<< Other Photo Pages >> Casita de Piedra - Cave or Rock Shelter in Panama
Submitted by coldrum on Saturday, 26 January 2013 Page Views: 5799
Natural PlacesSite Name: Casita de Piedra Alternative Name: BO-1Country: Panama Type: Cave or Rock Shelter
Nearest Town: Boquete
Latitude: 8.742222N Longitude: 82.285556W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
Internal Links:
External Links:
I have visited· I would like to visit
Andy B has visited here
Casita de Piedra is a small rock shelter situated on the Pacific slope of the Central Cordillera of Western Panama, in the province of Chiriquí. It is located 37 km north of the provincial capital David and 17 km east of the town of Boquete. The shelter is formed by the overhang of a huge granitic boulder, which provides approximately 24 m2of floor space behind the dripline.
Ruth Dickau, a Leverhulme post-doctoral fellow at the University of Exeter in England unearthed the cache of stones in the Casita de Piedra rock shelter in 2007, while based at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. A piece of charcoal found directly underneath the cache was radiocarbon dated to 4,800 years ago. A second fragment of charcoal in a level above the cached was dated to 4,000 years ago.
One of the stones (the dacite) was humanly modified into the shape of a cylinder and the three pyrite stones show evidence of use. The variety of lithologies represented indicates that the stones came from multiple geological contexts outside the immediate vicinity of the rockshelter, but probably within the young volcanic belt of western Panama.
The researchers propose that these stones were specially selected for specific practitioners of a ritual, in a small-scale society that probably moved residence frequently.
“There was no evidence of a disturbance or pit feature to suggest someone had come along, dug a hole and buried the stones at a later date,” Dickau said. “The fact that the stones were found in a tight pile suggests they were probably deposited inside a bag or basket, which subsequently decomposed.”
Indigenous groups who lived near this site include the Ngäbe, Buglé, Bribri and Cabécar, and the now-extinct Dorasque peoples. Shamans or healers (curanderos) belonging to these and other present-day first Americans in Central and South America often include special stones among the objects they use for ritual practices. Stones containing crystal structures are linked to transformative experiences in many of their stories.
Anthony Ranere from Temple University in Philadelphia first identified and excavated Casita de Piedra in an archaeological survey of western Panama in the early 1970s. He found that the small rockshelter had been repeatedly occupied over thousands of years and used for a variety of domestic activities. Dickau returned to the site to expand excavations from December 2006 to January 2007.
Dickau's group radiocarbon dated charcoal from the base levels of the shelter and discovered it was first occupied more than 9,000 years ago, much earlier than Ranere originally proposed. Her research also showed that the people who would have benefitted from the shaman's knowledge practiced small-scale farming.
This research project was authorized by Panama's National Institute of Culture and funded by the Smithsonian and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Source: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Read the full paper here (PDF), 10MB
A 4,000-year-old shaman’s stone cache at Casita de Piedra, western Panama
Dickau, R., Redwood, S.D., Cooke, R.G. 2012.
Archaeol Anthropol Sci. doi 10.1007/s12520-012-0112-5
You may be viewing yesterday's version of this page. To see the most up to date information please register for a free account.
Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.
Nearby Images from Flickr
The above images may not be of the site on this page, but were taken nearby. They are loaded from Flickr so please click on them for image credits.
Click here to see more info for this site
Nearby sites
Click here to view sites on an interactive map of the areaKey: Red: member's photo, Blue: 3rd party photo, Yellow: other image, Green: no photo - please go there and take one, Grey: site destroyed
Download sites to:
KML (Google Earth)
GPX (GPS waypoints)
CSV (Garmin/Navman)
CSV (Excel)
To unlock full downloads you need to sign up as a Contributory Member. Otherwise downloads are limited to 50 sites.
Turn off the page maps and other distractions
Nearby sites listing. In the following links * = Image available
51.8km N 11° Cerro Brujo* Ancient Village or Settlement
73.3km W 262° Neily Carving
75.9km W 277° San Vito Carving
108.2km WNW 290° Bolas* Carving
111.2km WNW 284° Museo Comunitario de Rey Curré Carving
128.8km W 281° El Silencio Carving
130.7km W 281° Parque de Palmar Norte* Carving
130.9km W 281° Osa Technical College Carving
131.0km W 276° Parque Central de Sierpe Carving
131.7km W 280° Parque Las Esferas Carving
132.4km W 278° Finca 6* Carving
132.9km W 281° Batambal Carving
133.1km W 279° Finca 5 Carving
138.4km W 281° Grijalba 2 Carving
139.5km W 281° Ciudad Cortés Carving
206.1km NW 312° Guayabo National Monument* Ancient Village or Settlement
215.4km NW 317° Las Mercedes* Ancient Village or Settlement
226.8km NW 305° Tres Rios Barrow Cemetery
232.1km NW 315° Liceo Barrow Cemetery
236.2km NW 304° San José Supreme Court Carving
236.3km NW 304° Plaza de la Justicia Carving
236.5km NW 304° Museo Nacional de Costa Rica Museum
236.6km NW 304° San José Legislative Assembly Carving
237.7km NW 304° Parque de la Merced Carving
240.8km WNW 299° Orosi* Artificial Mound
View more nearby sites and additional images