Semiotics, social landscape and rock art during Inka period in Aconcagua upper basin, central Chile

Abstract

This article presents a semiotic approach to study three petroglyphs sites in Cerro Tuququre, Valle de Putaen-do, central Chile with the aim of detecting internal spatial structuring patterns and determine the role of these places in the construction of social landscape during Incas occupation in the region. A theoretic-methodological frame based on Pierce’s semiotics is proposed, emphasizing two different levels of analysis: syntactic and prag-matic. The results from syntactic analysis show that there is a dual structure constructed by the same spatial logic in the three sites. To achieve pragmatic analysis, regional contextual data and previous stylistic analysis are considered, taking into account two different levels of structural variation in rock art: landscape and style. Some contextual similarities with another petroglyph site of the region suggests that both places played an active role in the re-signification of social landscape in Aconcagua upper basin during Inca expansion. In this context, stylistic changes may reflect the circulation of messages under a novel situation shared with other regions of Collasuyu, which produced the modification of iconographic codes.