“Panther Cave, among the best known of several hundred prehistoric pictograph sites that dot the rugged canyons along the US-Mexico border, is being scanned with lasers to produce a high-resolution 3-D image in efforts to gauge the mural’s deterioration and detect images long ago erased by Mother Nature. They hope the project will help them preserve and decipher one of the oldest stories in North America.

“They are ancient texts, not just drawing on walls,” says Carolyn Boyd, head of the Shumla School, an archeological research center working with state and federal agencies on the project. “We have knowledge now that these paintings are far more than graffiti. And with knowledge comes responsibility — a responsibility to take care of it.”

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