Wild or Domesticated? Camelids in Early Formative Rock Art of the Atacama Desert (Northern Chile)

Abstract

Abstract The absence of suitable methodologies to distinguish between wild and domesticated camelids in rock art has limited the interpretation of visual preferences of Andean prehispanic cultures. Although rock art’s contextual information may provide some indications that help to differentiate between wild and domesticated animals, uncertainty prevails because the relation to camelid forms is indirect. Zoological and zooarchaeological knowledge of South American camelid morphology is used as a means of comparison and identification in Atacama Desert rock art attributed to the Initial Pastoral phase (1500–500 B.C., Early Formative period, northern Chile). Based on this analysis, there are strong arguments for a distinctive graphic representation of wild as opposed to domesticated camelids, as well as a correspondence of these representations to two different modes of subsistence—one of hunters and the other of husbandry-pastoralist societies—which would have coexisted during this transitional period.