Location: Ruta Provincial 97, 100 mi (161 km) South of Perito, Moreno Map
Open: 9am- 7pm daily
Age: 9000-2500 years ago
Cueva de las Manos is an archaeological site with cave paintings,
located in the deep canyon of the Pinturas River, northwest of the
Province of Santa Cruz, Patagonia, Argentina. It is located at a
height of 88 meters, in Estancia Cueva de las Manos, between the
towns of Perito Moreno and Bajo Caracoles, Lago Buenos Aires
department. The cave is 20 m deep, 10 m high and 15 m wide, and is
difficult to access.
Its interest lies in the beauty of the
cave paintings, as well as their great antiquity: so far, the oldest
inscriptions are dated 7350 BC. C. It is one of the oldest artistic
expressions of the South American peoples. It has been designated a
National Historic Monument in 1993 and declared a World Heritage
Site by UNESCO in 1999.
Although vestiges of lithic materials
were also found inside, hearths with remains, bones and skins of
animals that were the basis of subsistence for hunter-gatherers, in
this archaeological site the complexity of Paleolithic art stands
out, which allows us to understand how those societies of the past
lived.
The Cueva de las Manos belongs to a series of American
archaeological sites, such as Monte Verde (Chile), Pedra Furada
(Brazil) and Piedra Museo (Argentina), among others, which are
questioning the traditional theory of the late settlement of
America, to support a theory of early peopling (pre-Clovis).
Another nearby settlement was located at Los Toldos, also in the
province of Santa Cruz, with remains dating back to 12,500 years BP
(10,500 BC).
To access the Cave, you can use National Route 40 and, upon arrival,
tourists can first visit the Interpretation Center, whose museological
script was carried out by specialists from the National Institute of
Anthropology and Latin American Thought (INAPL). There, an overview of
the way of life of the original populations, the environmental
characteristics and the history of the first explorers is offered.
In addition, you can see an archaeological excavation and learn
about the techniques of rock art. The Center allows those people who
visit the place and who for some reason cannot travel the long circuit
between rocks, to gain access to knowledge of the place. Another point
of this trip to the past is to visit the "Carlos J. Gradin"4 Archeology
Museum in the town of Perito Moreno, which was created at the request of
the neighbors and which bears the name of one of the first researchers
of the Cave of the Hands. Carlos Gradin dedicated more than thirty years
to the search for answers, with the financial backing of CONICET and the
technical support of archaeologists Ana M. Aguerre and Carlos A.
Aschero. Thanks to this effort —which involved both pictographic surveys
and excavations— Today it is known that an uninterrupted cultural
sequence of more than eight and a half millennia is represented in the
Cueva de las Manos. For the old guanacos hunters it meant much more than
a circumstantial refuge. It was a sacred space, something like a
cathedral.
Although the cave has been known to Western travelers
since the 19th century (the first being the limit expert Francisco
Pascasio Moreno), archaeological investigations began in the 1960s. They
showed that the ancient inhabitants lived by hunting and harvesting wild
vegetables. In addition to the "painted hands" there are also shapes
such as circles, ovals and starry figures, among many others.
The
hands were not painted on the rock but stenciled on the stone. This
means that those ancient inhabitants supported the palm of the hand on
the ceiling or wall of the cave and then covered it with paint.
The main cave is carved by erosion in the high walls that accompany
the valley of the upper Pinturas River in the northwest of the province
of Santa Cruz, and south of the city of Perito Moreno. The cave has
several eaves, and inside it presents cave paintings made during an
extensive period that goes from 9300 BP to 1300 BP. They are the first
known artistic manifestations of the South American peoples.
In
such paintings there are figures that reproduce elements related to the
daily life of the Tehuelches and their predecessors, ancient
hunter-gatherer peoples. Of all of them, the most famous and oldest are
the positive and negative silhouettes of the hands (they have been
counted 829), in certain cases superimposed. Such silhouettes were made
by ancient methods of airbrushing (the chromatic material was applied in
the form of an aerosol blown through the medullary cavities of small
animal bones).
Likewise, silhouettes of animals can be seen
(mainly guanacos and rheas, although other animals such as piches and
matuastos are also seen). It is believed that they were the main
components of the diet of ancient peoples and for this reason scenes of
the collective hunting of these animals were frequently shown.
As
for the representation of the human figure, this is also found, although
less frequently and with linear forms.
Geometric motifs (mainly
spirals) are more common, which would be symbolically representing the
now unknown deities.
The dominant range of colors is the one that
implies red, ocher, yellow, white and black. They were made with fruits,
plants and ground rocks. Also —by contagious magic (according to
Frazer's classification)— the blood of hunted animals and their fat were
used as a binder.
The themes respond to three different periods;
the oldest —and less abstract— is rich in hunting scenes; in the
intermediate period, the hands that are secondarily accompanied by the
representation of isolated animals stand out; in the last period the
predominant theme is that of geometric motifs, lines, points and
mandalas whose meaning is unknown.
Quillango or Kai Ajnún (Kai,
blanket; Ajnún, painted), specifically a layer composed of thirteen
small guanacos skins or "chulengos", that is, unborn guanacos or young
ones no older than two months. They also used other kinds of skins, such
as those of the puma, fox, wild cat, skunk, horse, cattle and even
ostrich leather, with the fur always on the inside and leaving the outer
leather to adorn it with decorative paintings with geometric shapes by
Choiols. , that is, representations of the Southern Cross.
During
the third period (3300 to 1500 B.C.), the abandonment of the
naturalistic realism of the beginning is accentuated and —alongside the
inevitable stenciled hands— appear schematically treated men and
guanacos, rhea footprints and fantastic beings, a mixture of saurian and
human. Later, with the direct ancestors of the Tehuelches, abstraction
definitively triumphed and the cavities of the Alto Río Pinturas were
filled with triangles opposed at the vertex, concentric circles, dotted
lines and zigzags of an intense red. This trend culminated in the
labyrinthine compositions that adorned the quillangos (covers or cloaks
made of sewn skins) and awnings of the indigenous people who came into
contact with the Europeans. The record of the Cueva de las Manos ends
two centuries before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.
In
1876, the illustrious Argentine explorer Francisco Pascasio Moreno
discovered these pre-Columbian works of art and made a detailed report
of this important archaeological find.
The meaning of such representations is currently hypothetical,
although it is speculated that it would be part of a ritual. There are
also positive impressions of the hands (that is, achieved by supporting
the walls of the palms stained with paint). It is also possible that, as
part of a ceremony or ritual, they painted the caves with their hands,
recording their presence in the act. It is interesting to note that the
majority of painted or traced hands are left hands.
Danger of
destruction
Currently, due to irresponsible tourism and the lack of a
legal framework, most of the country's caves are in danger. The Cueva de
las Manos is one of them. The natural environment of a cave has as its
main characteristics darkness, temperature and a stable level of
humidity. That environment — home to wildlife, lakes, underground
galleries, ancient mineral deposits, archeological interest, and
precisely guarded land — is under threat from over-visitation by
tourists.
According to statements by the vice president of FADE
(Argentine Speleology Federation), "without a prior study and a
management plan in a cave, human presence constantly causes alterations
in the environment with an impact that is sometimes irreversible." Along
with this, he assured that "the objective of sustainable development is
that the use of resources be sustainable over time and that future
generations have the same benefit of visiting that same cave."
The Cueva de las Manos, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in
1999, has suffered various forms of vandalism, such as graffiti,
writings and broken walls.
According to the president of FADE,
"caverns contain unique information for the reconstruction of
paleoclimates: from the study of stalactites and stalagmites, the
surface climates of 50,000 years ago can be reconstructed." The risk of
the unsupervised presence of tourists is evidenced by the damage
suffered by the speleothems.
Activities linked to mining
exploitation, even those carried out at a certain distance and in
exploration stages, represent a risk due to the possibility of
landslides and the possible impact on air and water quality. As of the
year 2000, approximately, in the vicinity of this archaeological site,
the mines of Lomada de Leiva,18 Cerro Negro19 and San José are in
operation.