"Selfies": Culture Heroes Shown in Rock Art

Summary

Interactions, entry, timing – issues of the “First Americans” have been strongly debated. This research focuses on archaeology, recorded histories/reenactments by people, and on large-scaled forms tying culture heroes, myths, and legends to images of the Paleoindian and use of the Front Range of Colorado. Outrepăssé, reverse hinge, or overshot is a technique for stone reduction used in Clovis technology, in the Solutrean of Europe, and in a workshop/sacred center of Nohmul, a Late Classic site in Meso America. The area above is a ball court, tlacho, where a game of tlachtli is a religious contest. The hummingbird, a culture hero, is celebrated in this contest battling giants. His face is painted blue and yellow and he carries a serpent-headed boomerang. The first animal represented in this conquest is the jaguar and this element is in rock art of the Olmec where tlacho elements originated. Are lithics sacred? Tlachco as sacred is found in Meso America and in the U.S. southwest. Discussed are sacred use of lithics, culture heroes and proboscidean, bird, and human forms represented in rock art, and the feasibility of telling a story based on published accounts using these images.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• Rock Art and Sacred Spaces: Recent Approaches to the Study of Ritual Landscapes

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