Faculty Profile for Dr. Carolyn Elizabeth Boyd

profile photo for Dr. Carolyn Elizabeth Boyd
Dr. Carolyn Elizabeth Boyd
Research Associate Professor — Anthropology
ELA 266
phone: (512) 245-8272

Biography Section

Biography and Education

Carolyn Boyd is the Shumla Endowed Research Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Texas State University. She is the founder of a nonprofit organization, Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center (www.shumla.org), which was established in 1998 to preserve the oldest known “books” in North America – the rock art of the Lower Pecos Canyonlands in southwest Texas and Coahuila, Mexico. Boyd is the ex officio head of research for Shumla and serves on the organization’s board of directors. She also is an active member of the Rock Art Network (http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/rockartnetwork/), a working group established by the Getty Conservation Institute and the Bradshaw Foundation to promote, protect, and preserve rock art globally.

Boyd received her doctorate in archaeology from Texas A&M University based on her analysis of the 4,000-year-old rock art of the Lower Pecos. She is author of Rock Art of the Lower Pecos, published in 2003 by Texas A&M University Press and The White Shaman Mural: An Enduring Creation Narrative, published in 2016 by the University of Texas Press, which received the 2017 Scholarly Book Award from the Society for American Archaeology. Boyd teaches Field Methods in Rock Art, a four-week field school offered through Texas State University and gives numerous lectures around the country and abroad.

Currently, Boyd serves as the Principal Investigator for two projects: Origins and Tenacity of Myth, Ritual, and Cosmology in Archaic Period Rock Art of Southwest Texas and Northern Mexico (funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities) and Layers of Meaning - Pictograph Stratigraphy and Chronological Modeling (funded by the National Science Foundation). The two projects are a collaboration between Texas State University and Shumla Archaeological Research & Education Center. They are anchored in both science and the humanities, combining two research and preservation efforts as part of a comprehensive study of prehistoric art in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of Texas and adjacent Mexico. The information encoded in the images is sufficiently rich to inform archaeological research into forager territoriality, information exchange, labor organization, and the origins and tenacity of myth.

Selected Scholarly/Creative Work

  • Boyd, C. E. (2024). Color Engenders Life: Pigment and Process in Prehistoric Rock Art. In Art/Work. Princeton University Press.
  • Boyd, C. E., Dering, J. P., & Steelman, K. L. (2023). The Hearthstone Project: Applying Archaeological Science, Formal Art Analysis, and Indigenous Knowledge to Rock Art Research. American Indian Rock Art Research.
  • Boyd, C. E., & Busby, A. (2021). Speech-Breath: Mapping the Multisensory Experience in Pecos River Style Pictography. Latin American Antiquity. https://doi.org/10.1017/laq.2021.47
  • Boyd, C. E. (2021). Images-in-the-Making: Process and Vivification in Pecos River Style Rock Art. In O. Moro-Abadia & M. Porr (Eds.), Ontologies of Rock Art: Images, Relational Approaches and Indigenous Knowledge. Abingdon, Oxon, UK: Routledge.
  • Steelman, K. L., Boyd, C. E., & Bates, L. N. (2021). Implications for Rock Art Dating from the Lower Pecos Canyonlands: A Review. Quaternary Geochronology, 63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quageo.2021.101167

Selected Awards

  • Award / Honor Recipient: Publication Award, San Antonio Conservation Society Foundation. December 2018
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Curtis Tunnell Lifetime Achievement Award in Archeology, Texas Historical Commission. January 11, 2018
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Recognition as a leading woman scientist, Dallas Womens Foundation. 2017
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Scholarly Book Award, Society for American Archaeology. April 2017
  • Award / Honor Recipient: Extraordinary Texan, Texas Highways. 2014

Selected Grants

  • Boyd, Carolyn Elizabeth. Summerlee Foundation, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $125000. (Funded: 2017). Grant.
  • Boyd, Carolyn Elizabeth. Origins and Tenacity of Myth, Ritual, and Cosmology in Archaic Period Rock Art of Southwest Texas and Northern Mexico, National Endowment for the Humanities, Federal, $144848. (Submitted: October 2020, Funded: September 2021 - December 2023). Grant.
  • Boyd, Carolyn Elizabeth. Collaborative Research: Chronological Modeling & Pictograph Stratigraphy, National Science Foundation, Federal, $59742. (Submitted: December 2020, Funded: September 2021 - August 2023). Grant.
  • Boyd, Carolyn Elizabeth (Principal). Preserving Ancient Rock Art in Amistad National Recreation Area, National Geographic, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $29994. (Submitted: April 2019, Funded: January 2020 - December 2020). Grant.
  • Boyd, Carolyn Elizabeth. Cynthia & George Mitchell Foundation, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $10000.00. (Funded: 2017). Grant.

Selected Service Activities

Member
Rock Art Network
June 2018-Present
Member
Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center
February 2017-Present
Member
Moody Trafficking Awareness Steering Committee
January 2019-May 2022
Reviewer / Referee
North American Archaeologist
January 2021
Reviewer / Referee
American Antiquity
November 2020