Many of our members want to know what the people of the Lower Pecos looked like so we are fortunate to have facial reconstructions done using techniques developed in forensic science.

In addition, a relatively large inventory of skeletal remains provides data about height, robusticity, and the incidence of trauma. The vast majority of the information is relevant to the Archaic peoples, those living in the region between 7000 B.C and A.D. 600. Keeping in mind that several different populations probably occupied the Lower Pecos region at different times, in general, it can be said that the physical characteristics of the people were consistent with their genetic inheritance, their environment, and the stresses placed on them by everyday life. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department artist Nola Montgomery has done a reconstruction of the facial features of a mummified male who had been exhumed from a dry cave on the Rio Grande in the 1930s. This particular gentleman was between 35 and 45 when he died ca 1150 radiocarbon years ago. The complete report is to be found in Plains Anthropologist (1986) V. 31-114, "Late Archaic Mortuary Practices of the Lower Pecos River Region, Southwest Texas" by Turpin, Maciej Henneberg, and David K. Riskind. Later, Betty Pat Gatliff sculpted her reconstructions of a man, a woman, and a child from their skeletal remains at the Witte Museum in San Antonio. Her renditions were printed on the cover of the Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society (1988) and the entire report was published as "Applications of Facial Sculpting to the Biological Study of an Archaeological Population" by Glassman, Gatliff and McGregor (1989) in Plains Anthropologist 34-125. The models were believed to have lived during Late Archaic-Late Prehistoric times in the Lower Pecos Region. Although osteological studies are obviously based on a small percentage of the population it can be said with some security that both men and women were slight of build and relatively short by modern standards, the men probably between 5'5"and 5'7" and the women around 5' tall. A good descriptive word for them might be rangy, in keeping with the need to balance agility with stamina. The most evident accidental trauma is broken bones in hands, feet, and an occasional limb bone, not unexpected in an area of steep cliffs and rocky slopes. Many features clearly identify them as members of the Native American genetic pool - relatively long skulls and round faces with prominent facial bones, including noses; coarse black hair (worn shoulder length); and dentition. It is very difficult to age skeletal material in the Lower Pecos based on dental wear because of the high incidence of early tooth loss. Tooth decay is most likely due to their diet which was high in carbohydrates and sugars, not to the use of grinding implements that deposited grit in the diet. Wear patterns are more typical of massive fiber processing, with vegetal material pulled through the front teeth. This would of course affect the appearance of the individual. The shoulder length hairstyle detailed in Montgomery's report was apparent from the mummied male as he retained a full head of hair.