American Thought (INAPL). This study led to Cueva de las Manos being listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. In 2015, the land was bought from a private ranch by Rewilding Argentina, an environmental organization. In 2018, the site received its own provincial park, and as of 2020 the land is controlled directly by the state, after being donated by Rewilding Argentina. Geology The cave is in the walls of the canyon, which are composed of ignimbrite and other volcanic rocks in the Bahía Laura Group. The rocks were formed about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period as part of the larger Deseado Massif. The cave and surrounding overhangs were carved out of the rock face through differential erosion, a process by which weaker rocks are eroded away, leaving formations composed of the stronger rocks. This erosion was caused by the Pinturas River, fed by glacial runoff, which cut into the Chon Aike Formation to form the Pinturas Canyon. The cave itself is located at a fissure in the rock face that the river eroded more than the surrounding canyon wall. The site is composed of the cave itself, which is about deep, two outcroppings, and the walls at either side of the entrance. The entrance faces northeast and is about in height by wide. The paintings on the cave's wall span about . The initial height of the cave is . The ground inside has an upward slope; as a result, the height is eventually reduced to no more than . Artwork Cueva de las Manos is named for the hundreds of hand paintings stenciled into multiple collages on the rock walls. The art in the Cueva de las Manos is some of the most important art in the New World, and by far the most famous rock art in the Patagonian region. The art dates to between around 7,300 BC to 700 AD, during the Archaic period of Pre-Columbian South America. Scholars Ralph Crane and Lisa Fletcher assert that the rock art at Cueva de las Manos includes the oldest-known cave paintings in South America. The artwork decorates the interior of the cave and the surrounding cliff faces. It can be divided by subject into three basic categories: people, the animals they ate, and the human hand. Inhabitants of the site hunted guanacos for survival, a dependency reflected in their artwork by totemic-like depictions