El Mėdano rock art panel,
Atacama Desert Chile,
Showing whale hunting.
Fig. 7D, Ballester, 2018.
El Mėdano rock art panel,
Atacama Desert Chile,
Showing whale hunting.
Fig. 7A, Ballester, 2018.
Remarkable
recent reports of rock art panels from the Atacama Desert on the western coast
of Chile have portrayed a seemingly improbably, and surprising, subsistence
technology - whaling. While we have known that the early inhabitants of this
region were culturally sophisticated, I never would have guessed that the
inhabitants of one of the world's most arid deserts would have the resources to
develop that technology.
El Mėdano rock art panel,
Atacama Desert Chile,
Showing whale hunting.
Fig. 1C, Ballester, 2018.
"El Mėdano-style rock art from
the Atacama Desert Coast in Chile provides one of the most spectacular and
expressive representations of ancient marine hunting and maritime traditions.
These red pictographs comprise hundreds of hunting scenes and portray a complex
marine hunter-gatherer society."
(Ballester 2018)
Locations of El Mėdano rock art
panels, Atacama Desert Chile,
Fig. 2, Ballester, 2018.
Remarkably,
in this area, the rock art preserves many scenes of men harpooning whales,
other marine mammals, and large fish, from rafts, not ocean-going canoes mind
you, from rafts. "The raft employed
in pre-Hispanic times was similar to those described centuries later by
Europeans. Such rafts comprised two large cylindrical floating sections made of
sea lion skin, which when tied together measured almost 3m in length. The
floating sections were carefully sewn together using hundreds of cactus spines
and cotton thread in a zig-zag pattern. Finally, the floating sections were
completely sealed and water proofed with a red ochre substance."
(Ballester 2018)
El Mėdano rock art panel,
Atacama Desert Chile,
Showing whale hunting.
Fig. 1B, Ballester, 2018.
"In the Izcuña ravine, 328
different paintings were found on 24 differrent blocks of rock. Many have been
degraded by moisture brought by camanchacas, or cloud bank that form over the
Chilean coast and move inland. But enough of the art has been preserved to date
it to the other El Mėdano art. The most common type of art shows the
silhouettes of large fish. Other images show hunting scenes with rafts and
weapons. The study's author, Benjamin Ballester, notes that the fish or whales
are always drawn oversized to the hunters and their rafts, making the prey a
daunting antagonist."
(Gibbens 2018)
El Mėdano harpoons and heads,
Atacama Desert, Chile.
Ballester, 2018, Fig. 9.
Dating of
the rock art panels is still in question, but, based upon the techology pictured
in the hunting scenes, has been loosely assumed to fall between 3000 BP and
1500 BP. "Archaeological evidence
suggests that this technology was developed in the Atacama Desert during the
Formative Period (c. 3000 BP) and became popular in coastal areas around 1500
cal BP." (Ballester 2018)
Sailing raft, El Mėdano,
Atacama Desert, Chile.
Ballester, 2018, Fig. 10.
This is
also indicative of the differences in subsistence strategies between various
cultural centers of the Atacama Desert at this time, and the cooperative
dealings between them. Communities in the river valleys and around oasis'
developed agricultural based subsistence, other groups, probably more into the
foothills, relied on a pastoralist lifestyle, while groups along the coast
looked to marine resources for subsistence and surplus to trade.
""Marine [hunts] were one
of the most important elements of their subsistence, bult they were also great
fishers and mollusk gatherers," he says. "From their coastal
settlements, they actively participated in large-scale exchange networks with
agro-pastoralist communities from the interior valleys and oasis of Atacama,
specially circulating dried fish in exchange of manufactured goods."" (Gibbens 2018)
While we
have to respect the efforts of all members of any successful society and give
them credit for their contributions, I have to confess that the image of these
prehistoric hunters with their handmade harpoons paddling out to sea on a raft
made from marine-mammal-hide floats strikes me as remarkably courageous and
ambitious. Even more so is the fact that most of the images show the rafts with
lone occupants. ". . the hunting
activity is represented as a single practice, mainly conducted by one raft. In
most cases they exhibit only one seafarer inside the boat. Overall, hunting is
represented as a specialized, solitary, individual social practice, led by a
selected few people. As previously mentioned, in hunting scenes, rafts and prey
are connected by lines that represent harpoon ropes." (Ballester 2018)
What a
wonderful record of the life and times of these people. I am in awe.
NOTE:
Some images in this posting were retrieved from the internet with a search for
public domain photographs. If any of these images are not intended to be public
domain, I apologize, and will happily provide the picture credits if the owner
will contact me with them. For further information on this I refer you to the
report by Benjamin Ballester (2018) listed below.
REFERENCES:
Ballester,
Benjamin
2018 El Mėdano rock art style: Izcuña paintings
and the marine hunter-gatherers of the Atacama Desert, Antiquity, Vol. 92,
Issue 361, pages 132 -148, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/el-medano-rock-art-style-izcuna-paintings-and-the-marine-huntergatherers-of-the-atacama-desert/3109A81F4CAD9D0E8F2AE1730FC710B8/core-readern
Gibbens,
Sara
2018 Dramatic
Whale Hunts Depicted in Ancient Rock Art, National Geographic, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/ancient-rock-art-shows-whale-hunts-atacama-chile-spd/
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