Lunch & Learn
Sign up for our monthly Lunch & Learn to learn about our mission, projects, and much more!
Shumla’s ultimate goal is to share our mission and the wonder of Lower Pecos rock art with as many people as possible, reaching those around the country and the world. It is with great excitement that we’d like to introduce you to Shumla’s free Lunch & Learn virtual events! Join us virtually for an hour over lunch to learn about our latest projects and research and to share in some engaging discussions. Below, you can read more about upcoming Lunch & Learn presentations for each month and register.
Scroll through some of our past Lunch & Learn presentations or visit our YouTube channel to view more Lunch & Learn and other Shumla videos.
A Chronology Emerges | June 2024
by Karen Steelman, PhD, Science Director
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Bringing People Together to Preserve Big Bend for Future Generations
While we don’t always think of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands as part of the Big Bend, the region is listed as “Big Bend 5 Project” on the US Customs and Border Protection’s Smart Wall Map. The region spans from Del Rio west to Sanderson. Archaeological sites in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, including those within Seminole Canyon State Park, Amistad National Recreation Area, and private land could be impacted.
“Together for Big Bend” is a coalition of landowners, conservationists, river guides, and residents protecting the Big Bend landscape and ecosystem. Mackenzie will discuss the group’s advocacy related the border wall construction in the region and how they’re bringing people together to preserve the Big Bend area for future generations.
Presenters: Mackenzie Anderson
Date: Wednesday, June 17, 2026
Time: Noon to 1:00 PM Central Time
Platform: Zoom
Felines and Chalchihuites in the Lower Pecos
Join Dr. Diana Rolon to explore how chalchihuites and felines appear in both the Lower Pecos rock art and Aztec murals. Though separated by thousands of years, these traditions share powerful symbols linked to fertility, the earth, sacred water, and ritual exchange. Together we’ll learn about deep connections in Indigenous ways of seeing the world.
Presenters: Diana Radillo Rolón, PhD. | Senior Preservation Archaeologist
Date: Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Time: Noon to 1:00 PM Central Time
Platform: Zoom
Rock art: An American Story – A Talk with National Geographic Photographer Stephen Alvarez
Shumla is excited to welcome award-winning photographer Stephen Alvarez to celebrate the launch of his new book, Rock Art: An American Story. Stephen’s talk will connect some of the world’s earliest image-making with the monumental mural art of the Lower Pecos and the broader rock art landscapes of the United States. Through stories from the field and collaborations with archaeologists and Indigenous communities, he will examine how ancient artists used art to encode ceremony, cosmology, movement, and cultural memory — and what these works continue to teach us today.
Biography
“Rock art is not just a relic, not just a decoration — it is testimony. It tells us who we are, who we have been, and how we might think about our shared future.” –Stephen Alvarez, photographer
Stephen Alvarez has spent his life documenting the world. An award-winning photographer and filmmaker, he produces global stories about exploration, culture, and archeology. Alvarez has published over a dozen feature stories in National Geographic Magazine, taking readers from the highest peaks in the Andes to the deepest cave in the world, to the tunnels of underground Paris to the islands of the Pacific Ocean. His story on the origins of art led him from early human sites on the southern coast of Africa to Paleolithic art caves in France and Spain.
Alvarez is a Fellow of the Explorers Club in New York, a National Geographic Explorer, and the founder of the Ancient Art Archive, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and sharing rock and cave art — humanity’s oldest stories. In addition to National Geographic, his work has been featured in Time Magazine, The Nature Conservancy, and the New York Times, and he has appeared on NPR, PBS, and CBS Saturday Morning.
Presenters: Steven Alvarez | Ancient Art Archive
Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Time: Noon to 1:00 PM Central Time
Platform: Zoom
Red Linear in Time and Space: Chronological and Geospatial Insights into a Lower Pecos Rock Imagery Style
The Red Linear style is a distinctive indigenous rock imagery tradition of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands, characterized by anthropomorphic figures depicting hunting, fertility, cooperation, and aspects of daily life. Radiocarbon dating of diagnostically clear figures suggests the style was present by approximately 5600 calibrated years ago. A geospatial analysis of more than 600 anthropomorphs from 25 sites reveals patterned regional variation in figure size, form, and attributes.
This presentation refines the defining characteristics of Red Linear anthropomorphs, documents regional variability, and examines their temporal relationship with other major Lower Pecos rock art traditions of Texas and Coahuila, Mexico. Recent Pecos River style dates by Steelman et al. suggests that Red Linear and Pecos River imagery were contemporaneous for over a millennium, reframing these traditions as coexisting visual systems and highlighting a pivotal period in the cultural development of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands.
Presenters: Jerod Roberts, M.A. | Project Archaeologist at Mesa Prieta Petroglyph Project
Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2026
Time: Noon to 1:00 PM Central Time
Platform: Zoom