ROCK ART ON THE ATACAMA DESERT COAST (NORTHERN CHILE): ITINERANCIES AND PRE-HISTORY

The rock art of the Atacama Desert coast (northern Chile) has not been thoroughly investigated. Only a few reports have illustrated the presence of this archaeological evidence on the coast. Because of this, very little progress has been made regarding its spatial distribution, formal variability, and chronology. In this article, we offer a summary of our research, which contributes to a first general picture of coastal rock art. Through this, we can begin to offer social and cultural propositions regarding the movement of ideas, objects, and people in a marine hunter-gatherer environment that remained active from the early Holocene to the Colonial Period.