Rock Art Research

Rock art, as typically conceived, comprises cupules, geoglyphs, petroglyphs, and other features executed on permanent landscape features. Mobiliary palaeoart also occurs on rock, and this study describes a painted stone tablet-style from southern Peru called Antimpampa. The typical iconographic pattern of these designs is very simple, yet orderly, neat and precise. This Antimpampa style appears to follow a strict iconographic convention, though each tablet is unique. The main motifs depict anthropomorphs and zoomorphs. There is a persistent pattern involving ‘human’ and ‘animal’ figures, generally denoting one zoomorph for each anthropomorph. Assorted abstract symbols, located around the central motifs, complete the pictorial frame. All tablets were painted using a variety of pigments made from ochre and other ground minerals mixed with an undetermined binder. Preliminary dating suggests that the Antimpampa style corresponds to the Formative Period (c. 3800 – 2200 BP).