Texas state parks showcase a host of treasured resources – canyons and caverns, dinosaur tracks and hiking trails, waterfalls and whitewater rivers. The parks also preserve a remarkable archeological record, rich evidence of Texas’s Indigenous past. Tim Roberts was cultural resources coordinator for Texas Parks & Wildlife in the Trans-Pecos for 25 years. He retired in August. His career tells a revealing story of West Texas archeology, and the role of parks in understanding and saving that heritage.
“As they say, archeologists never truly retire,” Roberts said. “They just perhaps don't get paid for the work they do after retirement.”
Roberts’s archeological journey began in childhood – when he dug a hole behind his family’s home in Topeka, Kansas, and wondered at the artifacts he found there. But his first scientific excavation was outside El Paso, at a dig of a village site on Fort Bliss. In his graduate work at the University of Tulsa, he focused on pottery from that site, and what it said about ancient desert farmers.
Then his career took him elsewhere – to excavate caves in the Midwest, teepee rings on the Great Plains, an Iroquois longhouse in upstate New York. In 2000 he returned to West Texas, with the parks position. He was based in Fort Davis – but his region stretched from El Paso to Rocksprings.
Whenever new park buildings, trails or campsites were planned, Roberts came to identify archeological sites, in order to limit or prevent damage. His work revealed just how ubiquitous those sites are, even if they’re often overlooked. In 2010, Roberts surveyed for new trail construction in Big Bend Ranch State Park.
“By the time we finished all the trail surveys, I know we had well over 600 recorded sites,” he said, “and that was just after looking at about 11 percent of the property.”
Roberts said that as a young archeologist, he lived to dig. And excavations do occur at state parks. But to dig a site is to destroy it, and, in general, park sites are left intact, preserved for future visitors. Roberts came to find this approach far more satisfying.
“More often than not, we could suggest that a trail be moved a little bit this way or that way to avoid a site,” Roberts said, “or that a parking lot be placed somewhere else. That was a great plus in this job – that we were preserving those sites and, in some cases, trying to even improve the condition of those sites.”
One archeological resource soon dominated Roberts’s attention: rock art. At two Trans-Pecos parks – Hueco Tanks and Seminole Canyon – ancient painted imagery is the marquee attraction.
Hueco Tanks became a particular focus. Roberts secured funding to remove graffiti from rock-art sites. He organized surveys that found previously undetected images; rock-climbing trails were closed to safeguard those images. And he wrote the successful application for Hueco Tanks to be designated a National Historic Landmark.
Roberts saw it as the first step towards UNESCO World Heritage Site designation. The Trump administration has withdrawn from UNESCO, so the matter is moot for now. But Roberts said Hueco Tanks merits global recognition. The vividly painted masks here, he said, are early evidence of the Katsina religion – which remains central for Native peoples.
“If we look at it in terms of that importance across the Southwest to living groups today,” he said, “I think we can make a case for global significance of that site.”
Roberts isn’t done with archeology – he’ll lead tours at Hueco Tanks, and he’s writing a book, a field guide to Trans-Pecos rock-art styles. But he’s already made important contributions on behalf of our region’s prehistory.
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