This is a very important site in the
southern Sierra de Guadalupe. In 2007 when I visited
it I had no idea that such an important site would still be
unknown in the literature (since Del Cover's paper from
1990) after 17 years. Now (2017) its been another 10
years with only two mentions of Clavelitos in the
2013 thesis of Maria de la Luz Gutiérrez Martinez.
Amazing that a world class site like this has seen so little
research. One cannot seriously study Great Mural art
without knowing about this site and other huge Great Mural
sites in the Sierra de Guadalupe. I hope this
documentation can help. This site is similar to the
great sites in the Sierra de San Francisco in that it has
hundreds of paintings including huge figures. It is
different in that the painters who visited this site reflect
the large diversity in styles in the Sierra de
Guadalupe. This diversity just doesn't exist in San
Francisco. This site is near the southern limit of
Great Mural art. It contains
Great Mural styles, but also other styles that are
not Great Mural and styles that seem to be a strange
mixture and are hard to classify. My migration theory of Great Mural
art explains the reason for the greater
diversity in the Sierra de Guadalupe.
An easy way to get started with Clavelitos is to watch the slideshow of
favorite images.
Click on a red square in the image
below to open a closeup image with DStretch enhancements in a new
window or tab. Along the top are links to other index images.
Photography Copyright 2007, 2008 by Jon Harman. I visited this site
on November 28, 2007 as part of the INAH project: Identidad Social,
Comunicación Ritual y Arte Rupestre: El Gran Mural de la Sierra de
Guadalupe B.C.S. under the leadership of Maria de la Luz Gutiérrez
Martinez. We were accompanied by INAH Custodian Aaron Real
Villavicencio, translator Ayla Perez and local guides.
