A team of researchers is getting federal funding to analyze perishable artifacts to better understand the early inhabitants who lived in and around caves in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas.
Officials say the region is under-researched and the $200,000 grant from the Bureau of Land Management will help fund more work in the Guadalupe Mountains.
The University of New Mexico is partnering with the Lincoln National Forest, the New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Guadalupe Mountains National Park and the Carlsbad Museum and Art Center.
The team will use existing museum collections to build a chronology of basket and sandal styles used by those who lived in the area centuries ago.
They also will re-document two of the area's rock shelter sites with new technologies, including a drone and photogrammetric mapping.
