El arte rupestre de Ruca Ñanco (pintura y grabados), región Altoandina Norpatagonica de Neuquén, Argentina

We present the preliminary results of the survey of rock representations from the Ruca Ñanco site, composed of three rocky outcrops, located in the mountain range sector, south of Alumine, province of Neuquén, Argentina. Given its proximity to the Chilean border, we compare some stylistic and technological characteristics between sets of Chile and Argentina, to confront the proposal of Chilean researchers working in nearby latitudes and who proposed to use rock representations to identify and materialize mobility circuits between one and the other mountain slope. From our work, we describe evident motifs and scenes and a first approximation to the potentially latent ones, characterizing for the site two technical modalities (engraving and painting), whose motifs do not correspond to the Styles proposed for Patagonia, nor to the stylistic tendencies and regional modalities, but rather, similar to styles previously described for the Chilean Araucanía region in the case of painting, and shared on both sides of the mountain range for engraving. The presence of motifs and scenes that confirm early contacts with the Spanish settlements in the western sector of the Cordillera, established around the middle of the 16th century, is highlighted. Finally, it is proposed to use concepts of territoriality that derive from categories constructed by the indigenous peoples themselves as opposed to the use of others that materialize and reproduce the Andes as a biographical and political limit instead of a landscape shared by people who have inhabited both sides of the mountain range since pre-Hispanic times as a single territory

Art · Geography · Humanities · Archaeological and Geological Studies · Archaeological and Historical Studies · Archaeology and Cultural Heritage