| Resumo | This paper aims to present the relationship between pre-Hispanic rock art and its landscape and show how the semantics of rock art and its functions are embedded in the landscape.
This research explores examples of rock art from two different case studies. The first is Toro Muerto in southern Peru, one of the largest rock art sites in the world located in the mountainous desert between the Pacific Ocean and the Andean valley. I will analyze the relationships of individual petroglyphs to the context in which they are located with their landscapes, specifically valleys, mountains, and trade roads. The second case study is the mountainous area of north-central Venezuela, located on the border of the Caribbean and Amazonian regions. In my presentation, I will show the relation between particular petroglyphs and their location in the river valleys and their proximity to the sea.
The methodological starting point for this research is a concept elaborated by Anne Goletz that there is a distinction of several levels of surfaces, and all of them provide meaningful background for rock art signs. This idea is based on Chris Gosden's and Eduardo Malatesta's view that integrating various types of data into the landscape can help decode the original meaning of artifacts. Additionally, I use Tim Ingold's concept of ‘taskscapes’ to emphasize the socially constructed nature of human activity spaces within the archaeological landscape.
These approaches lead to seeing rock art signs' meanings as products in the dynamic working of the relationships between people, things, and places. The notion of landscape is thus linked in rock art studies to the term ‘contested landscapes’ which are not simply passive backdrops to human activity but rather are actively constructed through social and cultural processes.
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