In the last pages of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway, F. Scott Fitzgerald's narrator, imagines North America as first seen through European eyes. For a moment, he imagines, that early sailor “must have held his breath in the presence of this continent... face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”

Central to that wonder was the land as blank slate, without history – “a fresh, green breast of the new world,” in Fitzgerald's words. Yet that story was never accurate. People have thrived in every part of the Americas for more than 10,000 years.

West Texas is no exception. Diverse societies have developed, flourished and fade... Hosted by for KRTS