Rock Art Research

This paper offers an explanation of seven symbolic elements from the Pecos River pictogram ‘style’ of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands/Gran Chichimeca region. In various ways these seven symbols may represent shorthand anthropomorphs depicted in stages of abstraction and in substitution sets. They are important elements of the Pecos River ‘style’ and this iconographic analysis provides new insights into their significance. The cross, T and Y-symbols are straightforward abstractions that may be expedient or formal in production. Also described are four other structurally derivative motifs, the Rio Bravo, ‘firecracker’, U and W-symbols.