El Gigante Rock Shelter: Archaic Mesoamerica and Transitions to Settled Life

Pictographs

El Gigante’s walls are covered with numerous pictographs, and several other rock art sites were encountered during the survey. At El Gigante there are only two types of image: hands, and a form which resembles a goose, or swan. Both hands and the "cisnes" are represented at other sites (e.g. La Cueva Pinada, Cueva Salitre, Cueva de las Siete Manos and at Las Golondrinas).

The hand is a common icon, found distributed from South America through Central America and into the North American continent. It is a common theme in Australia and Europe too. The cisnes however, present an interesting local symbolic manifestation. The iconography may in fact be related to their settlement-subsistence pattern. Much like Paleolithic cave painting in France, at places such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, these hunters drew their familiar and revered prey. Migratory fowl are known to fly through Honduras; one of the advantages to occupy this region may have been the presence at certain times of year of significant waterfowl. We will be evaluating the faunal material recovered from the excavations to evaluate this hypothesis.

Previous Page  |  Table of Contents  |  Next Page

Return to top of page