Rock Art in Central and South America

Abstract

Central and South America is a vast region, where a wide range of different societies established, transformed, disappeared, and endured. This kaleidoscope of peoples offers a particularly rich and diverse body of rock art in terms of its historical, technical, visual, and spatial features. The first sections of this chapter briefly introduces the reader to this diversity, as well as to the history of rock art research, presenting and discussing the different theoretical and methodological frameworks used. The authors discuss the role that rock art played—and still plays—for different groups, which they have grouped in terms of their common socioeconomic strategies. The authors argue that rock art research from this region can contribute to the wider understanding of rock art in the world, offering its materialistic and archaeological approaches ranging from the study of social complexity, the domestication of animals, mobility, and memory.

Evaluación De La Meteorización De Los Aleros Ricci-Quitilipi (Cerro Colorado-Córdoba, Argentina). Diagnóstico Para La Gestión Patrimonial

“…Los estudios de alteración del arte rupestre han cobrado cada vez más importancia debido al creciente interés conservacionista (Hall et al 2007;Hoerlé 2005;Meiklejohn et al 2009;Mol y Viles 2010;Sumner et al 2009, mencionando algunos de los trabajos realizados en areniscas). Sin embargo, en Argentina las investigaciones de arte rupestre se centran principalmente en cuestiones de índole estilístico, técnico, cronológico, social e identitario (Gheco et al 2013;Martel et al 2012;Pastor 2012;Troncoso et al 2017, entre otros), con algunas excepciones (Bolle 1987;Herrero et al 1998;Rolandi de Perrot et al 1996). En los últimos 10 años, se han presentado propuestas metodológicas sistemáticas interesantes incorporando los aportes de la tecnología digital que involucran diversos tipos de registros orientados esencialmente a aplicaciones digitales (i.e.…”

South American Art

“…Nonetheless, in the last few decades, rock art studies in South America have started to be incorporated on global discussions, mainly on the application of formal methods (Podestá and Strecker 2014;Troncoso et al 2018). Among some of the most significant advances in South American art research is the critical discussion of analytical concepts such as style, territories and networks and the application of archaeometric approaches (Fiore and Basile 2016;Sepúlveda 2016;Troncoso et al 2017b;Brook et al 2018).…”

“…To conclude, some of the art research conducted in these two regions, Patagonia in particular, have influenced the methodological, theoretical and interpretative agenda of these areas, as well as other regions from Southern South America (see Menghin 1957;Gradin 1975Gradin , 1985Aschero 2000;Fiore 2006;Carden 2008;Troncoso et al 2017b).…”

Historical Dimensions of Rock Art: Perspectives from ‘Peripheries’

“…In South America, extremely old dates from Serra da Capivara (Piauí, Brazil) have been called into question (Steelman et al 2002). Although scholarship assumes that rock art dates back to the early Holocene, the available dates are scarce (Troncoso et al 2017). Neves et al (2012) have presented the 'oldest, indisputable testimony of rock art in the Americas' (2012, 3) so far: a petroglyph engraved on the bedrock in Lapa do Santo (Brazil) dated by the 14 C method of a stratigraphic layer to 'a minimum age of 9,370 ± 40 BP (cal.…”

“…If early Holocene dates for rock art are finally confirmed, it could be the case that the artists did not belong to hunter-gatherer societies (in the more traditional and limited sense), but were plant managers and even pre-domesticators. For the South Andes, widely accepted chronologies for widespread rock-art making have been assigned to a chronological horizon of c. 3000 and 1000 BCE, associated with increasing social complexity, demographic growth, the appearance of specialized technologies, the intensification of practices of exploitation of plant resources and a reduction in the mobility of these populations (see Troncoso et al 2017). Direct dates on rock art for South America so far go back only to c. 1600 BCE in La Placa 5 and Covacha Pintada (North Central Chile) (Troncoso et al 2015).…”