On confluence and contestation in the Orinoco interaction sphere: the engraved rock art of the Atures Rapids

The Atures Rapids have long been considered a major point of confluence in the Middle Orinoco landscape, Venezuela. This has been underlined by newly discovered rock art panels on islands within the Rapids and on the margins of the Orinoco River. The panels were recorded photographically and photogrammetrically, and the spatial organisation and taphonomic factors affecting the corpus were investigated. The rock art was also examined in the context of established models of chronology and authorship. Placing the corpus in relation to archaeological and ethnographic evidence from Amazonia and the Guianas emphasises how the Atures Rapids structured pre-Columbian and Colonial contact between diverse groups in lowland South America

Patterns of Style, Diversity, and Similarity in Middle Orinoco Rock Art Assemblages

The area encompassed by the Orinoco river basin is home to some of the largest and most diverse rock art sites in lowland South America. In this paper, we aim to formally describe the spatial distribution and stylistic attributes of rock engravings and paintings on both banks of the Orinoco, centred on the Átures Rapids. Drawing on an exhaustive literature review and four years of field survey, we identify salient aspects of this corpus by investigating patterns of diversity and similarity. Based on a stylistic classification of Middle Orinoco rock art, this permits us to discuss potential links, as well as notable discontinuities, within the assemblage and possibly further afield. We consider the theoretical implications of our work for the study of pre-Columbian art and conclude with some suggestions for advances in methods for achieving the goal of deriving broader syntheses