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Rattlesnake Canyon

Texas Tech owns one of the most significant panels of prehistoric rock art in the world.

By Texas Tech University

December 22^nd, 2025

Rattlesnake Canyon

Jack Johnson, a park archeologist at the Amistad National Recreation Area in Del Rio, is going over his last-minute checklist: water bottles, electrolytes, more water bottles, inReach GPS tracking device, satellite phone, snacks, camera and a portable camp toilet. He fills his National Park Service pickup with gas and double checks the tread on its tires. Johnson leaves nothing to chance. He wakes up well before sunrise, opens a can of Starbucks coffee and makes the short drive from his house in Comstock to the Comstock Motel.

It’s early June of 2024. I’m in the parking lot of the Comstock Motel in a rented Ford Expedition bursting at the seams with backpacks full of camera equipment. Texas Tech University photographers Ashley Rodgers and Justin Rex are with me to capture still images while multimedia specialist Michael Ortiz is on video duty. I’m carrying my astronaut pen and a fancy notebook. The parking lot for the 12-room Comstock Motel is small, so we have no trouble spotting Johnson’s government 4x4. We follow Johnson into the dark morning, out of Comstock and up U.S. Highway 90. We are driving deep into the Lower Pecos Canyonlands to a place that speaks to the soul of both scientists and artists alike: Rattlesnake Canyon.

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon houses one of the most significant panels of prehistoric rock art in the world, estimated to be around 4,000 years old. It’s called Pecos River style, and there are over 200 sites like Rattlesnake Canyon in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, notably Fate Bell Shelter in Seminole Canyon State Park and The White Shaman Preserve, both near Comstock.

“I loved those pictographs from the moment I saw them in ninth grade,” says Sherry Stribling, who knows the mural better than maybe anyone. “It was the most beautiful day of my entire life when I went there with my parents. It was really life-changing in some ways. I knew I was going to defend that spot, so people could see it.”

Stribling has loved art for as long as she can remember – indeed, she graduated from Texas Tech with a visual and material studies sculpture degree in 1981 – but seeing the mural in Rattlesnake Canyon impacted her in a visceral way. As teenagers in the late ’70s, she and a close friend would spend hours laying on their backs to gain different perspectives of the images along the cave’s wall.

“It was just my favorite spot in the world,” Stribling says. “There was always something to dream on.”

Her dad Stanley and his business partner Bill Pfluger had acquired the 90 acres in Val Verde County through some land trading in 1970. When it came time to pass the property on, Sherry told her dad, “It’s not real estate; it’s art.” She knew it had to go to her “little underdog school, Texas Tech.”

So, in 1980, her family donated Rattlesnake Canyon to Texas Tech.

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

My three companions are the first people from Texas Tech to visit Rattlesnake Canyon since May 2016. The last person known to lay eyes on the mural was Johnson in 2022. When the Rio Grande floods, the dam at Lake Amistad impedes water from flowing freely downriver, so it backs into Rattlesnake Canyon. The last time that happened was August 2023. Johnson is anxious to see if there was any damage to the pictographs.

Consistent flooding and erosion will eventually degrade them. Although it has survived for 4,000 years, the mural will not last forever.

Back on U.S. 90, we follow Johnson as the first striations of light creep over the rolling hills, ridgelines and small mountains. His brake lights illuminate the twilight. He pulls to the shoulder and makes a U-turn – we missed the gate. Johnson backtracks and finds our entrance. It is a nondescript, locked metal gate obscured from the highway by scrubby brush. We enter, lock the gate behind us, and begin our long trek down a hardscrabble ranch road in the direction of Mexico. It undulates and serpentines through ravines and draws across a private ranch we had to secure permission to traverse. Texas Tech’s 90-acre property is an island surrounded by private property. Each visit requires permission from the landowner. Rattlesnake Canyon is not an easy place to get to.

We arrive at the rim of the canyon and unload our gear. Rex, Rodgers and Ortiz don heavy backpacks full of their electronic recording equipment. I slide my notepad and pen into my front pocket. We descend into the canyon, following Johnson through a maze of wooded tunnels woven by the curved and prolific branches of willow trees. We duck and slide through fallen limbs. The tiny tentacles of the willows snag on shirts, caps and backpack buckles. Johnson was the last official person to visit the property, but we are on a path that has seen human travel. Mexico and the Rio Grande are near; the canyon is routinely used by undocumented migrants crossing the border. The wooded tunnel spits us onto the canyon floor and, once again, we follow Johnson in his NPS khakis and brimmed sun hat.

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

In summertime, a smart hat with protection is vital. The sun is in its second rise, peaking above the canyon walls. It’s heating up as the temperature rapidly climbs into the mid-80s, and I can feel a whisp of humidity from the Rio Grande. Rex is drenched in sweat as he lugs his photo gear to the cave. We pass remnants of the flood as we proceed. A tattered leather boot is covered by rocks. Further down the canyon a lace brassiere is oddly well preserved. And there’s a wool blanket partially buried in dried mud. Other than this dispersed smattering of textiles, the canyon is pristine.

No one on the media team has ever seen the mural. Rex has studied pictures of it, and we’ve heard stories from colleagues that have experienced the intricate rock art panel. Our anticipation is high.

Johnson leads us to the canyon wall where a large limestone overhang shades a recessed curved shelter. It looks like a massive stone wave frozen in time for eons. Johnson ascends a narrow trail of natural rock steps into the shelter. He instantly takes inventory of the painting and the surrounding brush. He is relieved. It’s all still here. No major damage, no vandalism and no sign of human footprints. But as he scans the nearby flora, he realizes some intruding limbs from hackberry, Texas persimmon and guajillo trees need to be trimmed back. They’re not threatening the rock art, but we need to make room so Rex and Ortiz can set up their tripods and start documenting the mural.

The mural spans some 100 feet along the concave wall of the shelter. Pecos River-style rock art consists of four colors: red, black, yellow and white. The paint is derived from animal fat mixed with iron, manganese, mineral pigmentand soap from yucca root. There are felines, spears and thought bubbles flowing from human figures in arcs across the panel. The figures are called anthropomorphs, with square human bodies that feature several types of adornments like hair, antlers or bunny ears.

The activity inside the rock art panel is busy with figures, symbols, serpents, lines, dots, arrows… It’s too much for me to process. It is beautiful, but the more I look the more I see. I’m overwhelmed and overheating.

The sun has penetrated the canyon, and the air temperature is climbing toward triple digits. It is time to exit the canyon. We pack up our gear and make our way through the willow portal to the top of the canyon and into the modern world, air-conditioned automobiles.

Tomorrow, we will return with the experts.

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Robert Stubblefield is director of operations at Texas Tech’s Junction campus. Rattlesnake Canyon falls under his supervision, and he was tasked with emailing all the parties that would join us on our expedition to Rattlesnake Canyon.

The next morning, we meet Johnson in the motel’s parking lot at 5:30 a.m. The photographers want to capture the mural just as the first rays of the sun illuminate the canyon. It is surreal to descend into the canyon through the willows at twilight. It further amplifies an already ethereal experience of being in the presence of painted figures that seem to originate from another realm.

As the morning approaches a reasonable hour, the experts arrive – including Stubblefield and Karen Lopez, Junction’s assistant director. Ten excited hikers make their way along the canyon floor. Some have been here before while others are brand new to Rattlesnake Canyon.

Jessica Hamlin is one of the first up the steps and into the cave. She is the executive director of Shumla, an archaeological research and education center that since 1998 has worked exhaustively to document and preserve the oldest “books” in North America: the murals and rock art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. The last time she saw this mural was 2015. She spends her first 30 minutes in complete awe. She retrieves a green laser pointer from her backpack and highlights features in the painting.

“This arch goes all the way to this figure,” she says excitedly. “In this panel, everything touches everything else. You can tell what relationship each figure has with the others.”

Hamlin is illuminating narratives in the mural I never caught.

Shumla’s research lab is based in Comstock, just a few blocks from our motel. They have an office in San Marcos and a facility in Del Rio. From Hamlin, I learn that what I called “thought bubbles” coming from figures’ mouths were “speech breath,” and the arrows were atlatls, devices used to increase a spear’s distance, which predate bow-and-arrow technology.

The last time Karen Steelman saw the rock art panel was in 2014, just before a major flood filled Rattlesnake Canyon with water. When she gazes upon the mural with her own eyes, she’s relieved.

“It’s survived for so long, and it’s still here – it’s still surviving,” she says.

Steelman is a chemist and the science director at Shumla. She is an expert on a specific type of radiocarbon dating called plasma oxidation. Until now, the rock art panel at Rattlesnake Canyon has not been radiocarbon dated. She explains to me that because of how densely painted the mural is, they think the entire piece was painted at the same time as a composition.

“For me it’s not just about looking at the art on the wall, but turning around and looking out at the canyon, seeing the landscape,” Steelman says. “It’s the man-made paintings on the wall, but it’s also the natural environment you’re in.”

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Marise McDermott is president emeritus of the Witte Museum in San Antonio. The Witte has been leading expeditions into the Lower Pecos Canyonlands since 1931 and owns the nearby White Shaman Preserve, which features one of the most cosmologically complex murals in the world.

McDermott had just finished her book on the artist Mary Virginia Carson. In the summer of 1931, Carson embarked on an expedition with the Witte Museum to West Texas, where they traversed over 1,000 miles and visited 34 rock art sites. Carson sat on boulders in the desert sun and sketched the murals from each site she visited. In the end she completed 110 watercolor sketches, which included the rock art panel at Rattlesnake Canyon. McDermott had packed a draft of her manuscript in her backpack and brought it with her. Unsure of the sequence of Carson’s sketches, McDermott needed to see the site for herself, so she could get them in the right order for her book.

This was her first time at Rattlesnake Canyon; her first impression was humbling.

“It’s so imposing and so inspiring,” McDermott says. “What a perfect choice for this shelter to have this highly complex narrative story. I was overwhelmed. I couldn’t really talk for a while.”

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

After experiencing the rock art at Rattlesnake Canyon for a second day and having experts and enthusiasts show me and explain the features and storylines spread across the shelter’s wall, I was more overwhelmed than the first day. The more I saw; the more I felt. I had more questions than answers.

I expressed this sentiment to Johnson, whose master’s degree from Texas Tech allowed him to specialize in an anthropology program that focused on Texas archeology.

“The Pecos River style mural can be overwhelming to try and see,” Johnson reasons. “There are so many figures, and they’re all overlapping and meshed together. It’s hard to pick out individual figures from the multitude.”

That was exactly my experience. He explains that the more Pecos River-style sites you visit, the more you pick up on the patterns.

“It’s like when you’re learning a language and you start to recognize words,” Johnson says. “You start picking things out, and the more things you recognize, you’re able to start making connections. And then it’s almost like solving a crossword puzzle.”

Rattlesnake Canyon

Rattlesnake Canyon

Stribling is well aware of that overwhelming sensation the first time you see Pecos River-style rock art.

She had the rare opportunity to grow up with Rattlesnake Canyon. She spent a great deal of time in the presence of those mysterious figures and symbols on the wall of rock.

But she also saw it in a way few people could then – and which no one can today. Each year, increased humidity from Lake Amistad creates a thin layer of calcite and oxalate on top of the rock’s surface, obscuring and dulling the mural.

In the late ’70s, the colors were sharper and lines more defined. Stribling had unfettered access and could gaze upon the figures and symbols with the delight and curiosity that only comes with youth. It inspired her to donate this wonder to her beloved alma mater so it could be shared with others.

“It’s the human phenomenon of viewing this and seeing this,” she says. “I call it phenomenological.”

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Footnotes

Words by Brandon Weaver, Photos by Justin Rex and Ashley Rodgers. Video by Michael Ortiz.

FootNotes

Words by Brandon Weaver, Photos by Justin Rex and Ashley Rodgers. Video by Michael Ortiz.

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