Hueco Tanks State Park, east of El Paso, contains an ancient rock art legacy unlike any in West Texas, or in North America. Thousands of painted images on stone outcroppings suggest this was a place of tremendous importance, of sacred significance, to earlier Chihuahuan Desert people.

But it wasn't just a place of ceremony. It was also a habitation. Humble, more subtle than the painted figures and faces, sites across the park preserve traces of the daily life of those who created these images.  

Archeologists call this society the Jornada Mogollon, and they're working to preserve and document its record here.

The Jornada paintings at Hueco Tanks are tucked into shallow caves and cr...