Pano view of Cedar Spring rock art panel. Select "original" size to view fine details.

The Lower Pecos archeological region covers the area surrounding the junctions of the Pecos and Devils Rivers with the Rio Grande just upstream from Del Rio, Texas. It extends southward into northern Coahuila, Mexico. The area, approximately 50x50 square miles, straddles almost equally on both sides of the Rio Grande. The three rivers and their many tributaries form deeply incised canyons within which numerous rock shelters occur. For over 13,000 years prehistoric hunter-gatherers lived in the region, sometimes occupying the rock shelters. The most spectacular and defining archeological phenomenon in the Lower Pecos is the unique and vivid rock art that adorns the semi-protected walls of many of the rock shelters. The red, black, white, and yellow pictographs created by hunter-gatherers in the Lower Pecos beginning as early as 5,500 years ago are among the best preserved rock art anywhere in the world. Many of the Lower Pecos pictographs are widely regarded as expressions of shamanistic ritual, and often incredibly sophisticated and complex. In the hunter-gatherer societies, shamans play the role of healers and mediators who have the ability to communicate with spirit world.