ABSTRACT
This chapter develops a theoretical framework focused on the materiality of rock art. It argues against a Cartesian ontology that locates art in an exclusively ideal/symbolic realm and proposes instead several concepts and variables to research the economic and technological aspects of rock art production processes. A database of 350 Patagonian rock art sites is discussed under the light of these concepts, showing the existence of patterns in the recurrent use of specific techniques at the locality scale: some of these choices are related with types of bedrock and topography, as well as with an underlying cost-benefit rationale that seems to have been linked to the differential conservation potentials of engravings versus paintings. Thus, the patterns found in the materiality of art were linked to the accumulated agencies of human groups that have left their signatures through time, at a regional scale.
