Hand Imprints in the Middle Ibañez River (Central Chilean Patagonia): Social Cohesion and Human-Nature Relations

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

It seems that the primary function of painted hand imprints on rock shelters in the Middle Ibáñez River Valley (Chile) may have been to assist in promoting social cohesion within and between hunter-gatherer groups. Hand imprints possess the quality of replicating the hand that created them, thus becoming a personal statement. These imprints have been associated with cultural significance and are intimately linked to the identity of their creator. Hand imprints should be seen as acts that record self-recognition in relation to the environment, with an awareness of the impact this has on the world. Moreover, the presence of small hands suggests that the occupations in the area were significant symbolic spaces for hunter-gatherers moving as whole family units, comprising both sexes and different generations. By expressing themselves using hand imprints on rocks, individuals and groups confer a specific meaning upon the spaces they utilize and inhabit, as well as the way they perceive these locations. Following Troncoso (1998), it is likely that this action of expressing cultural concepts in space embodies an important ideological function: by embedding symbols in nature, they attain chronological permanence, implying a conception of time that extends beyond everyday life (Criado 1991, Bradley 1993).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40261.0