Images and contents: a case from Cueva de las Manos, 9400-7700 years BP. (Río Pinturas, Santa Cruz)

Abstract

We refer to Cueva de las Manos, its cave paintings, and three superimposed scenes of different styles. Styles that in previous works were defined as scenes A1, A2 and A4 and were dated by 14C in three chronological ranges between 9400 to 7700 years BP, by excavations under the sector known as Paredón de las Escenas. Here we are interested in highlighting both the stylistic differences in the treatment of hunters, guanacos and in the different hunting actions represented as well as approaching an iconography of the image and the perspectives used. In a broader contextual vision we refer to the reason for the use of different monochrome sets in the superimposition of scenes or other later compositions, something that happened over thousands of years. Regarding this we propose why, in an even broader period –up to 2500 BP– of superimposed visual images, Cueva de las Manos should be considered a place of memory. A site with a geographical-social context in which those superimpositions of images, visible to and through generations –with the oral transmission of their meanings– could be an active reference in the collective memory of those ancient hunter-gatherer populations and for those who came after.