depicted in the artwork is still found in the area today. Most prominent among the animals are the guanacos, upon which the natives depended for survival. There are repeated scenes of guanacos being surrounded by hunters, suggesting that this was the preferred hunting tactic. Cultural context Little is known about the culture of those who made these works aside from the tools they used and what they hunted. Modern research is left to speculate about their culture and what life was like in the societies that created it. However, that so many people contributed to the artwork for thousands of years suggests the cave held great significance for the artists who painted on its walls. The art shows the people of this area had a symbolic element to their culture. Regardless of its purpose, the artwork played a key role in the collective social memories of the peoples who inhabited the area, with earlier groups influencing later ones through a narrative spanning millennia. Important aspects of the culture of the hunter-gatherers are shown in the themes of the art, such as the reproductive cycles of guanacos and collective hunting. The site also bore a deep social and personal connection to the artists, as the same groups returned to the location seasonally and created artwork at the cave, which was a kind of ritual. Purpose The exact function or purpose of this art is unknown, although some research has suggested that it may have had a religious or ceremonial purpose as well as a decorative one. Some scholars, such as Merry Wiesner-Hanks, have suggested that handprints are indicative of the human desire to be remembered, or to record that they were there. However, Jean Clottes has challenged this perspective, stating that "the likelihood of such behavior is virtually zero." Instead, Clottes asserts that prehistoric shamanism is the most plausible explanation for the purpose of the artwork, as part of "ceremonies about which we will never know anything", although he acknowledges that this hypothesis does not explain everything, and that much work still needs to be done. Another hypothesis posits that the art served as boundary markers between peoples, showing territoriality and ensuring the cooperation of others by functioning as aggregation sites. There are also hypotheses that the works were part of hunting magic, with Alan Thorne suggesting that they might have been created as part of efforts to influence the number