Artigo9 IFRAO2009

PETROGLYPHS IN THE LOWER NEGRO RIVER BASIN, NW BRAZILIAN AMAZON A PRELIMINARY VIEW A ARTE RUPESTRE DO RIO NEGRO UMA
MA CONTRIBUIO PESQUISA PRELIMINAR
Raoni VALLE Doctoral Student PPGARQ/MAE-USP Visiting Researcher NPCHS INPA figueiradoinferno@hotmail.com
Resumo A bacia do rio Negro, no extremo NW do Brasil, apresenta-se hoje como uma rea pouco explorada pela arqueologia brasileira. No mbito da investigao de arte rupestre a documentao para fins de pesquisa comeou a partir de 2006, a despeito de inmeros relatos de naturalistas, viajantes e antroplogos referentes ocorrncia de gravuras rupestres desde o sculo XIX. Portanto, desde a estao seca de 2006 campanhas oportunsticas de documentao fotogrfica de stios rupestres com gravuras, seguindo um protocolo especfico tm sido implementadas na calha do rio Negro e em seus principais afluentes para subsidiar uma pesquisa doutoral. As prospeces se concentram no mdio rio Negro, estado do Amazonas, na rea de confluncia com o rio Branco, proveniente de Roraima, onde tambm se encontra uma fronteira geolgica entre os granitides da formao Jauaperi, no escudo cristalino Guianense, e os arenitos do grupo Trombetas e formao Alter do Cho. Esta conjuntura geoambiental tem influenciado na formulao de proposies concernentes a variabilidade grfica e tcnica dos petroglifos l encontrados, sobretudo na hiptese de identificao de uma fronteira grfica prcolonial na rea. Nesta comunicao especfica apresentamos um repertrio de imagens coletadas entre 2006 e 2008 inseridas numa abordagem descritiva e comparativa, no sentido de expor em linhas gerais o que se tem documentado at o presente momento.
Raoni VALLE ...when I was about Branco river mouth, I found in a small rocky island, several figures of men and animals, all of them in great size, engraved on the hard granite rock.1 Alfred Russell Wallace, 1889[1979:316]. Introduction Since 2006, rock art recording field work has been conducted in the lower Negro river basin, Western Brazilian Amazon, in an opportunistic and extensive manner. Through GPS location and preliminary photographic documentation of open air, riverine and underwater rock art sites we begin to study these weathered petroglyphs. Some have been historically known, visited and disturbed, but, have never been submitted to any kind of specific analysis (Heckenberger 1997). This research is a first effort centered on survey and recognition of sites within a sample area sandstone and granite rock formations accessible only in the climax of the dry season (last half of October and first week of November, normally), when most known petroglyphs are out of water. For the rest of the year (ten months) these sites remain under turbulent waters, which results in: (1) temporal, climatic and logistic restrictions on field work; (2) a deplorable preservation state with several physical, biological and chemical weathering factors conditioned by the hydration/dehydration situation and; (3) a geomorphological implausibility for the formation and/or conservation of datable archaeological deposits related to rock art. The situation could not be worse for the rock art itself and in terms of contextual relational data. Keeping these restrictions in mind, the survey area comprises a purposeful geographical cut based on geo-environmental aspects (hydrographical confluence and geological contact) that we believe active in, and
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determinant to, an expected graphical variability scenario. Indeed, we are identifying such variation in the rock art corpus documented. This assemblage we are working with comprises twelve (12) sites found until this moment based on boat prospective work during a very restrict period per year. In each field season, we went through a small portion of a total survey line of about 87 kilometers along the main course of the Negro river. This transect2 was established from the prehistoric and historic archaeological site of the Velho Airo town (now a small riverine caboclo community) to the mouth of the Branco river, and also penetrating the lower courses of its respective tributaries: Ja, Unini and Jauaperi rivers. Between 2006 and 2008, three campaigns were established in this sample area. Two of them were directed toward the lower courses of the Ja river (Ja National Park) and Unini river (Unini Federal Extractive Reserve) and surroundings, resulting in the photodocumentation and GPS-plotting of seven (7) rock art sites, six on sandstone and one on granite formations. The third was conducted between the Unini/Negro and the Branco/Negro confluences, and also in the lower course of the Jauaperi river between the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Roraima, resulting in the photo-documentation and GPS-plotting of five (5) rock art sites, all on granite bedrock. In 2008, another expedition was sent to the Upper Negro river, which consisted of prospection in the lower and middle Iana river basin (one of Upper Negros main tributary), Baniwas indigenous territory. Six (6) rock art sites were partially documented as being reused (resignified and renewed) by Baniwa culture and mythology, but because of contextual
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The original was already translated in Portuguese, so, this is my own translation back into English and not Wallace`s original written version.
Each drought we try to go further along this planned transect. Due to lack of specific funding and programs for Amazonian Rock Art research which is, for the most part, not a priority in the Brazilian Western Amazonian Archaeology agenda, access is gained through opportunistic hitchhiking on expeditions run by nongovernmental organizations (e.g. proenvironment, sustainable development, etc.)., Slowly we are trying to revert this trend, but this process demands huge amount of effort, personnel and money in the middle and long terms, which, are definitely not available now and for the coming years.
3 / Arte Rupestre da Amaznia.
PETROGLYPHS IN THE LOWER NEGRO RIVER BASIN, NW BRAZILIAN AMAZON A PRELIMINARY VIEW
specificity these sites are discussed elsewhere (Valle & Costa 2008; Valle 2009b). None of these campaigns were conducted in extreme dry conditions (what would be ideal) nor in an adequate logistic fashion (see note 2). Instead, they took place during common dry seasons, in normal low water level situations or when the levels had already started to go up (almost 10 cm per day). As a result, until now, we still dont have access to the entire corpus, and probably we are dealing with a small fraction of what would be available in a good drought (like the 2005 one) and with the ideal fieldwork logistics. We suspect that the assemblage presented is only the tip of the iceberg. The sampled corpus is very small in terms of analytical purposes, but as we have said, this is a preliminary work and, before any attempts at breaking the corpus into formally different corpora, styles or graphical identities, and in order to establish an internal relative chronology, we have to find them, observe them and record their content. We are at this embryonic stage of research. Sample Area The sample area encompasses two municipalities in the lower Negro river basin, from Barcelos to Novo Airo, (coordinates S0217 W6103 to S0116 W6217). Major environmental features of this area are the geological diversity and a multi-confluence situation in the hydrographic network. Geologically, the contact between the granites and gneisses of the Guiana crystalline shields Jauaperi complex and the sandstone and siltstone from Prosperana, I, Alter do Cho and Trombetas group sedimentary formations introduces different sources of lithological materials with highly diverse petrographical properties into the area, which probably would have led to different technical-operatory chains.
Hydrographically, several tributaries of the Negro rivers lower course converge in the area, bringing biotic and abiotic influences from very different parts of the Amazon region. The confluence of the alkaline white waters of the Branco river coming from the north, (savannahs from the Roraima state, SE Venezuela and Guiana) with the acidic dark waters from the Negro river basin, whose headwaters are located in the extreme NW of Amazonia (rain forests from east Colombia and Upper Orinoco river), connects areas that are also highly diverse in terms of ethnographical content and cultural histories. We present here a sequence of maps and satellite images to show this environmental variability in the sample area along with the plotted location of the sites we are studying. (Fig.1- 4 )
93 Hypothesis
We propose that this geo-environmental set (hydrographic and geological variability) has a direct contribution in the determination of graphical variability (heterogeneity) in a rock art corpus under similar conditions. We have chosen this specific geographical space in the course of Negro basin in order to test this assumption. What we have found, until now, indicates a confirmation, rather than a refutation, of our basis hypothesis. Thus we are inclined to postulate that areas of geological contact and hydrographic confluence are more suitable for presenting factual rock art variability, and hence for the study of its theoretical consequences. This sound proposition is of imminent testability and therefore we believe it is built on hypothetical-deductive scientific ground even if in the future it is proven to be false. Consequently, we understand that this experiment lends support to the proposition of a preliminary geo-archaeological predictive model to be tested in other areas along the Negro basin and outside of it. The suggested
Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL
Raoni VALLE model is based on the following background assumptions: (1) multiple cultural and geographical proveniences of authors communities were conditioned by the hydrographical net; (2) multiple strategies and choices of rock art elaboration were conditioned by variability in geological raw materials of technical surfaces and tools. So, from this geological point of view, diversity in available rock types would have led to different operatory procedures in the manifestation of graphic phenomena, beginning with the prime agency over raw materials through the parietal artifacts final appearance and subsequent intentional manipulation.3 The problem is that what we are detecting in different rock surfaces in the sample area indicates not just different techniques (what would be expected) but rather other sorts of graphical choices in terms of thematics, morphological structure, topological arrangements within the graphical space (the so-called scenography) and geomorphological positioning of panels in sites and of sites in the landscape, patterns which are heterogeneously emerging. According to previous studies (Pessis 2002; Valle 2003) and based on ethnographical substrata (LewisWilliams 2004; Whitley 2001, 1998; Reichel-Dolmatoff 1967, 1971; Eliade 1949 [1993]; Levi-Strauss 1966) it is possible that geological choices are neither random nor naturally constricted, and could be governed by prehistoric systems of geological ethnoknowledge or, at minimum, a geological ethno-taxonomy materialized in culturally and/or ritualistically deliberate choices for determined lithological types at the base of their operatoire and symbolic chains. Within the hydrographic perspective, we have an indigenous history and ethnohistory, at
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least for the latter part of the Holocene occupation, for the entire Amazonian lowlands that is based on fluvial movements of languages, cultures and peoples, a riverine lifestyle which is considered one of the tenets for the definition of a tropical forest culture (Lowie 1948). In the Negro the panorama is exactly the same and several sources (Wallace, 1979; Spix & Martius, 1981; Rodrigues Ferreira, 1972; Koch-Grunberg, 2005, Mtraux, 1948; Goldman, 1948; Nimuendaju, 1950; Wright, 1992; Urban, 1992; Montserrat, 2000; Neves 1998) point to a multicultural and multilinguistic prehistoric scenario. Given the multi-confluence characteristic of the sample area, where the connection of Negro and Branco rivers dominates the hydrographical landscape, we assume that cultures coming from the northern savannahs and igneous uplands of Roraima, Southeast Venezuela and Guiana via the Branco river, and cultures coming from the Northwest Amazon, East Colombia and Upper Orinoco basin via the Negro river were in possible diachronic contact precisely within the research area, where we are finding variability in the rock art corpus. Equating biotic and abiotic convergence (AbSaber 2002) with cultural confluence, we believe that hydrographical and geological contact areas are best suitable for testing models of rock art graphical heterogeneity, which is hypothetically associated with cultural variability conditioned by socioenvironmental factors. Theoretic-Methodological Framework In the realm of discussions about formal and informed methods (Chippindale and Taon 1998; Chippindale and Nash 2004) we opt for a formal one. Despite the existence in the Amazon region of living indigenous mythohistorical traditions that interpret the petroglyphs, mainly in the Negro river basin (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1967, 1971; KochGrnberg 1907; Xavier 2008), there is, by no means, an unequivocal way to demonstrate,
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To this day, some ethnic groups in the Upper Negro river retouched the old petroglyphs, sometimes with lithic manufacturing techniques, but more often, just applying industrialized paint, or other sort of pigment over it.
verify or test a philogenetic or culturalhistoric connection between these living traditions and the prehistoric authors graphic concepts and practices, assuming that these petroglyphs are older than the ethnographic present and memory.4 Considering this, we follow Chippindale and Taons definition (1998:7) of formal method, which postulates: For much prehistoric art, beginning with the Palaeolithic art of the deep European caves, we have no basis for informed knowledge. There we must work with formal methods, those that depend on no inside knowledge, but which work when one comes to the stuff cold, as a prehistorian does. The information available is then restricted to that which is immanent in the images themselves, or which we can discern from their relations to each other and to the landscape, or by relation to whatever archaeological context is available. In so saying, we should not discard the ethnographical meanings and usages of the petroglyphs by the living indigenous traditions, but we must be conscious, when making analogical attempts, that this repertoire of (re)significations and practices is probably separated by millennia from the prehistoric rock-arts original atmosphere of creation. When one cannot be sure about time it becomes necessary to rely on space, from micro-spatial analyses of the technical and morphological formal constitution of the images to the macro-spatial analytic levels of the images in the panel, then on to the panels geomorphological insertion in the site rock formation and, finally, through to the insertion of the site in the major landscape features (Chippindale and Nash 2004).
With regard to this issue of temporal control, Franklin is of particular interest: The basic problem with many studies of rock art in Australia (and in other parts of the world) is a lack of control over time (in Bahn&Lorblanchet 1993:1). And further, she says (Ibidem 1993:8): Fruitful approaches might be spatial analyses, where attempts are made to measure variation within rock art on a spatial basis. We cannot at present deal in any detail with time in rock art, but we can deal with space. Rock art has a fixed location, and generally does not suffer the problem of, for instance, movement within an archaeological depositAlthough some movement and erosion of rock art panels may occur as a result of natural processes [We should add here cultural processes as well, as in the case of ethnographic selective retouch]this may not be as great as disturbances observed in other archaeological sitesIn spatial approach, one would proceed from a known factor, space, or location of sites, to in most cases unknown factor, time. Thus, our focus is less on time than on space. Hence, it would be suitable to discard two levels of the phenomena, time and meaning (the ethnographic myth-historical and ecological ones or our western logical ones), which we consider, for the purpose of our work and given its limitations, unreachable and useless, respectively. Instead, we should focus on the visual photographical pieces of evidence, trying to segregate modalities of factual features based on cognitively detectable materiality of the rock art codes and analogical reoccurrences (what could be called visual analogies [Sieveking in Bahn&Lorblanchet 1993:33]) among those detected material aspects recognized by our brain and visual system. The formal method employed here is in great part derived from A.M. Pessis (1987, 1989, 1992a, 1992b 1993, 1999, 2002 and 2004) and N. Guidons (1982, 1986, 1992 and 1996) work with the rock art traditions of Serra da Capivara National Park in Piau as well as from G. Martin (1999, 2000) and from my own research efforts (Valle 2003) within the rock art corpora of the Serid arid region
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Indeed, considering their topo-geomorphological situation of submersion, one can speculate about a middle holocenic origin for most part of the corpus available today, based on palaeoenvironmental indicatives of much lower water levels in Negro basin between 6.000 years B.P. and 3.000 years B.P., (AbSaber 1996; Williams 1985). During this time, the geomorphological locations of those rock art panels would have been exposed year-round, assuming that most of this rock art was made to be seen and to communicate something to someone passing along the river.
Raoni VALLE between the Brazilian Northeastern states of Paraba and Rio Grande do Norte. The procedures of these authors share a common theoretical background which poses two main questions as guidelines for rock art studies in Brazil: 1 - Who made it? This poses a problem of cultural authorship based on the proposition that the diversity in graphical presentation5 and in technical-operatory procedures identified in Brazilian rock art points to diversity of social presentation (Pessis 1989) in its authorship. This view is also supported by the known linguistic and ethnographical scenario for the Brazilian native population at the moment of European intrusion which indicates a highly heterogeneous prehistoric socio-cultural context (Carneiro da Cunha 1992). 2 - When it was made? This second preoccupation for the sites under discussion is of almost unbearable discomfort, but, where it is concerned, it tries to establish hypothetical relative chronologies based on superimpositions of distinct graphic practices or graphic moments, and, when possible, through stratified and contextual positioning in datable archaeological deposits. The first procedure could be tested in the current assemblage, and indeed, we are already attempting to do so. The second procedure is out of the question, as is direct dating, which rests far beyond of our range of possibilities, at least for now. When looking for patterns of graphic (re)presentation the first thing that we must
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realize is that these are arranged both in space and time. However, we assume that only the spatial dimension can be discernible by the researcher`s cognition in a quasi-objective manner. Chronological indications of the superimpositions can also be objectively perceptible but when one deals with severely weathered petroglyphs, this is not an easy task, and depending of the degree of weathering, even the graphic formal patterns cannot be recognized. We are treating prehistoric rock art as visual communication systems belonging to authors communities, which are structured as graphical languages. That is to say, they are symbolic codes ordered through rules and graphic conventions analogous to the social rules and conventions of the social presentation of cultural communities (Pessis 1989). Every system of communication of Homo sapiens and of other primates is based in two ethological principles: sensorial observation of reality (environment) and selfpresentation to this reality (environmental interaction and sense of self-existence and the existence of others) (Pessis 2004). Each community structured in its own social rules will produce specific graphic codes made by their own graphical-cultural choices. This process of graphical construction can be understood as a side effect of systems of problem-oriented technical resolution based upon learning and innovative behaviors (Pessis 2004), products of cognitive observation of the reality and self presentation into the world. Taking this perspective into account, our fundamental proposition is that there is a direct connection between graphic presentation of rock art and the social presentation of its authors, making theoretically possible the identification of ethnic groups, and/or, wider cultural traditions behind the graphic patterns regionally localized in the rock art corpus (Pessis and Guidon 1992; Guidon 1992). In this line of reasoning, which treats rock art corpora as prehistoric systems of visual
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The concept of graphic presentation according to AnneMarie Pessis (1989) is based on the fact that a representation of the perceptible world, prehistoric or modern, is a manifestation of the system of social presentation of authors ownership. Accepting that each cultural group or each segment inside a society has its own procedures for presenting themselves to the observation of someone elseit would be plausible that these procedures could be integrated in the graphical representations of a such cultural group[T]he analysis of the graphic manifestations of the prehistoric men, looking for the identification of patterns in graphic presentation, constitutes a way of access to their culture. Original text was in Portuguese, so this translation is mine.
communication, Pessis (2004: 282) postulates: Considering rock paintings as an expression of the manner of communication, opened the way to knowing prehistoric cultures. But the possibilities are slight of discovering the meanings that the figures or scenes represented to given cultures. If instead of searching for mere meanings, one search to identify what figures represent, the thematic and technical characteristics and the manners in which they were conceived, it is possible to discover more information about the ways of communication. To identify the ways through which the groups present themselves graphically is a method of identifying them, for in real life they also differ. This assumption has a semiotic6 background and thus two main propositions (Eco 1974) of semiotic approach can be put in order here: - Every culture should be studied as a communication phenomenon. - All aspects of a culture can be studied as content [we would add here and form] of communication. In view of the definition as communication systems, rock art codes, in general, existed as ordinations of signs characterized by the union of signifier (objects/symbols) and signified (meanings) (Saussure 1969; Eco 1974; Ostrower 1977; Renfrew 2007), expressed in the relation of form and content of symbolic codes in which only fragments of the forms have survived and are now available to the scientific analysis. That is to say, we have lost all the semantic and phonetic
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dimensions of the code remaining only fragments of its visual structural syntax. Linguistically we can define precisely what we mean by following the Saussurian view of signs as social reality constructs (Renfrew 2007; Bednarik 2007; Ostrower 1977), units of signification that point simultaneously to two existential plains: the sensorial aspect, verbal or visual, by means of the sound, the written or the image of a word (signifier), and to its notion, that is to say, a conventionalized content (signified) (Ostrower, 1977).
Semiotics is a philosophical and scientific discipline derived from the Semiology of Ferdinand de Saussure (1969) that consider[s] all cultural phenomena as processes of communication and deals with the study of the conditions of communicability and comprehensibility of a message (its codification and decodification) (Eco 1974). The Saussurian Semiology (1969) proposes the application of the concept sign as the union between a signified and a signifier under a communicational relation between a sender and a receiver. According to Saussure, Semiology is a science that studies the life of the signs inside the social life. The Semioses of Peirce (1972) also contributes to the constitution of a semiotic discipline. According to this author Semioses is characterized by an action, an influence in which is implicit an operation amongst three subjects: a sign, its object and its interpreter, not being possible, in any way, this tri-relative influence get resolved in pair actions where he poses a critique to the Saussurian view. All the quotations were translated from Portuguese to English by the author and do not constitutes the original texts.
The analysis of the rock art signifier, which basically characterizes the formal method employed here, consider seven (7) parameters: 1. Technical-operatory chain the whole sequence of procedures, technical steps, gestures, postures, time consumption, implements and accessories utilized to transform raw materials into final products. 2. Morphology the segregation of the forms of the graphical units, their structural features and constitutional traces. 3. Thematics the themes morphologically represented, or cognitively identified in the graphical units by an external observer. We segregate three basic types: Biomorphs (zoomorphs, anthropomorphs and phitomorphs); pure graphism (abstract or geometrical morphology, themes with no correspondence to the sensible world, not cognitively identified by an external observer); and object representations related to the depiction of material culture components. 4. Scenography the set of patterns expressed in the presentation of forms in the graphic space, modalities of articulation, agency, interactions and isolation amongst graphical units in a synchronic or diachronic composition. 5. Geo-environmental choices patterns of petrographical selection of the panels rock type, of the instruments employed, and in the technical mark, linked to technical operatory chain; and patterns in the geomorphological selection of the panels in the sites rock
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Raoni VALLE formation and of the site in the surrounding landscape. 6. Chronology observation of the superimpositions among distinct graphical moments and juxtaposition or superimposition among distinct conservation states (different colors and textures) indicative of posterior selective retouch, renewal within a graphic panel, or different dates for the prime execution. 7. Taphonomy Sequence of natural processes of alteration in the physical properties and characteristics of the rock art starting just after the confection to the moment of our documentation and through its complete disappearance. The systematization of these seven parameters, when applied to a given rock art corpus, leads to the segregation of modalities in graphic presentation as well as the proposition of hypothetic chronological sequences among those modalities could be possible. When we analyze a single site, we propose that the segregation of the sites graphic patterns constitutes its graphic profile. But when dealing with a set of sites that are spatially related, searching for their graphical patterns, and their idiosyncrasies, we propose the repertoire of similitude shared among their graphical profiles as integrating the same hypothetical graphic identity7. It is commonly observed that the same rock art sites have been used by several different cultural groups along centuries and millennia which lead to the superimposition or juxtaposition of diverse graphic profiles, or patterns of graphic presentation, in the same site or panel, which introduces ambiguity and complexity into the analysis. When confronted with a larger sample, it is possible to recognize: (1) a slow historic-cultural process of evolution and change of groups once closely related or (2) the sudden
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irruption of a new cultural identity coming in from abroad that is materialized in a highly contrasting rupture in the graphic patterns, indicating the presence of different rock art traditions (Pessis & Guidon 1992). If similar phenomena could be observed as recurrent in other sites nearby, this would imply that diverse graphical identities would have occupied those same sites expressing a correlation with a diachronic peopling by diverse ethnic groups more or less culturally related, or even without any relation at all. Graphical identities would be equivalent to ethnic groups inside a major rock art tradition8, which in turn corresponds to an entity analogous to a linguistic family within which several graphic languages evolve. Being initially close and related to each other, those languages undergo transformation in time and space becoming different cultural entities (Pessis & Guidon 1992). Therefore, if our entrance analytic category is the sites graphic profile, our exit analytic category will be the graphical identities of a determined archaeological area9 (Martin 1999)
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Rock art tradition is an anthropological analogue to cultural horizon and match archaeologically as the broadest taxonomic class of rock art where one can define cultural identities in a wider character (Pessis 1992). Another version of the same definition: the largest analytic unit amongst the divisions established to the rock art (Martin and Asn 2000). Tradition characterizes distinct classes of rock art by the segregation of morphological, technical, scenographical and chronological markers or attributes proper from a graphic corpus of a determined region. The graphic identity of a given tradition is the grouping of the identical features of these indicators as they occur in the corpus, their pattern behavior which tends to vary in time-space. 9 An archaeological area as an entrance category to the beginning and systematic continuity of a research, must keep flexible limits inside the same ecological unit sharing the same geo-environmental characteristics. With the development of the research and the systematic study of archaeological sites becomes possible the acquisition of chrono-estratigraphic data allowing the determination of human occupations in space and time demonstrating human permanence in all or part of the area. It would be possible as well to know the processes of human adaptation and resources management (Martin 1999). PS: All the quotations were translated from Portuguese to English by the author and do not constitutes the original texts.
The graphic identities are constituted by a set of characteristics that allows one to attribute a rock art corpus to a determined social authorship. These characteristics constitute patterns of graphic representations correlated to certain cultural characteristics (Pessis 1993).
which would be hypothetically associated with the prehistoric social groups that occupied this area over a long time, and which would have materialized on those rocks their cognitive-cultural systems of knowledge and procedure. But, indeed, what we deal with are researchers constructs that express our efforts in grouping and segregating the palaeo graphic phenomena under a tentative heuristic process of pursuit for measurable and verifiable categories, which allow us a necessarily restricted comprehension. Preliminary Results At this very analytic moment we are working at the sites graphic profile level, upon which we base our preliminary contrasts and visual analogies, which are for the same reason tentative and still contain considerable ambiguity. It is worth noting that we are not defining graphical identities, styles and traditions by obvious reasons of quantitative analytical restrictions, and because we still have not applied more rigorous statistical and mathematical methods of grouping and segregation (cluster, cladistics, upgma) which we consider necessary, in addition to direct observation of rock art panels and photographs supporting our visual analogical impressions and provisional procedures. Although two of these graphical profiles possess analogical matches in more than one site, we still do not feel secure in the affirmation that they constitute the same graphic identities, nor that we only have the three (3) proposed profiles in the assemblage. Possibly the sites we are now segregating may contain more than one graphic profile each, which would introduce considerable noise and ambiguity in our temporary segregation schemata. Nevertheless we hold the position that the total assemblage can be divided in this rough way and that it expresses distinct formally identifiable modes of graphic thought (Renfrew 2007).
Considering all of the above, as a preliminary taxonomic attempt, it was possible to divide the corpus available in the sample area into three major classes of distinct graphic profiles, namely: Velho Airo Graphic Profile; Rio Negro Graphic Profile; Unini Graphic Profile Velho Airo Graphic Profile The Velho Airo Graphic Profile was defined based on the analysis of four rock art sites located between the Velho Airo riverine community and the lower course of the Ja River, inside and adjacent to the Ja National Park. A later addition to this graphic profile was the single horizontal sandstone panel of Unini 4, found isolated on a rocky island in the second set of rapids of the Unini river. This profile receives its name from Pedral Velho Airo (S 01 55' 09.9" W 061 24' 14.8"), the major concentration of petroglyphs available in the assemblage documented, which extends through a shore line of four hundred and thirty (430) meters of riverine Prosperana sandstone boulders comprising eight (8) graphic concentration areas with several panels each, totaling hundreds of graphic units (individual petroglyphs). Technologically, no specific observation could be made due to the extremely harsh weathering situation affecting these petroglyphs, which does not allow for proper observation of the technical-operatory chain. What can be said based on very few wellpreserved figures is that direct percussion was in use, (and in minor cases indirect percussion, but see Bednarik 2007:37), probably executed with a pointed lithic cobble-like implement, possibly quartz, with a percussive surface measuring between one (1) cm and a half (0.5) cm, judging by the small pounded marks and by the length, depth and textural internal surface of the rare preserved pounded traces. We presume minor indirect percussion based on experimental tests with
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Raoni VALLE the same sandstone and by the precision of the lines and the control of line directions, mainly in the circular and spiraled lines present in most figures. However, affirming this for the entire site and graphic profile remains difficult because of taphonomic alteration. We hope in the near future to employ field microscopy observations to sharpen the definition of technical features. Thematically, we perceive a majority of anthropomorphic figures associated with a minority of non-recognizable graphic units (what we would call abstract figures), mainly several modalities of spirals, conjuncts of cupmarks and wavy lines. Morphologically, the graphic presentation of the anthropomorphic assemblage varies greatly internally but, in general, retains certain main features characterized by the following: varied size, in general, medium to large proportions (fifty [50] cm to a hundred and forty [1.40] cm); single or double line contour of the body (no filled-in); sexual distinctiveness; enormous angular belly with navel and breasts assigned; fixed postures with opened limbs; facial characteristics (mouth and eyes), some presenting straight radial projections out of the head indicating possible ornamentation; and several modalities of stylized morphological constitution of body (head, trunk and limbs) represented with nonnaturalistic conventional morphologies, (e.g., extremity of the limbs converted into spirals). These features allow one to think that these are representations, not of human beings, but of entities of extraordinary nature, assuming a correlation between unnatural morphology and behavioral properties or powers. Zoomorphic representations are extremely rare but do occur in two panels in Pedral Velho Airo totalizing seven (7) small units between twenty (20) cm and thirty-five (35) cm, all apparently quadrupeds exhibited in profile with round heads and tail ending in a spiral. Scenographically, anthropomorphic figures are almost always shown in groups in frontal disposition, but not in direct graphic contact,
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resembling collective scenes or a kind of visual narrative in which the themes represented cannot be recognized. Some appear in an upside-down disposition, showing small ambiguous anthropomorphic figures in graphic connection with the genital area and in-between the legs. These are quite impressive, resembling birth scenes and suggesting the representation of adults and infants. The contra-natura aspect becomes clearer when one realizes that these appear not only in morphological features of the anthropomorphic figures but also in the graphic spatial disposition and postural presentation of the figures. Several modalities of interaction can be discerned between anthropomorphic and abstract graphic compositions, and almost no abstract unit is presented alone. When this does happens, the abstract unit seems to retain a resemblance to a stylized decomposed anthropomorphic character, such as faces with big eyes in spiral form or only the inferior limbs in spiral convention. In general, the rule seems to be a graphic spatial association between anthropomorphic and abstract units with prominence given to the former category. Zoomorphic figures are shown in groups as well, and in at least one panel they seem to be associated with an anthropomorphic figure. Geomorphologically, as far as it is concerned in this graphic profile, the positioning of the panels in the space is the more prominent feature. In this matter the set does not seem to present any discernible pattern in terms of the general positioning of the panels in the internal rocky landscape of the site. In fact, this could be the geomorphological pattern itself, that is to say, the absence of uniform orientation of the panels. Most of them are vertical or diagonal panels but vary in geographical orientation, some are oriented backwards the river pointing to the forest, some of them are oriented to the rocky sides of the shore line (W-E), some of them are oriented to the river, and, yet, some of them are facing the sky staying horizontally, although this is a minority. None is shown facing down. In general, the spatial situation
seems to be equally distributed, perhaps with a more slightly tendency to the river orientation, indicating a sort of fluvial signaling. As could be understood by the above text, taphonomical alteration by means of physical (erosion and exfoliation of the sandstone) and biological (micro-vegetal, fungi and other organisms accretions and cortical penetration) weathering has been distorting the physical appearance of the technical marks and morphological constitution of these petroglyphs in severe and diverse ways (mostly erasing the peck-marks, transmitting an homogeneous aspect between the inside and the outside spaces of the petroglyphs). This evidence indicates that the general assemblage of this graphical profile has been subject to weathering action for a long time, and thus could be extremely ancient, maybe millenia old. No superimposition could be detected, therefore, we cannot speak to internal chronology, but it seems probable that we are dealing here with more than one graphic profile and different moments of execution based on differences in weathering states, all of which needs further investigation. Rio Negro Graphic Profile The Rio Negro Graphic Profile was defined based on one single Prosperana sandstone site, Pedral Rio Negro (S 01 53' 01.1" W 061 26' 36.6"). This site contains four (4) graphic concentration areas, most containing a single panel, and one being almost permanently underwater and out of conventional photographic range. Quantitatively and in spatial terms inferior to Pedral Velho Airo, this site presents only a few dozens of graphic units. Thematically, we have a remarkable turning point here materialized in the massive occurrence of non-recognizable, abstract, repertoire of figures (so-called pure graphism in Pessis terminology). Not a single figure could be matched into a figurative thematic, and neither did any possess recognizable
morphology. So we are considering the entire corpus of this site of imminent hermetic nature indicative of a completely different kind of graphic thought. Even in comparative terms to the abstract elements identified in the Velho Airo Graphic Profile we could not find any clear analogy, despite the resemblance of one unit in the submerged panel. One other petroglyph seems to be a schematic or geometric stylization of a face or a mask but retaining so much formal ambiguity that we cannot categorically assume this. The scenographical aspect is internally varied with respect to the graphical concentration area. But two general situations could be identified: one more concentrated where the graphical space is apparently crowded with units and another sparser, with more technologically uninterfered spaces amongst the units. Despite the ambiguity of defining scenes in a non-narrative figurative visual context, in this case, at least, one can perceive where one unit finishes and another begins. As far as scenography is concerned, this is the key property for an understanding of the morpho-topology in the filling-in of graphic space, as it makes discernible the syntactical arrangements of the figures. For now, at this level of the internal analysis, neither associative patterns between units in the panels, nor internal recurrences of single figures could be detected. The petroglyphs seem to be a general composite of unique morphologies from outside the site and inside as well (with an exception of only two units that have morphological equivalents in Velho Airo Graphic Profile). Technologically, observations indicate that both direct and indirect percussion were employed in the execution of these percussive petroglyphs. Again the basis for such diagnosis relies on comparative experimentation with the same sandstone type using instruments made with the local lithological raw materials, as well as on the patient observation of the pecking and pounded marks in situ and on analysis of macro-photographs of technical details within
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Raoni VALLE the units. In these technical elements we find correspondence with Velho Airo Graphic Profile (which is largely conditioned by a shared rock matrix), noting that while in the latter there is no sound basis for a clear and specific technical statement, in the former we have a much more preserved set of technical marks, wherein different kinds of pecking and pounding can be observed, indicating different instruments employed and probably different moments of execution. The techniques vary from erratic superficial pounding (three [3] mm to five [5] mm in depth by one [1] to three [3] cm in length) that just disrupted the ancient cortex, indicating a vacillate-handled direct percussion with, probably, a pointed pebble, to deep and large pecked-like grooves (four [4] to six [6] cm in length by two [2] to four [4] cm in depth) penetrating the sandstone matrix, indicating successive retouch of the same pecked lines with a large blunt instrument probably beaten with a hammer-like implement. In one vertical panel, a group of deep cupmarks (reaching seven [7] cm in depth) were executed with fine polishing, leaving an astonishing degree of internal textural homogeneity. Given the geomorphological position of these marks in the rock boulder (inside a concavity quite in a negative hollow but still in general verticality) we have not yet been able to reconstitute the operatory process, and treat this as an isolated phenomenon. The general good conservation state of panel I is seen in the contrast between the dark brown, oxidized-like ancient cortex, and the fresh, vivid orange, little eroded or repatinated rock matrix inside the pounding that is still visible. This site, along with its main panel (I), constitutes a very interesting piece of technical evidence that deserves further technical analysis. In geomorphological terms most petroglyphs at this site are located inside small open niches, recesses along fifty (50) meters of a rock wall immediately on the edge of a channel of the Negro river, which is almost inside the water stream, with wide visibility to the fluvial navigators, being the best preserved panel (I) exactly in the line of sight of those
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descending the stream. Visible within a range of more than fifty (50) meters, the sense of a fluvial signaling really catches our attention. Judging by their topographical level on the wall we are inclined to suppose the existence of more petroglyphs permanently underwater in the climax of low waters in the dry season. This general pattern of geomorphological location contrasts with that observed in the Velho Airo graphic profile, which as we said shows no proper locational pattern. In both geomorphological parameters we adopt here, i.e. panels within the site and the site within the landscape, Velho Airo and Rio Negro profiles are equally contrasting. Bearing in mind a comparison at the same water level, the disposition of these rock formations with respect to surfaces available to external sight and use, Pedral Rio Negro presents a uniformity in the positioning of the panels, widely facing the river, and with a much more direct contact of the rock wall with a highly dynamic and deep fluvial channel. This characterizes the insertion of the site in a specific surrounding landscape, while Velho Airo is set over a sandy shore, which, of course, may be of modern sedimentation but the general rock-art-panels/river contact is quite different. Taphonomic factors have a differential action considering the four (4) graphic concentration areas, indicating different chronologies for the time of weathering availability of each panel, or at least differential weathering conditioned by favored location of some areas in relation to the erosive power of the streams, which apparently constitutes the most powerful source of physical weathering in action here. But, given the geomorphological uniformity of the panels, this second hypothesis seems less plausible, leading us to accept a differentchronologies scenario for the execution of the panels, being the youngest one the more preserved in the internal assemblage, where one can still admire the actual techniques of execution and to some extent the original contrast between the ancient cortex and internal nature of the pecked/pounded marks, in color, texture and technical morphology. The oldest panel would probably be the one
that today is almost submerged, and which shows severely weathered petroglyphs and contains a morphological analogue to a unit in the Velho Airo profile. In this line of thinking, we assume that the crowded, abstract, and well preserved panel (I), the main one in this site, which characterizes its profile, is of younger age compared to the rest of the sandstone assemblage inside and outside the site. Unini Graphic Profile Unini Graphic Profile was defined initially by a single site, Unini 2 (S 01 40 12.8 W 061 47' 32.2) amongst the granite boulders of the first rapids of the lower course of the Unini River. Subsequently five (5) other sites were discovered outside of the Unini river in the Negro close to the mouth of the Branco river and in the lower course of the Jauaperi river. These sites present visual analogies which strongly suggest direct graphic connections among them (and all are found on granite bedrock), and show characteristics that suggest a distance from the sandstone bedrock sites comprising the Velho Airo and Rio Negro Profiles. Thematical choices here privilege zoomorphic figures and a minor proportion of anthropomorphic representations. When only Unini 2 was under consideration, no abstract, non-recognizable figures were accounted for in terms of the thematic definition of this profile. But after the positive contact with such graphic units outside of the Unini river, it became necessary to accommodate them with the other themes. However the inclusion of this graphic class does not alter the supremacy of the zoomorphic character in the Unini graphic profile. Morphologically and within the scenographical scope of this profile, the zoomorphic figures are assembled generally in medium to large sizes, a few ranging between thirty (30) cm and fifty (50) cm, but most larger, measuring up to one hundred and sixty
(160) cm. They present full body infill graphic resolution, showing a majority of quadrupeds in profile and in apparent movement, with distinctive morphological features in the body, head and legs permitting the recognition of species or types of animals such as cervidaelike and primate-like, and also bird- and snake-like forms. The animals do not seem to obey any organized positioning in the graphic space, being scattered inside the panel when they are not isolated in the plan. An exception occurs at Unini 2, where one can see what could be called a scene of four (4) small birds (twenty [20] cm each, more or less) in a profile line following a single direction, the last one on the Eastern extremity being superimposed by a small, reptile-like figure (forty [40] cm), all of them with a fresh non-cortical technical surface resembling a recent moment of execution. At another site, Pedra da Vov (UTM 20M S0669915 W9828415), a primatelike figure holds in its hand what is interpreted to be a flute, and taking it to its head, apparently playing the instrument. Indeed this thematic action of playing a flute is a recurrent one within the anthropomorphic figures in this profile. The anthropomorphic figures were presented in two situations. First, the figures appear in large groups with more than ten individuals in graphic connection through each others arms, showing a frontal disposition and with no distinctive features, such as sexual or facial traces or adornments, this scene resembles a depiction of a communal dancing and/or ritual. The other situation is that of isolated individuals, some in profile taking a stick to their head or mouth with one or both hands (as in playing a flute), and some frontally presented holding still. In both cases, an animal is associated in immediate graphic space, such as a bird or quadruped, and again no distinctive features, despite the supposed flute, like sexual or facial ones. Geomorphologically the Unini 2 site seems to present a pattern in the location of the panels and in the location of the site within the
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Raoni VALLE cascade. All the panels are facing the river executed in the south or southwest faces of the boulders and situated on the left edge (north) of the river in the context of the rapids. The verification of the opposite rivers edge at the rapid formation showed no evidence of petroglyphs, indicating a geomorphological selection for rocks on the left side. Outside the Unini river, the same cannot be said, but in general all the petroglyphs are oriented toward rivers or channels, and executed in sizes and in plans to permit recognition by boat-borne observers. While this situation links them to the sandstone site of Pedral Rio Negro, it distinguishes them from the Velho Airo graphic profile which generally requires one to disembark in order to see most of the petroglyths. The confection technique of the entire granite assemblage seems to avail itself of different degrees of abrasion as the main procedure. In some units, one finds polished surfaces, while in others just surface scraping (resembling Sgraffitto technique [see Bednarik 2007:38]), removing just the surface cortex, this latter modality being more common. It is possible that a prime moment of direct percussion would have been used to open the rocky cortex, sketching the figures and giving the textural and color contrast; subsequently, the abrasive techniques were adopted to create the designs texturally uniform interior and contour. This further assumption was verified in experimental exercises using the same granite bedrock, quartz pebble and quartz sand available at the sites. Experiments tested a direct abrading technique against direct percussion followed by abrasion, and the latter achieved results closer to what we infer could be the original aspect of the petroglyphs. What appear to be faint reminiscent pounded marks in some units of the sites outside of the Unini river, also corroborate this interpretation, but these marks occur in very low proportion. The dominance of abrasion techniques in the Unini graphic profile is almost certain, in which case it greatly contrasts with the
sandstone assemblage techniques. Another aspect that could be noted is that signs of technical selective retouch and renewal, by abrasion as well, are clearly visible in several units of this profile, sometimes modifying the preexistent morphology, thematics and scenography of the figures. An emblematic case may be the cervidae figure at Unini 2, which seems to have suffered a retouch changing it into a primate-like figure running in the opposite direction, with its head being the former cervidae tail10. Taphonomic aspects in general point to a high degree of weathering in these igneous petroglyphs, either in terms of exfoliation and/or of repatination. Consequently, most of the petroglyphs in granite boulders are almost disappearing and look like shadows of once contrasting and visible figures. The general causes can be attributed to the riverine and seasonally submerged context which is catastrophically alternated by sun exposure two (2) to three (3) months a year, introducing a strongly contingent physical weathering. Furthermore, although it may be true that granitic rocks are more resistant to erosion than is sandstone, the same cannot be true in terms of chemical and biological weathering. We believe that to some extent those igneous rocks are being subjected to geo-chemical alteration by the acidity of the dark water, which is rich in humic acid from debris of organic matter deposited on the boulders surfaces. One can perceive an increasing disaggregation of the rocky subsurface constituents by the penetration of bioactive acidic matter in the interstitial micro-spaces of the igneous pores. This can also make room for colonies of microorganisms, which promote an unknown series of subsequent biochemical reactions along with the more general physical weathering. This assumption deserves deep investigation but for now what can be said is that the general aspect of the granite petroglyphs
10
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This observation was not mine. I owe this to Madame Pessis clinical eyes, during personal communication.
assemblage suggests significantly more degradation than the sandstone ones. This may be a matter of ageing, of differential weathering considering the rock types, perhaps the differential techniques employed, maybe all three. The fact is that the granite petroglyphs look older than the sandstone material and several graphical moments can be discerned in those granite panels either by different degrees of repatination in the figures of the same panel, or by superimpositions between figures, or still through this interesting fact of selective retouch/renewal, which changes the preexistent subjects depicted. All of these factors, of course, have very interesting chronological implications with which we are at present working. This context is only clear and generalized within the granite assemblage. Discussion We still know very little, close to nothing, about the rock art of the Negro Basin. Weathering is obliterating the possible observable features of this riverine rock art assemblage, upon which formal method analysis attempts rely. The seasonality in hydration and dehydration of the rock surfaces acts in favor of several taphonomic factors. When the petroglyphs are out of water they get exposed to extremely high temperatures (nearing 40 degrees Celsius) due to the equatorial latitude, and direct sun heating due to a lack of vegetation covering most of riverine boulders. This situation alternates with high levels of precipitation proper from the end of dry season in the Lower Negro river rain forest ecosystem. The combination of these factors results in considerable physical and biological weathering. Underwater, the erosive force of the streamborne solid particles (albeit less than in white waters), along with the acidic conditions of dark waters, caused by high concentrations of
humic acid from organic debris decomposition, play their role as taphonomic agents causing physical and chemical weathering. We still do not know the exact process, but we do know that this conjuncture affects the submerged and riverine rock surfaces; consequently the Rock Art on it has undergone severe decay for at least the last three thousand years (since 3.000 B.P.), when palaeoenviromental conditions began to resemble current conditions, and the agricultural ceramic riverine lifestyle started becoming dominant (Neves 1998). On the other hand, we cannot rely on informed method for the Negro river, even if Reichel-Dolmatoff (1967, 1971), KochGrnberg (1907), Denis Williams (1985) and others did so in their interpretive approaches, given the concrete possibility that contemporary ethnic accounts for the rock art would be as ethno-historically weathered as physically are the petroglyphs. This approach allows us no certain glimpses of past graphical modes of thought and behaviors, at least not in a hypothetical-deductive scientific fashion, because of the lack of testability of the propositions thus derived when confronted against the archaeological record. First of all, there is no archaeological record unequivocally related to the Amazonian petroglyphs, not even for the upland petroglyph sites (Greer 2001). Second, how could one archaeologically falsify a myth of creation? Myths are not falsifiable constructs. They simply do not work by the same logic science does. Ecological functionalists propositions, such as riverine resource management, extracted from the ethnographic present and memory, although more scientific founded, work almost in the same way as the myths in terms of falsifiability against past behavior.
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Raoni VALLE The men or women who made the petroglyphs are long deceased as are their societies and possibly their environmental set, and no procedure can prove, test, falsify, verify or demonstrate a cultural relationship of the living Indians with petroglyph prehistoric authors, maybe only at the conjectural level. The difference lies in whether one researcher decides to believe in such accounts and another does not. Thus, insights from the living native mythhistorical accounts cannot elucidate problemoriented investigations of preceramic archaic and ceramic formative horizons, assuming a middle to lower holocenic origin and practice for most of the petroglyph corpus of the lower and middle Negro Basin, given their semi-submerged geomorphological situation in the climax of dry seasons of contemporary times. This is a quite simplistic view of their chronological and palaeoenvironmental problem and deserves a proper sub-aquatic and multidisciplinary investigative approach. Summarizing the chronological complexities of the Amazonian rock art Greer (2001:682) tells us: Categories [rock art ones] may be parts of different cultural or social systems and different ages. What is clear, however, is that rock art production covers a very long time span. We are aware that the reality must be much more complex than the one proposed here because the sites can comprehend multiple levels of superimpositions and juxtapositions of different graphic profiles in the same panels, which are not yet well understood. Furthermore, graphic profiles can have several moments of overlap in different proportions, caused by diachronic moments of reoccupation, reuse and selective retouch or renewal, implying a long chronology in their usage as graphical spaces. But in the end, as we rely on the subjective perception of the researchers and their cameras, what is cognitively detectable and arranged by the entrance categories applied for the graphic phenomena in the sample area can be organized in this diagram:
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This graphic scheme is a very provisional one representing the table of divisions that were preliminary established within the available sample based on visual analogies, through direct observation of sites and collection of photographic evidence, executed through the application of those analytical categories explicated above. Although constituted in the form of a cladogram the above diagram does not represent one, nor was it constructed through any kind of mathematical, statistical nor evolutionary ordered model (e.g. cluster analysis). These remain to be tested and will be, given the fact that the analytic categories we employ can be converted into binary coded characters and character states for ordering within a data matrix. These, in turn, can be run in specific computer programs (Macintosh Paup and others) to generate, for instance, maximum parsimony trees, an approach which has already been successfully tested with another sample (Valle 2006b). Note that the scheme is not ordered by graphic profile but instead by sites, and that two main groups, instead of three, can be clearly discerned. Unini 2 is a group and Velho Airo is another group; the others are more or less related to Velho Airo, which implies that the Rio Negro abstract graphic profile is the more distant related cousin or descendent of the Velho Airo profile. This assumption is based on conformities of technical and petrographical choices, and of some minimal morphological units retained between the two, as well as on the conservation state of, at least, the
major panel (I) of the Pedral Rio Negro site which is less taphonomically impacted by erosion than the Velho Airo petroglyphs. Thus, considering the same rock, the same technique and almost the same environmental set, we believe it implies a younger age for the Rio Negro Profile panel I. However this does not change our former proposition that these two constitute different graphic profiles and overall different cultural or ritual choices. As we said before, they do constitute two rather distinct modes of thought; nevertheless, both maintain a considerably larger distance from the Unini graphic profile than exists between them. This is exactly what this diagram above expresses, in isolating the Unini group. Conclusion At this moment we cannot propose distinct styles of rock art for the Negro river basin because of quantitative limitations in the sample and because no proper quantitative, mathematically sound internal approach, was attempted. For now we classify these manifestations as three different graphic profiles of sites, two of which are represented in more than one site. In our understanding, this fact could be an indicative of shared hypothetical graphical identities.
So, we will definitely need much further testing and expansion of our prospection grid in the basin. This will involve painstaking and patient formal hard work and a huge amount of luck to obtain good climatic conditions, proper light exposures and well preserved petroglyph panels or sites (which is almost impossible). It will require locating generous and comprehensive sponsorship to finance several years of research, considering that field work can only be done during one specific month of the year under Amazonian jungle harsh conditions and praying not to get malaria, hepatitis (the entire alphabet), leishmanioses, snake, alligator or pirana bites, sucuri hug or any unknown tropical disease.
Acknowledgments To Edithe Pereira, Kay Tarble Scaramelli, Niede Guidon, Anne-Marie Pessis, Gabriela Martin, Eduardo Ges Neves (advisor), Robert G. Bednarik (IFRAO), Giraraj Kumar, Mila Simes, Franz Scaramelli, Marcos Corra (pioneer), Mauro Farias, Anna T. Browne (for the english revision), Ana Carla Bruno (Inpa), Carlos Cesar Durigan e Srgio Borges (FVA), Samuel Taranran (WWF), Fbio Origuela, Adlia Nogueira (pacient wife and also revision) and the Rio Negro Indigenous Movement. 107
We are dealing with only twelve (12) sites spread in a straight line of almost ninety (90) kilometers in a fluvial basin which has more than one thousand and five hundreds (1.500) kilometers in the main course. In so doing, we are being extremely cautious of any assertive affirmation, given the fact that we need to know much more about the rock art of the entire Negro river basin. What is interesting is that even in this quantitatively and spatially restricted assemblage, we have considerable heterogeneity, which makes us think in two directions: (1) the representativeness of this context for the rest of the basin in terms of the validity of any potential extrapolation; (2) the possible localized character of this variability scenario conditioned by our hypothesized geo-environmental background factors (hydrographical confluence and geological contact).
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Figures and References
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Figure 1 - General map showing the position of NW Amazonia in its South American context, with a closer view of the Negro basin in regional context. Square A shows the location of sites documented in the 2006 and 2007 campaigns. Author: M. Brito.
Figure 2 Image of the sample area showing the location of Rock Art sites arranged in 3 main clusters: the mouth of Ja river at the bottom of the picture (Velho Airo, Rio Negro, Ja 1, 2 and 3); the lower course of Unini river in the middle of the picture (Unini 2 and 4); the proximities of the mouth of the Branco river near the top (Ilha das Andorinhas, Santa Helena and Guariba 2). Other Rock Art sites include Pedra da Vov (in a channel of the mouth of the Jauaperi river) and So Pedro (on the lower course of Jauaperi not shown in the map) which are, for the moment, isolated sites. Other markers indicate ceramic sites. Source: Google Earth.
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Figure 3 Sample area, characterized by a multiple-confluence hydrographic region, in the transition of the middle to lower Negro river basin, markedly the junction between the Branco river and other smaller tributaries (Jufari, Caures, Jauaperi, Unini and Ja). Source: CBRS-INPE. Scale 1 cm 25 km.
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Figure 4 - Geological frontier along the course of the Unini River. Pink indicates igneous formations, others are sedimentary rocks. Source: CPRM (Reis & Marmos 2007).
Figure 5 - Pedral Velho Airo riverine geomorphological situation. Pedral Velho Airo, octuber, 2006. Photo: R. Valle
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Figure 6 - Group of anthropomorphic and abstract figures, contra-natura scenography, upside down, note small anthropomorphic figurines in between the legs and the genital zone (Births?). Pedral Velho Airo site, Octuber 2006. Photo: R. Valle.
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Figure 7 - Contra-natura upside down anthropomorphic figures with smaller figurines in between the legs and the genital zones (births?) Pedral Velho Airo site, octuber 2006. Photo: R. Valle.
Figure 8 - Schematic stylization in anthropomorphic figure showing the extremities of the limbs converted in spirals. Pedral Velho Airo site, octuber 2006. Photo: R. Valle.
Figure 9 - Pedral rio Negro site. Riverine geomorphological situation, november 2006. Photo: R. Valle.
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Figure 10 - Pedral Rio Negro site, panel 1, november 2006. Photo R. Valle.
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Figure 11 - Detail of the bottom right corner of panel 1, presenting different levels of erosion and a crowded-like scenography, Pedral Rio Negro. November 2006. Photo R. Valle.
Figure 12 - Graphic unit of panel 1, Pedral Rio Negro site. A mask ? November 2006. Foto: R. Valle
Figure 13 - Unini 2, Panel 1 showing different levels of repatination pointing to different moments of technical execution, at least two: one anthropomorphic (darker) at the bottom and another zoomorphic, which could be divided in internal technical episodes of renewal, note the latest one (more clear) at the vertical snake-like zoomorph in the panel`s west side. November 2006. Photo: R. Valle.
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Figure 14 - Unini 2 panel 2 showing different organic-like repatination stages indicating a chronology of different technical moments and/or renewal of the clearest unit. November 2006. Photo: R. Valle.
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Figure 15 - Unini 2, panel 3. Isolated zoormorphic figure, cervidae like, showing differential repatination in the cephalic zone (darker). Indicates selective renewal changing morphology and scenography in the rest of the body suggesting a primate-like superposed where its head is the former cervidae tail, moving to the opposite side. Or am I hallucinating ? November 2006. Photo: R. Valle
Figure 16 - A specimen of flute player- like anthropomorphic figure followed by a bird-like zoomorphic figure. Ilha das Andorinhas Site, Unini profile. November 2008. Photo: R. Valle
Figure 17 Specimen of Flute player-like zoomorphic figure (resemblig a primate with a abstract unit just above. Pedra da Vov site, Jauaperi River. November 2008. Photo: R. Valle.
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Figure 18 Anthropomorphic scene of the so-called communal body contact dance or ritual. Ilha das Andorinhas site, Unini Profile. See the depredation mark on the top right corner. November 2008. Photo: R.Valle.
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118 Figure 19 Zoormorphic petroglyph from Ilha das Andorinhas site, Unini Profile. Resembling a cervidae morphology with segmented antlers. This specimen points to an open vegetation cervidae type, contrasting with the present vegetation of the area, dense tropical forest. Could it be a paleoenviromental indicative of the age of this petroglyph? For in the middle Holocene the area was probably colonized by opened savannah-like vegetation. Were they representing a locally existing animal by their time? November 2008. Photo: R. Valle.
References Absaber, Azis. 2002. Bases Para O Estudo Dos Ecossistemas Da Amaznia Brasileira. Estudos Avanados. Vol. 16, Num. 45, Usp, Sp. ______________1996. Paleoclima E Paleoecologia Da Amaznia Brasileira. In: Amaznia Do Discurso Prxis. Edusp, So Paulo. Bahn, Paul. 1998. The Cambridge Illustrated History Of Prehistoric Art. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bahn, P.& Vertuit, Jean. 1988. Images Of The Ice Age. Winward, Leicester. Bahn.P. & Loblanchet. M .(Eds.) 1993. The Post Stylistic Era or Where do we go from here? Oxbow Monographs. Cambridge. UK. Barse W. 2003. Holocene Climate And Human Occupation In The Orinoco, Under The Canopy: The Archaeology Of Tropical Rain Forests, J. Mercader, Ed., New Brunswik: Rutgers University Press, Pp. 249-270. Bednarik, R.G., 1989. On The Pleistocene Settlement Of South America. Antiquity 63:101111. _____________1997. The Global Evidence Of Early Human Symboling Behaviour. Human Evolution Vol. 12 - N. 3 (147-168) . _____________2007. Rock Art Science: The Scientific Study Of Palaeoart. Arian Books, New Delhi, India. Carneiro Da Cunha, Manuela (Org.).1992. Histria Dos ndios No Brasil. So Paulo, Companhia Das Letras. Chippindale,C. & Archaeology Of University Press, Taon, P. Rock Art. Uk. (eds.)1998. Cambridge
Chippindale, C. And Nash, G. (Eds.) 2004. Pictures In Place-The Figured Landscape Of Rock-Art. Cambridge University Press, Uk Clottes, J. (Editor) 2001. La Grotte Chauvet. Lart Des Origines. Le Seuil, Paris. ________2003a. Return To Chauvet Cave: Excavating The Birthplace Of Art. Thames And Hudson, London. (In The Usa:Chauvet Cave; The Art Of Earliest Times. University Of Utah Press, Salt Lake City.) Corra, M.V.M.1994., As Gravaes E Pinturas Rupestres Na rea Do Reservatrio Da Uhe Balbina Am. Rio De Janeiro,. 187 P. (Dissertao - Mestrado) Universidade Federal Do Rio De Janeiro. Derrico, F. Et Al. 2003. Archaeological Evidence For The Emergence Of Language, Symbolism, And MusicAn Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective. Journal Of World Prehistory, Vol. 17, No. 1. Eco, Umberto 1974. As Formas Do Contedo. Editora Perspectiva, Ed. Da Usp, So Paulo. Fabbri, Paulo. 1968. Considerations Sur La Proxmique. Langages, N.10, P.65 75. Greer, John .1995. Rock Art Crhronology In The Orinoco Basin Of Southwestern Venezuela. Phd Dissertatation, Department OfAnthropology, University Of Missouri, Columbia. Umi Dissertation Services, Ann Arbor. ____________2001. Lowland South America. In Handbook Of Rock Art Research. Whitley, D. (Ed.) Altamira Press Califrnia, Us. Guidon, Niede.1986. Las Unidades Culturales De So Raimundo Nonato Sudeste Del Estado De Piau-Brazil. In New Evidence For The Pleistocene Peopling Of The Amricas, Bryan, A. (Ed.), Pp. 157-71. Peopling Of The Americas, Symposia Series, Center For The Study Of Early Man, University Of Maine, Orono.
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PETROGLYPHS IN THE LOWER NEGRO RIVER BASIN, NW BRAZILIAN AMAZON A PRELIMINARY VIEW A ARTE RUPESTRE DO RIO NEGRO UMA

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

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Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

3 / Arte Rupestre da Amaznia.

Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

3 / Arte Rupestre da Amaznia.

Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

3 / Arte Rupestre da Amaznia.

Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

3 / Arte Rupestre da Amaznia.

Congresso Internacional da IFRAO 2009 Piau / BRASIL

3 / Arte Rupestre da Amaznia.

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