Researchers have managed to establish the earliest recorded dates to date for rock art in South America, after dating pictorial motifs in the cave Huenul 1, in the Argentine Patagonia.
The findings indicate that the production of rock art in this region began at least 8200 years ago, which allows for a better understanding of the socioecological context and adaptive functions of this practice during the Middle Holocene, a period of aridity in the region.
Direct radiocarbon dating of four pictorial motifs in the cave Huenul 1 yielded dates ranging from 8200 to 5000 years BP (before present). These motifs are grouped into a phase called the “emergence of rock art”, which would have involved their intergenerational transmission over about 130 human generations. Stylistic continuity and the materials used suggest the maintenance of indigenous knowledge over time.
According to researchers, Patagonia was the last region explored by humans. Although its rock art is of global importance, it remains undated by absolute methods.
Paleoecological records indicate that between 8000 and 6500 years BP, arid conditions and high climatic variability predominated in northwestern Patagonia, which would have fragmented the landscape, hindering human mobility. Likewise, data suggest stability or population decline in South American deserts during this period.
Faced with this challenging scenario, the constant production of rock art in the cave Huenul 1 may have played an important role in maintaining social connectivity in a sparsely populated region.
By marking the landscape repeatedly over generations, this site would have functioned as a place of collective memory that preserved and transmitted ancestral knowledge beyond oral tradition, providing cultural security and demographic support to past societies.
This case provides concrete evidence of the earliest origins of rock art in Patagonia and South America, placing them in a context of human adaptation to Middle Holocene climate change, where social resilience strategies based on accumulated culture likely played a key role in the survival of small populations.
We suggest that this diachronic rock art emerged as part of a resilient response to ecological stress by highly mobile and low-density populations, the researchers conclude.
Sources
Guadalupe Romero Villanueva et al., Earliest directly dated rock art from Patagonia reveals socioecological resilience to mid-Holocene climate. Sci. Adv. 10, eadk4415(2024). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adk4415
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