and the framework of ideas and beliefs through which they interpreted and interacted with the world. Bridging the iconographic data with ethnohistoric and ethnographic texts from Mesoamerica, we suggest that speech and breath expressed in the rock art of the Lower Pecos was tied to concepts of the soul, creation, and human origins.

Inland saline area shrimp and finfish farms in the Southern USA.

Mexico got started in inland brackish water shrimp culture in 1996 and reported 135 ha dedicated to inland culture by 2001. Jory et al. (2003) listed 28 inland farms in Mexico. Treece (2002) described six shrimp and finfish farms in West Texas, USA that utilized salt water trapped below the ground. The aquifer that the shrimp farms use in the Imperial area (Texas) is the Cenozoic Alluvium, water remaining from the Permian Sea. All farms draw from the same source. Salinity varies from 10 ppt to 15 ppt. There are no fresh water zones in that area, and no discharge water leaves any of the farms. This water is not used in any other form of agriculture on a large scale. All soils are basically red clay in the Pecos River Basin. The farms are utilizing 'organic culture' as much as possible and they all try to stay as natural as possible with the culture techniques, to better utilize niche markets. The original research and development project in West Texas started in 1972 when two gravel pit operators decided to stock the brackish water pits with red drum and marine shrimp. Inland shrimp farms were built in Texas in the 1980s, but none were sustainable until recently. Interest was renewed after a research project was conducted in Imperial, Texas by Texas A&M University, the Texas General Land Office and the Pecos County Water District #3 in 1992. Commercial operations began to build ponds in the Pecos and Ward county area in the Pecos River Delta. An example of a 26 hectare inland saline shrimp culture facility can be seen in Pictures (Permian Sea Shrimp Company in Imperial, Texas). Multiple ponds utilize a common drain and harvest area. The white spots on each pond are the result of paddlewheel aerators.

An Intensive Archeological Survey of the Owl Hills-Tunstill 138-KV Transmission Line Route

Oncor Electric Delivery Company, LLC (Oncor) is planning to construct the Owl Hills—Tunstill 138-kV Transmission Line Route in Culberson, Reeves and Loving Counties, Texas. Oncor contracted with Halff Associates, Inc. to conduct an intensive pedestrian survey of 18.5 miles of new 138-kV transmission line on private property. The survey was conducted January 20-24, 2020 and a total of 102 shovel tests were excavated in areas where buried archeological deposits where expected, and two 15-meter (32.8-foot) transects underwent pedestrian survey within the 70-foot (21.3-meter) wide survey corridor, which measures approximately 157 acres. Three archeological sites (41RV208, 41RV209 and 41RV213) were identified and recorded during the archeological survey. Site 41RV208 is a prehistoric occupation containing a surface deposit of 12 lithic debitage, 6 flake tools, 6 cores, 2 groundstone fragments and 40 fire cracked rocks (FCR). The site is situated on a gravelly and deflated upland that forms the western rim of the Pecos River valley. Site 41RV209 consists of a prehistoric occupation containing a surface deposit of 12 FCR, 6 lithic debitage, 3 flake tools, 2 cores, 1 uniface, and 1 biface. This site is situated on the heavily eroded west bank of Salt Creek and has been disturbed by construction activities associated with an adjacent pipeline corridor. Site 41RV213 is an abandoned section of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (ATSF) Railway that parallels U.S. Highway 285 to the east. The section of railroad in the surveyed area has undergone extensive disturbance and consists of a narrow linear piling of fill, railroad gravels and non-descript metal debris. It is Halff’s recommendation that sites 41RV208, 41RV209 and 41RV213 are ineligible for National Register of Historic Places consideration in the surveyed area and no further cultural resources investigations are warranted for the project. While shovel testing within the lower terraces of the Pecos River valley floor resulted in negative findings, most of the shovel tests in this area did not encounter restrictive deposits soil or geologic deposits that antedate the Holocene. Therefore, the installation of the transmission line poles located along the lower alluvial terraces of the Pecos River was recommended for archeological monitoring. Halff recommends that construction of the remainder of the proposed transmission line route be allowed to proceed and that no additional archaeological investigations are recommended outside of the monitoring area. However, if the proposed transmission line route alignment changes, additional archeological survey may be necessary. In addition, should any cultural resources be discovered during the construction or maintenance activities associated with the project, work in the immediate area shall cease and the Texas Historical Commission be notified of the discovery.