What is the name of the cave in Patagonia famous for its prehistoric hand stencils?
Answer
Cueva de las Manos
The cave in Patagonia famous for its prehistoric hand stencils is Cueva de las Manos.
Cueva de las Manos—Spanish for “Cave of the Hands”—lies in a canyon of the Pinturas River in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Its walls preserve hand stencils made by spraying pigment around hands placed against the rock, along with human figures, geometric designs, hunting scenes and images of guanacos.
The artwork was produced over many generations, with the site’s rock art dating broadly from about 13,000 to 9,500 years ago. That long span makes it more than a single prehistoric mural: it is a record of repeated visits by hunter-gatherer communities in southern Patagonia.
The name can be confused with famous European painted caves such as Lascaux, Altamira and Chauvet. Cueva de las Manos is especially notable for its dense collections of outlined hands and its exceptional preservation. UNESCO inscribed it as a World Heritage Site in 1999.