Top 12 motifs of the La Lindosa rock art
Twelve of the most fascinating images painted in the rock art of La Lindosa
Section of rock art on the Principal panel (2021-11-15) by Pete Kelsey, SEARCHUniversity of Exeter
Motifs and meanings
The panels of rock art at La Lindosa contain many repeated motifs, and the art clearly has its own grammar. International archaeologists and rock art researchers are working together with local indigenous people to try to understand the meanings of the images.
1. Dancers
La Lindosa features a number of striking paintings of people dancing in groups.
This painting depicts people with numerous long arms, which may also represent palm fronds used in Amazonian rituals to produce a rhythmic swishing sound to accompany dances.
Some groups of dancers are shown holding hands, or with arms over each other's shoulders.
Dance is a central part of Amazonian society, featuring alongside music and singing in many important rituals. Group dances bring the community together to pass on vital knowledge and stories, and to help shamans to contact the spirit world.
These dances follow repeated regular patterns, which may perhaps be recorded in some of the geometric shapes shown in the paintings.
Some viewers see dances in the paintings which resemble particular dances still performed in the Amazon today.
This painting from the Dantas panel shows two groups of dancers, male (left) and female (right). The men wave leaves and wear penis cases. One wears feathers. Rock art expert Fernando Urbina suggests this may show a female initiation still practised by the Sikuani community.
2. Handprints
Handprints are found all around La Lindosa's rock art, sometimes with gaps or spirals made by removing paint from the palm.
Handprints are one of the oldest and most widespread forms of rock art in the world, offering a direct and moving connection with the people who made them.
Researcher Carlos Castano-Uribe has noticed that in nearby Chiribiquete, handprints are placed around another image as a way of affirming its power, or perhaps to add a finishing touch to the painting.
Local shamans add that making handprints can form part of their apprenticeship or initiation ceremonies.
3. Dots
Clusters of dots produced by finger-painting are characteristic motifs in the rock art of La Lindosa. Some are arranged in lines or other shapes; others seem more haphazard.
In many cases, dots appear next to images of animals, like this deer (left) and monkey (right). Many rock art specialists suggest that these dots represent a flow of energy or power, or sometimes a type of magical substance believed to manifest around the body of a shaman.
4. Deer
Of all the diverse wildlife which crowds into the paintings at La Lindosa, deer are the most numerous. From the shape of their antlers, two different species can be identified: the white-tailed deer with branched antlers, and the brown brocket with shorter unbranched antlers.
5. Tapirs
Tapirs also appear frequently in La Lindosa rock art. In many Amazonian cultures, tapirs represent knowledge and wisdom, and some regard them as ancestors and storytellers. Tapirs, according to the Nukak group, have human forms in the underworld but dress as humans in our world.
Tapirs on the Dantas Panel (2022) by ERC LASTJOURNEY projectUniversity of Exeter
This pair of tapirs dominates the top part of the Dantas Panel, and gives the panel its name (Dantas is the common name in Spanish for tapir).
6. Bats
The caves of Cerro Azul are home to large colonies of bats, and pictures of them are found on the Principal Panel. In Amazonian folklore, bats are linked to the underworld, along with night time shamanic practices, dreams, and the dead.
Detail of rock art on the Principal panel (2021-11-15) by Pete Kelsey, SEARCHUniversity of Exeter
Bats
Of all the rock art panels on the hillsides at Cerro Azul, only the Principal Panel contains images of these nocturnal flying mammals.
7. Snakes
Snakes appear all around La Lindosa paintings, both as more naturalistic images and as wavy, zigzagged and ladder-shaped (scalariform) lines. Clusters of diamonds shown in geometric designs also resemble snakeskin.
Detail of the Las Dantas rock art panel (2021-11-12) by Pete Kelsey, SEARCHUniversity of Exeter
Plumed serpent
Many of the snakes in these paintings may be the anaconda, the world’s largest snake, which is linked to the creation of the universe in Amazonian shamanism. In addition, images of serpents with short legs and feathered heads are common in La Lindosa.
8. Human-animal connections
Human figures are often shown in connection with animals in these paintings - sometimes literally connected by a painted line. Some researchers see these images as hunting scenes, though they are very different from the hunts with spears shown in rock art at other nearby sites.
Dancers on the Las Dantas Panel (2022) by ERC LASTJOURNEY projectUniversity of Exeter
Humans are also painted in attitudes of veneration towards animals. Here, people appear to worship the huge tapirs which dominate the Dantas panel.
9. Plants
The people of the Amazon have identified thousands of species of plants and rely on them for food, medicine, and shamanic rituals. In rock art, plants may symbolise new life, growth, and fertility.
Plant-human hybrid
Here, a plant appears to be drawn with human legs, perhaps showing a shaman transforming into a plant spirit.
10. Geometric lines
La Lindosa’s rock art is full of geometric lines and patterns, which have been interpreted in many ways - as knowledge bequeathed to humans by plants and animals, or even as the product of visions caused by psychoactive plants.
These curling spiral shapes often called ‘Greek frets’ mostly appear near human figures. They may represent speech or language.
11. Clusters of shapes
In these motifs named racimos (clusters) by rock art expert Castaño-Uribe, groups of shapes hang from a single line to form nets or chains. Some clusters of diamond shapes resemble snakeskin. Many of these motifs can be found in today's indigenous crafts and body painting.
Diamond clusters
Many of these geometric motifs have significance in the region's contemporary indigenous groups. For example, for the Tukano, vertical clusters of diamonds can represent a line of familial descent or ideas of fertility and social continuity.
12. The Sun
The Sun holds a special place in local Amazonian mythology. The Sun-Father is seen as the creative force of the universe, from which everything begins. Sun motifs are associated with power and fertility.
