Cueva de las Manos

Cueva de las Manos is a National Historic Monument in Argentina, and has been since 1993. In 1995, the site became a major subject in a study of Argentina's rock art initiated by the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought (INAPL). This study led to Cueva de las Manos being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. The Cueva de las Manos, Río Pinturas, contains an exceptional assemblage of cave art, executed between 13,000 and 9,500 years ago. It takes its name (Cave of the Hands) from the stencilled outlines of human hands in the cave, but there are also many depictions of animals, such as guanacos (Lama guanicoe ), still commonly found in the region, as well as hunting scenes. The people responsible for the paintings may have been the ancestors of the historic hunter-gatherer communities of Patagonia found by European settlers in the 19th century.