L’art rupestre de l’ancien Pérou

Abstract

Research on symbolic components and practices relates to fields which are very different but often fundamental for human societies. These can be studied either under the rather static aspect of the permanence and the part played by symbols in the creation of ideologies and identities, or in a dynamic perspective which takes into consideration the evolution of medium and processes for symbolic re-encoding. Peru has a great wealth of rock art with more than a thousand sites registered which represent different contexts (caves, shelters, rock faces, rocks…) and techniques (paintings, petroglyphs, geoglyphs). The analysis of the different deposits and stylistic evolution of the paintings and petroglyphs allows for a better characterization of the environmental distributions, chronologies and purposes of the main Andean traditions. Rock art painting is especially well represented in the highlands of the Andes, where the oldest tradition, dating back to the Middle Holocene, is linked with hunters-gatherers populations. After that, there appear different styles attributable to the first camel shepherds, then to Andean agrarian societies. Petroglyphs, which are dominant on the coastal area, appear later in the ceremonial and cultural context of the first agrarian societies in the Central coast, at the end of the third millennium BC. This petroglyphic art went through a very significant development during later periods, until the Spaniards’ arrival.