Carolyn Boyd

Shumla Endowed Research Professor  
Research Associate Professor and Founder of Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center  
Email: cb55@txstate.edu or cboyd@shumla.org  
Phone: 512.245.0727  
Office: ELA 255

Education  
Ph.D. – Texas A&M University, 1998  
B.A. – Texas A&M University, 1994

Research Interests:  
Ancient art, iconographic analysis, hunter-gatherer archaeology, applied anthropology, Native American myth, ritual, cosmovision, and iconography

Carolyn E. Boyd is an artist and an archaeologist specializing in iconographic analysis. Her primary interest is the documentation and interpretation of Pecos River Style (PRS) pictographs in southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico. Her research examines the role of hunter-gatherer artists as active participants in the social, economic, and ideological fabric of the community, and the function of art as communication and a mechanism for social and environmental adaptation. In 1998, Boyd founded a nonprofit corporation, Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center (www.shumla.org), to preserve through documentation and education the rock art of the Lower Pecos. She continues to serve as a research advisor to Shumla and to work with the organization in their documentation efforts.

Current Research:  
Boyd’s current projects include Origins and Tenacity of Myth in Archaic Period Rock Art of Southwest Texas and Northern Mexico, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Layers of Meaning: Chronological Modeling & Pictograph Stratigraphy, funded by the National Science Foundation. These two research initiatives are subsumed under the title The Hearthstone Project, which is a collaboration between Texas State University and Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center. This collaborative research program synthesizes expertise from archaeological science, formal art analysis, and Indigenous consultants to: (1) unravel the technical history of PRS murals and decode the symbols contained therein; and (2) build a chronological model of PRS pictographs. Results from this work will inform studies of myth, forager social organization, art history, and the origins of Mesoamerican myth and art. It will also inform research into possible drivers for the emergence and decline of PRS, including environmental, social, and extra-regional cultural influences.

See below the Blog Posts written by J. Phil Dering and Carolyn Boyd for more information about the project.

Boyd, Carolyn E., J. Phil Dering, and Karen L. Steelman
2023, The Hearthstone Project: Applying Archaeological Science, Formal Art Analysis, and Indigenous Knowledge to Rock Art Research. American Indian Rock Art, Volume 49, edited by A Gilreath, K Hedges, and A McConnell, pp. 135-150. 

Boyd, Carolyn E., and Ashley Busby
2021, Speech-Breath: Mapping the Multisensory Experience in Pecos River Style Pictography. Latin American Antiquity.

Boyd, Carolyn E.
2021, Images in the Making: Process and Vivification in Pecos River Style Rock Art. In Ontologies of Rock Art: Images, Relational Approaches and Indigenous Knowledge, edited by Oscar Moro Abadía and Martin Porr, pp. 245–263. Routledge, New York.

Steelman, Karen L., Carolyn E. Boyd, and Trinidy Allen
2021, Two Independent Methods for Dating Rock Art: Age Determination of Paint and Oxalate Layers at Eagle Cave, TX. Journal of Archaeological Science 126:1–12. DOI:10.1016/j.jas.2020.105315, accessed February 1, 2021.

Steelman, Karen L., Carolyn E. Boyd, and Lennon N. Bates
2021, Implications for Rock Art Dating: A Review of Results from the Lower Pecos Canyonlands. Quaternary Geochronology 63:1–17. DOI:10.1016/j.quageo.2021.101167, accessed March 1, 2021.

Conkey, Meg and Carolyn E. Boyd
2017, Amérique de Nord. In L’art de la Préhistoire, edited by Carole Fritz, Michel Barbaza, Genevieve Pincon, and Gilles Tosello, pp. 239-273. Citadelles & Mazenod, Paris.

Boyd, Carolyn E. and Kim Cox
2016, The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos.  University of Texas Press, Austin.
- Recipient of the 2017 Society for American Archaeology Scholarly Book Award

Bates, Lennon, Amanda M. Castañeda, Carolyn E. Boyd, and Karen Steelman
2015, A Black Deer at Black Cave: New Pictograph Radiocarbon Date for the Lower Pecos, Texas. Journal of Texas Archeology and History. Online only journal, Volume 2, Article 3.

Boyd, Carolyn, Marvin Rowe, and Karen Steelman
2014, Revisiting the Stylistic Classification of a Charcoal Pictograph in the Lower Pecos. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 85:235-241.

Koenig, Charles W., Amanda Castañeda, Carolyn E. Boyd and Karen Steelman
2014, Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy of Pictographs: A Case Study from the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, Texas. Archaeometry 56(1):168-186.

Boyd, Carolyn E., Amanda Castañeda, and Charles W. Koenig
2013, A Reassessment of Red Linear Style Pictographs in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas. American Antiquity 78(3):456-482.

Boyd, Carolyn E.
2013, Drawing from the Past: Rock Art of the Lower Pecos. In Painters in Prehistory: Archaeology and Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, edited by Harry Shafer, pp. 171-221. Trinity University Press, San Antonio, TX.

Boyd, Carolyn E.
2012, Pictographs, Peyote, and Patterns in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas.  In Companion to Rock Art, edited by Jo McDonald and Peter Veth, pp. 34-50. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA.

Boyd, Carolyn E.
2010, El Arte Rupestre de Tejas: Análisis Contextual de Motivos Recurrentes en el Área de la Desembocadura del Río Pecos. Revista Iberoamericana de Lingüística 5:5-42.

Boyd, Carolyn E.
2003, Rock Art of the Lower Pecos.  Texas A&M University Press, College Station.