El Pedregal (Costa Rica)

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The archaeological site of El Pedregal is located in the northwest of Costa Rica and is approx. 20 km from the Nicaraguan border. The ground monument belongs to the Cordillera de Guanacaste, which is located in the province of the same name . It forms part of the Área de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) and, together with the latter, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1999 . The first report on the site was made by Adrián Chavez Jiménez in 1989 and is listed in the archaeological database of the National Museum of Costa Rica under the key G-540-Pd.

The ground monument and its surroundings

Figure 1: Aerial view of the Pedregal site on the slopes of the Orosí volcano

In El Pedregal there are at least 465 rock carvings that have been decorated with petroglyphs . They are distributed over several high savannas, which can be found on the Pacific slope of the Orosí volcano (Fig. 1). The main savannah is between 400 m and 800 m above sea level and is probably due to large-scale clearing. It extends over 93 hectares and is covered by scattered shrubs and trees. The entire landscape stands in a peculiar contrast to the tropical forest areas, which cover the remaining volcanic slope and, depending on their altitude, are composed of premontane dry forests and montane wet and rainforests.

Figure 2: Engraved petroglyph stone at the Pedregal site

The decorated stones are of different sizes and occur without exception in open terrain. While the largest boulders can be up to 5.20 m long, up to 4.30 m wide and up to 2.1 m high (Fig. 2), the majority of them do not have dimensions that exceed 2.00 m × 1.00 m in height. Due to their scattered position, the objects seem to form a chaotic ensemble, which consists exclusively of volcanic rock. Due to its large extent of iconographic complexity and the high number of decorated stones, the El Pedregal site is one of the most impressive archaeological monuments in Costa Rica and one of the most important rock art sites in Central America .

The rock art

In El Pedregal, in addition to bowl stones , there are mainly boulders with geometric petroglyphs (spirals, concentric circles and crosses, squares, meanders, etc.) and / or curvilinear decorations. While the latter sometimes form complex compositions, the figurative representations of the site are less numerous. They depict bimorph faces and heads or depict anthropomorphic figures. Some motifs show specific clothing and jewelry attributes. Although some anthropomorphic figures adopt dynamic poses, they rarely interact with other decors. The ensemble of figures at the Pedregal site also includes zoomorphic figures. They can embody snake, lizard, bird or tapir-like creatures. Phytomorphic motifs have not yet been registered.

Figure 3: Zoomorphic representation (snake) at the Pedregal site

The iconographic inventory of the Orosí volcano seems to originate from a local stone-working tradition. At the same time, the imagery of the Gran Nicoya region also imitates Meso and South American models. They testify to the diversity of the transcultural interrelationships in which the indigenous societies of Costa Rica were integrated before the European conquest. A large number of the motifs carved in stone can also be recognized on the pre-Columbian ceramics, which come from the north-west of Costa Rica. Their classification seems to suggest that the making of the Pedregal rock carvings dates back from the Ometepe-Sapoá period (1530–800 CE) to the Tempisque period (300 CE – 500 B.C.E.).

Study and research projects

The first systematic research project that dealt with the rock art from the Pedregal site was initiated in 1993 by the North American archaeologist Ellen Hardy under the name “ Proyecto Arqueológico Volcán Orosí ” (PAVO). The long-term project worked together with the University of California, Los Angeles and the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica and had recorded a total of 324 rock art stones by 2008. Although the recorded data was subsequently incorporated into a first geographical information system, the PAVO documentation results never reached the interested public.

Since 2018, the documentation of the petroglyph stones has been continued by the Proyecto Arqueológico Guanacaste (PRAGUE). The latter examines the role that the Pedregal site played in the transcultural networks of the Gran Nicoya region. For this purpose, PRAG created a new geographical information system, which also incorporated the data from Hardy and Vázquez. By using a drone, more than 2000 distortion-free and georeferenced orthographies could be recorded from the main savannah of the site. In addition, the project has created three-dimensional digital models of 30 rock sculptures that are based on photogrammetric recordings and can be animated. A series of virtual tours is in progress.

PRAGUE arises from the collaboration of scientific institutions based in France, Germany and Costa Rica. It is supported by the Museos del Banco Central de Costa Rica , the Área de Conservación Guanacaste , the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn (Department of Ancient American Studies ), the German Ancient American Foundation, the Institut Francais d'Amérique Centrale and the Laboratoire d'Archéologie des Amériques worn. Other project partners are the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica, the Center d'Etudes Mexicaines et Centraméricaines and the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives . The project will run for five years (2018-2022) and, in addition to the use of new technologies, will include further prospecting, archaeological test excavations and archaeometric investigations.

The implementation of the project is in the hands of Philippe Costa, Priscilla Molina Muñoz, Martin Künne and Eric Gelliot. The German sub-project is under the patronage of Prof. Karoline Noack and Prof. Nikolai Grube. All work results should be presented in the scientific environment as well as prepared for the general public.

literature

  • Jean Pierre Bergoeing: Geomorfólogia de Costa Rica . Ed .: Instituto Geográfico Nacional. San José de Costa Rica 1998.
  • Adrián Chavez Jiménez: Visita a la estación Maritza, faldas de volcán Orosí, Guanacaste . Ed .: Instituto Geográfico Nacional. San José de Costa-Rica 1989. (Unpublished report to the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica .)
  • Philippe Costa, Priscilla Molina Muñoz, Martin Künne, Eric Gelliot: Informe final de la fase preliminar del proyecto arqueológico Guanacaste 2018 . San José de Costa-Rica 2019. (Unpublished report to the Comisión Arqueológica Nacional de Costa Rica .)
  • Martin Künne, Suzanne Baker: Recent rock art studies in the Maya Region and the Intermediate Area, 2010-14 . In: Rock Art Studies: News of the World . tape 5 . Archaeopress Publishing, Oxford 2016, p. 276-284 .
  • Ellen Hardy, Ricardo Vázquez: Proyecto Arqueológico Volcán Orosi. Results of preliminary investigation of sitio Pedregal . 1993. (Unpublished report to the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica .)
  • Martin Künne, Matthias Strecker: Prefacio a la segunda edición (2008) . In: Arte rupestre de Mexico Oriental y America Central . Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2008, p. 9-21 .
  • Helmut Nuhn: Atlas preliminar de Costa Rica . Ed .: Instituto Geográfico Nacional. San José de Costa Rica 1978.
  • Andrea Stone, Martin Künne: Rock Art of Central America and Maya Mexico . In: Rock Art Studies: News of the World . tape 2 . Oxbow Books, Oxford 2003, pp. 196-213 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Künne and Strecker 2008: p. 17
  2. ↑ Costa, Molina, Künne and Gelliot 2019
  3. ↑ Nuhn 1978: p. 31
  4. ↑ Stone and Künne 2003: p. 205
  5. ↑ Künne and Baker 2016: p. 273
  6. ^ Hardy and Vázquez 1993
  7. ↑ Costa et al. 2019

Coordinates: 10 ° 58 ′ 31.8 "  N , 85 ° 30 ′ 12.6"  W.