January 10, 2026 Kim Cox, Maya Research Program: “Rock Art Studies in the Ascendancy: the Unlikely Story of How a Little Regarded Subdiscipline Went Mainstream.”
Within the past ten years, the archaeological subdiscipline of rock art studies has undergone major changes that have fundamentally revised our understanding of why prehistoric populations drew pictures on rock canvasses. Texas archaeologists have led the nation in this regard, pioneering innovative techniques and interpretive studies that have established a new paradigm. This talk was about the enormous impact of the last ten years and why the study of rock art has become so important to the field of American archaeology.
Kim Alexander Cox holds a B.A. In Economics/Anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin and a J.D. From the University of Texas School of Law. He has directed or participated in archaeological field work in Texas, New Mexico, Belize, and Honduras since 1971. In addition to his private legal practice, he has been a director of The Maya Research Program, Blue Creek, Belize since 1991 and a director of the Paint Rock Project, since 2018. From 2006-2016 he worked with Shumla, Inc. on recording and analyzing the White Shaman rock art site, and, in 2016, he co-authored, with Carolyn E. Boyd, The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Mythological Narrative in the Rock Art of the Lower Pecos.