Cave of Hands, UNESCO World Heritage Site, Pinturas River canyon, Argentina, Patagonia, South America.

In Argentina, Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of Hands) displays some of the earliest known human art in the Americas. Located in a scenic canyon of the Pinturas River, Cave of Hands is reached by remote paved and steep gravel roads, 169 km (105 miles) south of the town of Perito Moreno, in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, in the South American region of Patagonia. This striking artwork is honored on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Dating to around 5000 BCE, the silhouette paintings of mostly left hands were sprayed using a bone pipe held in the right hand. The age of the paintings was calculated from pigments found in layers of charcoal from human fires and bone remains of the spraying pipes. The hunting scenes (mostly guanaco) and representations of animals and human life all date older than the stenciled hands, to around 7300 BCE. A favorite hunting tool was the bola, where interconnected cords with weights on either end were thrown to trap animal legs. The site was last inhabited around 700 CE, possibly by ancestors of the Tehuelche people. Cueva de las Manos was first explored by researchers in 1949, followed by more extensive studies done in the 1960s. Varying paint colors come from different mineral pigments: iron oxides for red and purple, kaolin for white, natrojarosite for yellow, and manganese oxide for black.

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Filename: 2002PAT-0487.jpg
Copyright: © Tom Dempsey / PhotoSeek.com
Image Size: 3648x5472 / 8.9MB; http://www.photoseek.com/; Art Work art history past pattern
Contained in galleries: ARGENTINA: Cave of Hands, 2020 Feb: all Patagonia (ARGENTINA, CHILE)

In Argentina, Cueva de las Manos (Spanish for Cave of Hands) displays some of the earliest known human art in the Americas. Located in a scenic canyon of the Pinturas River, Cave of Hands is reached by remote paved and steep gravel roads, 169 km (105 miles) south of the town of Perito Moreno, in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina, in the South American region of Patagonia. This striking artwork is honored on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Dating to around 5000 BCE, the silhouette paintings of mostly left hands were sprayed using a bone pipe held in the right hand. The age of the paintings was calculated from pigments found in layers of charcoal from human fires and bone remains of the spraying pipes. The hunting scenes (mostly guanaco) and representations of animals and human life all date older than the stenciled hands, to around 7300 BCE. A favorite hunting tool was the bola, where interconnected cords with weights on either end were thrown to trap animal legs. The site was last inhabited around 700 CE, possibly by ancestors of the Tehuelche people. Cueva de las Manos was first explored by researchers in 1949, followed by more extensive studies done in the 1960s. Varying paint colors come from different mineral pigments: iron oxides for red and purple, kaolin for white, natrojarosite for yellow, and manganese oxide for black.