An Overview of Painted Rock Representation in the Utcubamba Basin, Eastern Peru

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This poster summarizes several years of investigations into painted rock representation and its social context within the Utcubamba Basin, Amazonas, Eastern Peru. This poster has three aims. The first, to provide an overview of the Utcubamba basin’s forms of painted rock representation. This is significant to a broader history of the region as there are few extant pre-Columbian forms of visual expression. While representational designs on ceramics, carved stone, and decorated textiles were produced, they are comparatively rare. Therefore, painted rock expressions serve as the largest corpus of extant visual self-representation for the region. The second aim is to provide visual documentation of 18 previously unpublished sites from tributaries of the Upper, Central, and Lower Utcubamba River. Finally, we explore the relationships of painted rock representation to socially significant spaces. Cultures of the Utcubamba Basin constructed and built complexes for their dead, and these spaces held a high social and cosmological significance. Included in these sacralizing practices was the topographic painting of rock surfaces as a part of their construction and a continued ritualized engagement with ancestors.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35642.0