Two millennia of prehispanic rock art at the highlands of Ancasti - Informe final Young Explorer Grant - National Geographic

GHECO, LUCAS

2014-05-01/2015-05-18

Social

Prom.Gral.del Conoc.-Cs.Humanas

Informe final de Beca para Jóvenes Exploradores de National Geographic Society.In the dense forest of eastern hillside of Ancasti mountains (Catamarca province, Argentina) there are hidden big rocky outcrops where the erosion of thousands of years created strange eaves that were used by pre-hispanic social groups to embody diverse expressions of rock art. Investigations performed since the 1950´s attributed the rock art to the Aguada culture (ca. 500-900 a. C.) based on stylistic similarities between the rock art and the designs found in pottery assigned to that culture. The location of the rocky outcrops with rock art in the middle of the cebil forest, tree with hallucinogen properties used since pre-columbian times, added to the strange representations of dances, sacrifices and supernatural beings which combine animal and human attributes, allows us to think in these places as locations for ancient shamanic rituals. In this sense, the information provided by researchers in the Ancasti mountains, plus our own investigations, allows us to stand as an hypothesis that this caves would have functioned as spaces for ancient shamanic rites where the paintings had an important role. Only a few caves with rock art have been visited by specialists. The dense vegetation and the steep terrain make difficult this work. In this sense, this project pretend to explore some areas of Ancasti´s mountain forest searching for new caves with rock art and the evidence of ancient rites. The expeditions will combine the knowledge of experts from different disciplines (archaeology, anthropology, art, architecture.) to go deeper into the understanding of these ancient art manifestations and theirs ritual functions. The planned activities are: search for new caves with art hidden in the forest, the exhaustive register of caves with rock art, research of the architecture associated to caves and communication roads between them, excavations, chemistry analysis of pigments and dating by 14C technique to adjust the chronology of these practices.