Thick slabs of stone are set at a 30-degree angle into the side of a hill, cloaked in a tangle of undergrowth. Known as El Porvenir, this pre-Columbian indigenous site in a remote part of western Venezuela has never been truly examined by archaeologists. And now it looks like it may never be.
The government plans to flood the valley in which El Porvenir lies to create a hydroelectric dam, wiping out the stones and leaving archaeologists unable to determine whether the site was built by a local indigenous tribe. True examination of the site has been limited due to the remote location and difficult working conditions .
Archaeologist Reina Duran, director of the Tachira Museum in the state capital San Cristobal, said she first visited El Porvenir in 1979 and worked on it each dry season for 10 years. “During those years when we came and went it was overgrown and full of mud again,” she said. “Every time we arrived at the site we had to begin the work again.”
Today, only a small patch of the 25-meter-wide by 50-meter-high structure can be seen. It is flanked on both sides by streams that flow into the nearby Dorados River, or Golden River. Strong debate has prevailed, ever since a 1977 news story, over its origins and uses. Some biologists claimed it was a natural geological formation but that’s not a theory shared by Duran.
She believes it was a holy site for the local Pregonero tribe. Little is known about the indigenous tribes that lived in the region but most are believed to have arrived either from neighboring Colombia or from the Amazon in the south. Duran believes the evidence she has gathered so far indicates that the Pregoneros subsisted on agricuture and may be related to the still existing Arhuacos of Colombia. She believes they moved on to the Venezuelan "llanos," or cattle plains, after the arrival of the Spanish.
She says the cut of the stones appears to be man-made. The existence of smaller stones to fill in gaps among the paving slabs seems to support her theory.
Duran’s case was further strengthened by the discovery of a similar structure at the site of an indigenous village near the local town of Pregonero.
For more, including photographs, see Global Post.
Something is not right. This message is just to keep things from messing up down the road