José Mariano Rotea

José Mariano Rotea (1732–1799) was a Jesuit missionary on the Baja California peninsula who played a key role in the rediscovery of the peninsula's prehistoric Great Murals rock art.

Rotea was born in Mexico City and served as missionary at San Ignacio in what is now the state of Baja California Sur, Mexico, from 1759 until the Jesuits were expelled from New Spain in 1768. He lived in exile in Bologna, Italy, until his death.[1][2]

Rotea wrote an account of his observations and speculations concerning the remains of the peninsula's prehistoric inhabitants. This was included in a manuscript by his fellow missionary Miguel del Barco[3] and published by the Jesuit historian Francisco Javier Clavijero.[4] One subject of Rotea's account was an hypothesized race of prehistoric giants, supposedly attested by oral traditions, outsized living areas, and paintings placed high on the walls or ceilings of rock shelters. In his investigations into this matter, Rotea carried out what were probably the earliest archaeological excavations on the peninsula, in order to recover bones from a supposed giant. Of more lasting influence was his first reporting of the existence large painted human and animal figures in the region's rock shelters, in a style later labelled the Great Murals.[5][6]

References
  1. Ducrue, Benno. 1967. Ducrue's Account of the Expulsion of the Jesuits from Lower California, edited by Ernest J. Burrus, p. 19. Jesuit Historical Institute, Rome.
  2. Crosby, Harry W. 1994. Antigua California: Mission and Colony on the Peninsular Frontier, 1697–1768, p. 409. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque.
  3. Barco, Miguel del. 1973. Historia natural y crónica de la antigua California, edited by Miguel León-Portilla, pp. 210–212. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City.
  4. Clavijero, Francisco Javier. 1937. The History of [Lower] California, pp. 85–86. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.
  5. Crosby, Harry W. 1987. The Cave Paintings of Baja California: Discovering the Great Murals of an Unknown People. Revised edition. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego.
  6. Laylander, Don. 2014. "The Beginnings of Prehistoric Archaeology in Baja California, 1732-1913". Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 50(1&2):3–5.
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