Identifier: TDX:2880
Authors: Menéndez Iglesias, Beatriz
Abstract:
This PhD focuses on the study of eight sets of rock art (prehistoric and prehispanic engravings) discovered by the project: Poblamiento Temprano en el Noroeste de Sonora (PTNOS) and directed by the Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas de la UNAM (Mexico), in which a team from the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES, Tarragona) participates. The area of study is in the region of El Arenoso-El Sásabe (Sonora, Mexico); from an archaeological point of view an almost unknown area.
The research provides documentation and classification of 241 rocks with a total of 1492 figurative and abstract representations. The digital reproductions, for this work, have been made using digital programs, Photoshop and DStrecht for ImageJ. The application of these methods has significantly improved the observation, description and classification of the recorded images. On the other hand, we have created a database and renewed the old typology, essential to establish analogies with other sets of rock art and be able to delve deeper into the patterns and distribution models of this prehistoric and prehispanic iconography of Northwest Mexico and the Southwest of the United States.
The thesis provides and evaluates information on the new archaeological findings in the region, located during the seasons of the PTNOS project, and the research rethinks a working hypothesis, with the extension of the chrono-cultural framework for the origin and development of these cave complexes, which, for the time being, are situated between the end of the Archaic period (first millennia B.C.) and the appearance of early agriculture and the culture of the Trincheras hills (2nd-15th centuries A.D.).