Rock Art as a Paleoenvironmental Proxy: Using Animal Depictions to Determine Differences in Environmental History Between Two Colombian Regions.

Summary

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

Rock art research has traditionally focused on the identification and interpretation of motifs, both representative and non-representative. In recent times, scholars have increasingly started to investigate how rock art can inform on the environmental history of the region it has been created in. Depictions of animals, plants and technologies may shed light on natural and socio-cultural changes to the living environment of rock art practitioners. Animal motifs are especially suitable for analysis if the goal is to compare any conclusions on environmental change documented by rock art between regions, as this type of motif is the most widespread on a global scale. We present preliminary results of such a large-scale comparison by recording animal depictions in rock art from the Serranía La Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon, to depictions from near the Orinoco river. Here we present results on site similarity based on animal motifs, which demonstrates that each region displays preferences in the depiction of animal motifs, and thus potentially a distinct socio-environmental history distinct from the other. Future comparison to rock art from other countries with similar climates may provide further insight into potential patterns in species distribution in rock art.

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 II

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52057