Ideología y diferenciación social: patrones de asentamiento y localización del arte rupestre en el valle de Tena, centro de Colombia

Abstract

The debate about political power source of Muisca chiefs is far from being settled. There is evidence to support some degree of economic differentiation, parallel with arguments suggesting that perhaps the power of these chiefs was supported ideologically. However, the ideological aspect is precisely the less studied, partly because of the difficulties involved in constructing correlates of ideological manipulation. This article studies the possible process of sacralization of a set of petroglyphs located in the Valley of Tena, a region where the formation of a supra-local community in which early processes of political centralization were given, has been documented. Spatial analysis of the relationship between settlement patterns and petroglyphs at regional and community level are carried out in order to assess the possible use of cave art as an ideological control mechanism by emerging elites.