First inhabitants

Before the European arrival, the territory of Santa Cruz was occupied by native population - belonging to the Tehuelches - nomadic guanaco and choique hunters. Their transportable camps were placed in warmer spots, like valleys, or close to the woods. In their journeys, the first inhabitants of Santa Cruz, drew paths in two directions; one, longitudinal, for the inter-tribal communications, and others, parallel to the rivers, communicating the valleys with the coast. The location of many of their old camps, nowadays are occupied by small towns and cities, as well as the old paths are now national and provincial routes. At the coast was, where Magallanes found them.

Human Cultural Heritage
Caves still keep paintings of the tehuelches Indians and their predecessors, 9 thousand years old.
Surrounded by the gossip of the southern winds, within the folding of its walls, the "Cañadon de las Pinturas", holds the cave paintings at the "Cueva de las Manos", where 9000 years ago, the native people stamped their art and life testimony

Its fame did not come alone. Those hands, guanacos and geometrical shapes painted on the rocks are the most ancient expression known of the south American population. That is how the UNESCO named it in 1999, Human Cultural Heritage.

The location, lonely, in the middle of the stanta cruz steppe, helps it stay almost inteact. The most nearby village, Perito Moreno, is 163 kilometers away. And closer to the mountain chain, is "Los Antiguos", the place where the ancient people of the native population used to rest. All of this area, and not only the cave, including the National Park Perito Moreno (different that the National Park Los Glaciares, which preserves the glacier Perito Moreno) is very rich archaeological and place. The valleys, lakes, canyons keep the cave paintings and different types of archaeological sites, of men who walked through the fields 14000 years BC, and the fossils are proof of the sea that was part of this place, long before they live here.

In fact, the locality of Perito Moreno is called the Archaeological Capital of the Santa Cruz province.
The caves of the river Pinturas still maintain the work of the tehuelches indians and their ancestors. Its age is 9300 years old, according to the investigations. It is possible to see, besides hands painted in negative, guanaco images and geometrical shapes, groups of lines, spots and solar images. The most important is the "Cueva de las Manos" (Hands Cave), 24 meters deep, 15 meters at the entrance and 10 meters high.
Paintings are protected from the sun and wind by the irregular walls in the entrance.

It comprises three cultural levels, from the year 7370 BC to the year 1000 of our era, approximately; the painting could have been done in a little period of time or a large one as well.

The color of the paintings depend on the raw materials found nearby, but the majority are painted in red (hematite), white (calcareous), black (charcoal) and yellow (yellow ocher).