We’re not sure exactly when people first came here, or even how. Scholars debate about archaeological records going back 20,000 years, although a few speculate it was even earlier. What we know for sure is that people came, venturing into the territory we now call America.

We tend to think of our species’ impulse to push into new land as something European, tainted by colonialism. But humans have always needed to explore, fulfilling a deep longing to know the unknown. One wonders about those earliest Americans, many generations of them over centuries, if not millennia. Did they have an inkling of the vastness of the land? As they pushed into the interior of the continent, into what we now call the United States, discovering ever-warmer winters and countless animals and plants to sustain them, isn’t it possible that they felt—as we still feel when we encounter the landscape—a sense of glorious, expansive possibility? A sense even of the divine?

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When we think of those prehistoric people, who lived long before our familiar Native American tribes, we assume they scratched out a pathetic and meager existence. But then we encounter their art: huge, spectacular, shamanistic paintings in riverside caves. These 6,000-year-old narrative murals, a pictorial form of writing perhaps, belie a culture rich in storytelling and imaginative explanations for the world and existence itself. These are vision quests, yearning for meaning well beyond some basic impulse to survive. And they were here. Right here, all over the great land.

Further reading:

• “Overwhelmed by Wonder: Carolyn Boyd and Lower Pecos Rock Art,” Glasstire, 1/3/2017

• “6,000-year old West Texas rock art influenced Mesoamerican cosmology,” Texas State University, 11/26/2025

  
  

And there is prehistoric rock art all over the country!

This post is part of The American 250, a series featuring 250 objects made by Americans, located in America, in honor of the country's 250th anniversary. 250 words on 250 works, from January 1 to December 31, 2026.

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