Title: Exploraciones arqueológicas de un paisaje prehispánico con arte rupestre en el Tolima
Description: We began the study of pre-Hispanic rock expressions or representations in Tolima in 1971, when we undertook the archaeological exploration of the upper basin of the Cabrera River, in the Vereda de Ambicá, Municipality of Dolores, on the occasion of the fortuitous discovery of a pre-Hispanic cemetery; research that would occupy us for the next forty years, until its culmination in 2011 and whose results were exposed in a publication that we titled: BABADUHOS - Exploraciones Arqueológicas en el Alto Río Cabrera, Tolima (2014), under the editorial seal of the Universidad del Tolima. In this region, constituted mainly by the basin formed by the western slope of the eastern mountain range and the eastern slope of the Cuchilla de Altamizal, Wewere locating, as the prospecting work progressed, numerous sites where rock occurrences were recorded. Of these, we have made a partial description in a chapter of the aforementioned publication, which we consider have some possible relationship with the technology of statuary carved in sandstone rocks, characteristic of the archaeological record of the Cabrera River and, in particular, of the funerary site excavated in Ambicá. But, while we advanced in the exploration of the Cabrera River, stopped many times by the incidences of the armed conflict that forced us to suspend the works for long periods, we were exploring other regions of the upper valley of the Magdalena River in the jurisdiction of the departments of Tolima and north of Huila. These works were executed without a master program, given the financial difficulties of the University in the sixties to eighties and the fact that there was no department of specialized studies that would allow to have the adequate infrastructure. This we constituted as the Anthropological Museum was formed, until the nineties when we could present to the institution formal projects already oriented by an Archaeological Exploration Program.

We began the study of pre-Hispanic rock expressions or representations in Tolima in 1971, when we undertook the archaeological exploration of the upper basin of the Cabrera River, in the Vereda de Ambicá, Municipality of Dolores, on the occasion of the fortuitous discovery of a pre-Hispanic cemetery; research that would occupy us for the next forty years, until its culmination in 2011 and whose results were exposed in a publication that we titled: BABADUHOS - Exploraciones Arqueológicas en el Alto Río Cabrera, Tolima (2014), under the editorial seal of the Universidad del Tolima. In this region, constituted mainly by the basin formed by the western slope of the eastern mountain range and the eastern slope of the Cuchilla de Altamizal, Wewere locating, as the prospecting work progressed, numerous sites where rock occurrences were recorded. Of these, we have made a partial description in a chapter of the aforementioned publication, which we consider have some possible relationship with the technology of statuary carved in sandstone rocks, characteristic of the archaeological record of the Cabrera River and, in particular, of the funerary site excavated in Ambicá. But, while we advanced in the exploration of the Cabrera River, stopped many times by the incidences of the armed conflict that forced us to suspend the works for long periods, we were exploring other regions of the upper valley of the Magdalena River in the jurisdiction of the departments of Tolima and north of Huila. These works were executed without a master program, given the financial difficulties of the University in the sixties to eighties and the fact that there was no department of specialized studies that would allow to have the adequate infrastructure. This we constituted as the Anthropological Museum was formed, until the nineties when we could present to the institution formal projects already oriented by an Archaeological Exploration Program.
Subjects: Indians of South America, Antiquities, Petroglyphs, Rock paintings
Places: Colombia, Tolima (Department), Tolima (Colombia : Department)