Astronomy and rock art in Mexico

Abstract

Many traditions involving sky observation among the Amerindian cultures of prehistoric Mexico are associated with rock art. This relation appears in the form of iconographic representations of celestial objects, graphic images which are culturally associated with these sky objects, and the location and orientation of rock art images within the natural landscape. The origins of the Classic period Mesoamerican astrocalendrical system reach back to an earlier phase based on a mobile hunting and gathering economy. For this phase, rock art is often one of the principal surviving artifacts and indicates how the night sky was carefully observed as a guide to the cyclical rhythms of the natural environment.​