Deciphering the Pictographs of Paint Rock

It’s one of the greatest mysteries of Texas, the story behind centuries-old glyphs known as the pictographs of Paint Rock. A Houston man may have solved the riddle.

By Rhonda Fanning & David BrownFebruary 11, 2015 3:05 pm,

Looks like Texas’ earliest denizens may have mastered the art and science of telling the time from the sun.

Gordon Houston, a fifth year doctoral student in archeoastronomy at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, studies the Paint Rock pictographs in northern Concho County.

“The first thought that most people say, is that the calendar was built for agricultural purposes, but it has also been shown that nomadic people also used the calendar maybe even more so for the migration of the buffalo or other animals in their subsistence patterns,” Houston says.

He will present his findings at the Houston Archeological Society’s February 12 meeting at 7 p.m. in the University of St. Thomas’ MD Anderson Hall, free of charge and open to the public.

 

This story was prepared with assistance by Jan Ross Piedad.