Big Bend Researchers Team Up With Mexican Agency To Study ‘Culture Along The River’

The director at the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross University says ancient peoples lived in the Big Bend region thousands of years before Spanish explorers came to the New World.

By Michael MarksAugust 18, 2017 12:57 pm

Out in the Big Bend, where the Rio Grande wends its way through desert nestled between the mountains, the country has a very ancient feel to it. That’s not just because of the geology and the landscape, but also because of the people who once lived here.

The Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University in Alpine is teaming up with a federal agency in Mexico — the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, which oversees that country’s historical sites — to better understand the ancient people of the Big Bend.

The center’s director Andy Cloud says there is a greater variety of stone there that could be used for tools, compared to what’s found in Central Texas, for example. Prehistoric peoples were able to thrive in the region because of those natural resources.

What you’ll hear in this segment:

—How the area was home to Native Americans thousands of years before Spanish explorers came to the New World

—How native peoples developed technologies to adapt to life in the desert

—How aligning with the Mexican agency enables the center to better research people who lived on both sides of the Rio Grande.

 

Written by Caroline Covington.