Browsing by Author "Cabello, Gloria"

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    El Condor mine : Prehispanic production and consumption of hematite pigments in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile
    (2019) Sepúlveda, Marcela; Gallardo Ibañez, Héctor Francisco; Ballester, Benjamín; Cabello, Gloria; Vidal, Estefanía
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    Embodiment and fashionable colours in rock paintings of the Atacama Desert, northern Chile
    (ARCHAEOLOGICAL PUBL, 2022) Cabello, Gloria; Sepúlveda Retamal, Marcela Alejandra; Brancoli, Bernardita
    Red, white and black are colours commonly found in rock paintings around the globe. In northern Chile's Atacama Desert, visual representations produced between 2000 BC and 1550 CE also include yellow, orange, violet, blue and green. This polychrome usage is particularly notable in the dress of anthropomorphs and is characterised by extreme attention to detail and the use of an exclusive set of raw materials. These unique aspects enable us to discuss the value and meaning of colour in past societies throughout different periods of the local sequence, beyond its consideration as a stylistic indicator
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    Nautical mythologies of Atacama: the caballito de totora of Jean-Christian Spahni
    (2022) Ballester, Benjamin; Cabello, Gloria
    A totora reed raft has appeared repeatedly in Chilean archaeology since 1967. Over time, as bi-ography after biography of Jean-Christian Spahni invented a new object based on the original piece -each different from its predecessor -the supposed miniature raft became accepted as irrefutable evidence of these vessels' antiquity and pre-Hispanic navigation in northern Chile and even the Andes. A recent study at the Musee d'ethnographie de Geneve in Switzerland revealed that the object is not a raft but a bundle of vegetable fibers. Common in the funerary contexts of the Formative period in northern Chile, this type of artifact is described as paint-brushes, brushes, combs or packs of raw materials. Jean-Christian Spahni's initial confusion and his biographers' reproductions are inputs for discussing how we construct archaeological evidence and write accounts in prehistory.
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    Polychromy in the Atacama Desert during the Late Intermediate Period (1000-1450 AD): pigments characterization by XRF and VNIR hyperspectral images
    (2023) Sepulveda, Marcela; Ballester, Benjamin; Cabello, Gloria; Gutierrez, Sebastian; Walter, Philippe
    The prehistory of the Atacama Desert in northern Chile has been constructed around certain traditional classes of objects, such as ceramics and lithics, following the Old World and North American standards. As such, color has been relegated to an invisible status, despite its essential visible qualities and color's importance in the region's social, symbolic, economic, and political processes. This article focuses on color and polychromy by studying objects from different funerary sites associated with the end of the regional pre-Columbian chronological sequence (ca. 1000-1500 AD). We present descriptions of the iconography and the symmetry of the motifs of these objects, and the first physicochemical characterization of the mineral paintings obtained using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry and hyperspectral imaging. With four new radiocarbon dates, we establish their chronology, associated in two cases with isotope measurements to evaluate the origin of the leather used. The research reveals a dual and simultaneous practice: while painted motifs demonstrated a visible interregional flow of information, paintings' chemical analysis testifies to a pigment production probably associated with the local exploitation of mineral coloring matter. In contrasting visual and material productions, we explore mineral pigments' social value and role during the late Atacama pre-Columbian period. Using an interdisciplinary approach regarding the materiality of color, we subsequently evaluate the social implications of mineral polychromy in this south-central Andean region.
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    Yendegaia Rockshelter, the First Rock Art Site on Tierra del Fuego Island and Social Interaction in Southern Patagonia (South America)
    (2023) Gallardo, Francisco; Cabello, Gloria; Sepulveda, Marcela; Ballester, Benjamin; Fiore, Danae; Prieto, Alfredo
    Through our research at Bahia Yendegaia on the Beagle Channel in southernmost Patagonia-the ancestral territory of the Yagan people-we discovered the first rock art site on Tierra del Fuego Island. The geometric visual images found at Yendegaia Rockshelter present motifs and compositions analogous to those recorded at other sites on the southern archipelago associated with the marine hunter-gatherer tradition. They also show graphic similarities to the rock art paintings attributed to terrestrial hunter-gatherer populations from the Pali Aike volcanic field, located on the north side of the Strait of Magellan in mainland Patagonia. Both, however, display quantitative differences, which suggest that they emerged from different visual traditions but from the same field of graphic solutions. Navigational technology enabled the canoe-faring Fuegian people to have long-distance mobility and to maintain a flow of social information mediated via visual imagery expressed in material forms, such as rock art and expressions of portable art. Ethnohistoric reports suggest a cooperative social interaction more than a competitive one. This cooperative social dynamic would have been necessary for the survival of marine societies in the harsh environmental conditions characteristic of the southern part of south Patagonia.