Society Activities

Annual Meeting

Annual Meeting 2009

Welcome to Del Rio for the
80th Texas Archeological Society Annual Meeting

Friday Evening Public Forum and Saturday Banquet Featured Speakers

Drs. Carolyn Boyd and Jean Clottes Headline Friday Night Public Forum
SHUMLA’s Executive director Dr. Carolyn Boyd and world renowned rock art researcher Dr. Jean Clottes from France will light up the Friday Evening Public Forum.  The forum will be held at the Del Rio Civic Center in the Red Oak Room from 7:00pm.-8:45 p.m. Dr. Boyd will be discussing exciting recent advances in rock art research of the Pecos-Rio Grande Canyonlands, and will be followed by Dr. Clottes who will talk about the place of our regional rock art in the larger stage of world rock art imagery and studies.  It promises to be an exciting evening, and we look forward to hearing these two fabulously inspiring speakers together!  We also expect to introduce some of the Del Rio dignitaries who have helped make the dream of hosting a TAS meeting here become a reality.  Join us for a fascinating evening of rock art excitement!

Dr. Clottes is also this year’s featured banquet speaker on Saturday evening.  He will provide an intimate discussion of his research on Cosquer Cave.  You don't want to miss this special treat arranged just for the TAS!

Jean Clottes and Elton Prewitt. Jean is wearing Elton's hat.

Dr. Clottes Biography
Jean was born in the Pyrenees in 1933 (Esperaza,Aude).  His high school studies took place at the Lycée at Carcassonne (Aude) and his University studies (1950–1957) at Toulouse University.  He taught French for three years in England.  Dr. Clottes first specialized on dolmens, on which he based his PhD (Doctorat d’Etat), which he passed in 1975.

He was appointed Director of Prehistoric Antiquities for Midi-Pyrénées in 1971 and has led both rescue and regular excavations on various sites.  In 1992, he was appointed General Inspector for Archaeology at the Ministry of Culture, and in 1993 he became Scientific Advisor at the same Ministry for everything relating to prehistoric rock art, a position which was held until his official retirement in July 1999.  From 1990 to 1993, Dr. Clottes taught a course of Prehistoric Art at Toulouse University for advanced students.  In 1991, he spent several weeks at Berkeley University as a Visiting Professor.

Dr. Clottes is also: a member of the High Council for Historical Monuments (Painted Caves section); and secretary to the Rock Art Commission of the UISPP (Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques).  He is a former President of the Société Préhistorique Française and of the International Committee for Rock Art (ICOMOS-UNESCO) and is currently Honorary President of the same.

His scientific interests are mostly related to prehistoric rock art and especially:

• its preservation and recording
• analyses of the paint
• dating problems
• the study of its archaeological context, to put it in a better anthropological and cultural perspective
• problems of epistemology and the search for meaning

Dr. Clottes is the editor of the International Newsletter on Rock Art (INORA) and is a director of collection ("Arts Rupestres") at "Éditions du Seuil" and at "La maison des roches", both in Paris.

He is currently involved in rock art recording and studying in the caves of Chauvet, Cosquer and Tuc d'Audoubert, in France.  He served as Visiting Scholar for SHUMLA's Pecos Experience program in 2006, and is returning to serve again in October 2009 just prior to the Texas Archeological Society Annual Meeting.

Dr. Clottes has published over 350 scientific articles and published or edited 23 books.  The latest are: La Vie et l’Art des Magdaléniens en Ariège (1999); Grandes girafes et fourmis vertes: Petites histoires de préhistoire (2000); Le Musée des Roches: L’art rupestre dans le monde (2000); Les Chamanes de la Préhistoire, texte intégral. Après les Chamanes: polémique et réponses (2001), with D. Lewis-Williams; La Grotte Chauvet (also published in English in 2003: Chauvet Cave. The Art of Earliest Times); La Préhistoire expliquée à mes petits-enfants (2002) (also published in Spanish and in Italian); World Rock Art (2002); Passion Préhistoire (2003). La Grotte de La Vache (ed.) (2004), Cosquer Redécouvert, with J. Courtin & L. Vanrell; Les Félins de la Grotte Chauvet (2005), with M. Azéma.

Carolyn Boyd

Dr. Boyd Biography
Dr. Carolyn E. Boyd received her doctorate in Anthropology from Texas A&M University based on her groundbreaking comparisons of the imagery in the Lower Pecos River region of Texas with ethnographic narratives of the Huichol Indians of Mexico.  Her background as a mural artist makes her uniquely qualified to view these paintings as planned compositions, not random accumulations of images over time.  Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, her expanded dissertation, has been published by Texas A&M University Press and is considered by many to be necessary reading for anyone studying rock art.  Dr. Jo McDonald, Australian rock-art expert, has said:

"Dr Carolyn Boyd’s exciting work, interpreting and disentangling the mythologies, is providing a coherent explanation for the complexity of this art.  The fact that there is a good archaeological record and that rock art dating allows for a contextualization of this art body means that this regional style has extremely high scientific value.  The Lower Pecos rock art region is on a par with several other of the greatest rock art provinces of the world (in Australia, Africa and in Palaeolithic France).  And the complexity and compositional intricacies seen in many of the individual panels is unrivalled — even on this world stage.”

Dr. Boyd serves as the Executive Director of SHUMLA, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to archeological research and education based on that research.  She also has been named an Adjunct Lecturer at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.  In addition, Dr. Boyd is a co-instructor of Field Methods in Rock Art, a three-week field school offered each May, gives numerous lectures around the country, serves on several graduate degree-plan committees, and continues with her innovative research on the rock art of the Lower Pecos.