Stoneworking in the Southern Zone: An Initial Study of Costa Rican Petroglyphs and their Implications for Pre-Columbian Human-Landscape Interaction

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Value of Rock Art: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Current Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis, Part I" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Southern Costa Rica is home to several hundred petroglyphs displaying anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, and geometric motifs. While some depict concrete scenes, others seem to represent abstract images that have been difficult to interpret thus far. Various theories have sought to address the meanings behind the designs, with interpretations ranging from maps of communities to road markers, or signs of sociopolitical influence. Petroglyph stone shapes include carefully crafted barrels or seats, spheres, stone pillars, and largely unworked boulders. To date, most research on petroglyphs in Costa Rica has focused on the interpretation and classification of styles and motifs. Instead, this multi-year research project seeks to investigate the integration of petroglyph stones within the wider pre-Columbian archaeological landscape and explore the role of large-scale stoneworking in both a Costa Rican and wider Central American context. In this session, I will present preliminary results from the initial field segment of this project.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Value of Rock Art: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Current Rock Art Documentation, Research, and Analysis, Part I

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52612