The Cave of the Hands in brief
The Cueva de las Manos lies in the Pinturas River canyon in Santa Cruz province, in the far south of Argentina, in a dry landscape of steppe and canyon. The cave and the rock shelters around it have walls covered with stencilled hand prints, in red, orange, black, white and yellow, together with paintings of animals and hunting scenes. UNESCO made the site a World Heritage Site in 1999.
The hands
The images were made by placing a hand against the rock and blowing pigment around it, likely through a hollow bone, so that the hand shows as a pale shape. They are “negative” prints. Over 800 left hands and about 30 right hands have been counted in the cave, more than 2,000 hand prints in all when the nearby shelters are included. The preponderance of left hands suggests that people held the pipe in the right hand. A few are positive hand prints, and some show hands with missing or extra fingers. Many appear to belong to young people, perhaps teenagers.
Other paintings show guanacos, which are wild relatives of llamas, rheas (a large flightless bird), pumas, and hunters using spears and bolas, a throwing weapon with weights. Some images show dancers, footprints and symbols like zigzags and dots.
Age
Archaeologists have dug at the site and found bones, tools and pigment fragments in the layers beneath. Radiocarbon dates from the floor of the cave reach back to about 9,300 years ago, and the earliest paintings are thought to be somewhat older, perhaps from as early as 13,000 years ago (the art as a whole runs from about 9,300 to 1,300 years ago). The images were made over a long time by successive groups and the style changes. The latest images, from about 1,300 years ago, show hunters and are linked to later hunter-gatherers.
Who made them?
The artists were hunter-gatherers who followed herds of guanacos through Patagonia. Later groups in the region include the Tehuelche people, and some experts think the last cave dwellers may have been their ancestors. Why the hands were painted is unknown. They may have been signatures, marks of passage into adulthood, or part of ceremonies.
Why it matters
The cave is one of the most famous examples of rock art in South America, and it shows that people had reached the far south of the continent by at least 13,000 years ago, and had a rich symbolic life. It is in a remote area but well preserved because of the dry climate.
Visiting
The site can be visited with guides, by a gravel road that leaves Route 40 near the village of Bajo Caracoles, in a remote part of Santa Cruz about 160 km south of Perito Moreno. A trail along the canyon rim leads to the cave, with a viewing path below. Access is controlled to protect the paintings.
Sources
- Gradin, C. J., Aschero, C. A. and Aguerre, A. M. (1976). Arqueología del Área Río Pinturas (Provincia de Santa Cruz). Relaciones de la Sociedad Argentina de Antropología 10: 201 to 250.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas.