Persistencias y concomitancias visuales en las figurinas arqueológicas del septentrión venezolano: Una comparación iconográfica preliminar

This article presents a comparative approach to the visual logics of figurines, effigy vessels, rattles, and pendants, mostly ceramic, that proliferated in northern Venezuela from approximately the first millennium BC until the arrival of Europeans to the American continent. Several iconographies found in the northwest of the country, the Andean region, the llanos, the north-central region, and the lower Orinoco are compared transversally, starting from the compositional elements that articulate the figures. These are composed from an anthropomorphic base (conjunction of trunk, legs, arms, head, etc.), which can also be combined with zoomorphic elements that could refer to nonhuman entities or to shamanic transformation processes. I will focus on the association of some compositional elements with the sexual denotation of the iconographies. These comparisons allow us to recognize persistencies and concomitances across large time spans and geographical distances, and to contribute to dismantling some preconceptions that we consider restrictive regarding the meanings associated with female visual manifestations.