Animal symbolism in the rock art of the Sonoran Desert

Summary

Abstract

In this paper we propose a line of interpretation referred to the symbolism attributed to the zoomorphic figures, present in the rock art of the Sonoran Desert. We confront the results of rock art analysis and classification with a systematic study of the myths and legends of the Uto-aztecan cultural groups that lived in the region, when Europeans arrived. We pay special attention to the traditions of the O’odham, who inhabited the Sonoran Desert where we can find the rock art that belongs to the Trincheras Culture of northwestern Sonora. Though, as several ethnographers that have studied the traditions of the Uto-aztecan groups of western and northwestern Mexico and of the Southwest have pointed out, we can find very important coincidences in all of them, as well as in the rock art figures of northwestern Mexico and the American Southwest. By these means we can begin to build a regional and cultural perspective of rock art analysis and interpretation.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Rock Art Research: A Regional Analysis   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage