The Cueva de las Manos, or Cave of the Hands, is a rock shelter in the Rio Pinturas canyon in Patagonia, in southern Argentina. It is known for its walls covered in hand stencils, made by blowing pigment around a hand held against the rock, together with painted scenes of guanacos, rheas and hunters. The oldest paintings are thought to be around nine thousand years old, and later groups added to them over thousands of years. Most of the stencils are of left hands, and the pigments are mostly red, black, white and yellow. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999.
Before and after
- 76th century BCECats begin to live with farmers
- from c. 7,500 BCE to 5,700 BCEConstruction of Çatalhöyük
- c. 7,460 BCEEruption of Pinatubo
- c. 7,420 BCEEruption of Fisher
- c. 7,350s BCEConstruction of Cueva de las Manos
- from c. 7,101 BCE to 5,701 BCECatalhoyuk grows into a large Neolithic town
- from c. 7,090s BCE to 4,950s BCEOrigins of Jarmo
- 8th millennium BCEOrigins of Athens
- from 8th millennium BCE to 4th millennium BCEOrigins of Khirokitia
More in Civilizations & archaeology
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- from 7th millennium BCE to 2nd millennium BCEUgarit
- from c. 4,000 BCE to 3,100 BCEUruk period
- 34th century BCEWriting is invented in Mesopotamia
- from c. 3,300 BCE to 1982Origins of Qatna
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.