WHALE HUNTING ARTISTS OF NORTHERN SIBERIA – THE PEGTYMEL PETROGLYPHS:

    Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Photograph Chukotka Travel.

    Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Photograph Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences.

One of the interesting things about us humans is the way we relate everything to ourselves. A rock art site in the far northeast corner of Russian Siberia is thought of as being way, way off in an isolated area. Of course, to the people who created the rock art it was not way off or isolated at all, it was their downtown, or at least their home territory.

Originally reported in a 1965 geological survey near the mouth of the Peftymel River, they were first visited and recorded in 1967 and 1968. (Dikov 1971:2)

    Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Online photograph, public domain.

    Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Photograph                    Vladimir Devyatkin.

“In all we found 104 groups of illustrations, which we numbered successively for this publication in order of their location on the course of the river. Not all of these groups can be viewed as single compositions. More often they consist of illustrations from different time periods, sometimes lacking not only unity of subject but style and technique of execution. We grouped these petroglyphs only because of their location on the same panel of the cliff.” (Dikov 1971:7-8)

In 2021 another expedition to the site began newly recording all the rock art in detail according to an article in the Siberian Times by Svetlana Skarbo. Although her reporting has a number of factual errors in details it also included magnificent photographs of the area and the rock art from the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Bear hunt with dogs. Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Online photograph, public domain.

“The spectacular art gallery – was ‘opened’ at least two thousand years ago, when ancient artists embossed petroglyphs on rocks of what is now Chukotka, Russia’s easternmost corner.” (Skarbo 2021)

Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Photograph Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences.

“The Pegtymel petroglyphs were found by Soviet geologists in 1967 (1965 actually), high above the right bank of the Pegtymel River, a short distance from the East Siberian Sea.” (Skarbo 2021)

“In the summer of this year “the first scientific expedition since 2008 got to the site to start a major project on preserving unique stone drawings as they get destroyed with time. Five archeologists and three volunteers spent two weeks gathering photo material to create 3D models of Pegtymel petroglyphs, and to map the whole ‘gallery’.” (Skarbo 2021)

Whale hunt. Pegtymel petroglyphs, Russia. Photograph Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Another assumption that we tend to make about people who lived way back then in an “isolated” area is that they are primitive. I cannot believe that any group of people who could hunt whales 2,000 years ago were culturally or technologically primitive. When archaeological work has provided artifacts and actual data about these people we will be able to make assumptions based on reality, but until then we can appreciate the petroglyph record they left us.

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 these reports you should read the original reports at the sites listed below.

REFERENCES:

Dikov, N. N., 1971, Mysteries in the Rocks of Ancient Chukotka (Petroglyphs of Pegtymel), translated by Richard L. Bland, Nauka Pub., Moscow.

Skarbo, Svetlana, 2021, Whale Hunting and Magic Mushroom People of 2,000-year-old Eurasia’s Northernmost Art Gallery, 14 September 2021, The Siberian Times, Novosibirsk, Russia

WHALE HUNTERS IN CHILEAN ROCK ART:

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/