Understanding Lower Pecos Feline Imagery | April 2023 Lunch & Learn

In this Lunch & Learn Diana Radillo Rolón will talk about a repetitive pattern of felines associated with speech breath (lines coming out of or into the mouths of the figures), as well as sensory signs depicted in other parts of their bodies. She will share a comparative analysis between Lower Pecos and Teotihuacan felines and discuss possible interpretations. And present the current radiocarbon dates that Shumla obtained for Halo Shelter, a site with an iconic red feline, to compare with the dates for the Teotihuacan murals.
This Lunch & Learn was originally presented on April 19, 2023.
Check out Shumla's Lunch & Learn schedule and new topics on our website: shumla.org/education/lunchand...

[@armandolopez180]

I am about 15 minutes in, and this question may very well be answered later in the video, but I figured I'd ask here: is the claim that the painters of the Lower Pecos are the ancestors of the pyramid builders in Teotihuacan? Or that they would migrate from the Lower Pecos into Mesoamerica in the centuries between the end of the Pecos River Style and the construction of those pyramids?

[@shumlaarchaeologicalcenter]

Thanks for your question! Some researchers (like Lopez Austin) argue the presence of early North Chichimec iconography in Mesoamerican indigenous groups. For example, the symbol complex of the Feathered Serpent has much earlier manifestations. However, to track the ancestors of the pyramid builders in Teotihuacan we would need more information and research. What we know is that in the murals of the Lower Pecos, there are iconographic motifs that we can see in Mesoamérica (Teotihuacan murals and other sites). Since the Archaic period, hunter-gatherers painted symbols that are part of an ancestral religious tradition.