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.”