Evidence of religious practices and witchcraft in the rock art of the Tulum Valley (San Juan)

Abstract

In this article, twenty-six cave representations from five sites in San Juan closely linked to references of Christian iconography are identified and analyzed. In order to understand its production, an attempt is made to specify its agency and social context of production. To examine this last aspect, the possible development of ritual activities is explored by applying the principles enunciated by Ross and Davidson (2006) for their detection in sites with rock art. As a result, it is proposed that the framework for understanding the distribution and creation of the analyzed record would be given by the development of religious and witchcraft activities, in some cases in the struggle for control of certain spaces.