I posted about native bovids in Patagonia several years ago. Today I found an interesting interview published in June 1969, in the Boletín de Intercomunicación de la Familia Salesiana, which appeared in a 2011 blog post. The Boletín is a magazine of the Catholic Salesian Congregation, a religious organization founded in the 1850s by Father "Don" Juan Bosco to help the young vulnerable people. The Salesians worked in Patagonia helping the Natives, starting in the 1880s. There are many Salesian schools, and even a University in Argentina.
The person that is interviewed is father Manuel Jesús Molina (link to a post with his bio), and the part I quote below deals with "bovids" and horned animals. There are no known native bovids (cows, buffalo, bison, antelopes, or goats) in Southern South America yet, there are many native myths involving horned animals.
"— Who, when, where, and how were these rock engravings and paintings done?
— The natives, the oldest of which date back to ten or eleven thousand years ago; there are other which are more recent: six thousand years. I have just concluded an investigative work at Lake Posadas, in Santa Cruz, precisely about rock engravings and paintings.
— How old are they...?
— I had already received information from a technician of the museum who had been sent there ten years ago, to investigate the area, and he brought a series of really good photographs. Later, one of our pupils -a rancher- sent me another set of photographs. When I compared them and studied them, I found that there was something that wasn't running, that wasn't clearly visible: but it gave me the impression that some of the paintings of bovids were from the Spanish period. As I alreay had photographs of bovid scenes that were much older, when I conducted my study, I imagined that those at Lake Posadas were more recent. Well, now I went back to conduct a complete study of the site, and I came across this new finding: that these bovids which I had interpreted as being from the time of the Spaniards, were clerarly from the native period, and so ancient, that I found them painted at a height of five meters [16 ft.] on the rock walls in the middle of the Cordillera...
—Painted by…?
—The Patagonian indigenous people.
—Could you explain how they could paint at five and a half meters high? How tall were the Patagonians?
—It means the following: the Patagonian didn't bother to paint high up; they painted at ground level, about half a meter up.
—How did they manage to paint? What did they use? What did they rely on? What were those paintings like?
—To explain the origin of those paintings, I only had to look at the geological formation of the region. It was once a large glacial lake. The remnants are the small lakes that remain: Posadas, Lago Salitroso, Lago Pueyrredón. But there was a time when all of that formed an immense interglacial lake. Later, as the ice retreated, the lateral moraines (which are large accumulations of rocks, rubble, clay, and mud) left behind sediments that settled against the hill. When the indigenous people arrived, they found the sediments at a height of about five meters, and—standing on the moraines—they created their paintings. Then, over time, five or six thousand years, those moraines eroded, crumbled, and were demolished by erosion. Today they are almost at that level.
—How tall were the Patagonians?
—Between 1.80 and 2.30 meters tall.
—Do those paintings date back eleven thousand years?
—Those paintings date back to an imprecise time, after the lake drained. One could say eight thousand years.
—What other interesting details about those paintings could you give us?
—The most interesting thing about these paintings is this: I've corrected a mistake I made when analyzing the previous photographs, because I had always believed that these paintings were from the Spanish period. Now I've discovered that they're not from that era, but from the old indigenous period. At first, I interpreted them as Spanish bovines: bulls and cows from the Spanish colonial era. Now—having been there and taken photographs of those paintings—I've found that they represent animals called unicorns, that is, animals with a single horn. And there isn't just one representation, but four, including a large, curved horn, which is identical to the painting I had documented near the Santa Cruz River, dating back six or seven thousand years before Christ. Now it turns out it's the same animal in four different representations: the male depicted with a horn, and the female without. It's an interesting case, because there's no unicorn animal in Argentine paleontology. Once, when Dr. Frenguelli published something about a bovid, all the Argentine paleontologists denied it. When I sent the photograph of that animal to the prehistorian Dr. Osvaldo Menghin, he didn't take it seriously; but when he later saw the diagram drawn by a technician, he said: "Now we have in hand an argument to prove that bovids, or at least unicorns, existed in Argentina, and that Frenguelli was right." The fact is, unicorns did exist in Argentina."
Analysis and Comments
The site of these paintings is Cerro de los Indios (map), close to Lake Posadas, the eastern tip of Lake Pueyrredón. Below is an image of the paleolake formed by these two lakes, plus Lake Salitroso. To the north is Lake Buenos Aires / General Carrera. During the Last Glacial Maximum, they drained eastwards across the steppe into the Atlantic (A). Now, after the ice field melted, they both drain west into the Pacific and their level has dropped (B).
Another view of the Paleolake and its evolution, the colors indicate different water levels, pale blue color marks the current lakes Pueyrredón, Posadas, Salitroso (left to right) and Ghio center-right. Number 5, marks the Cerro de los Indios, site of the unicorn paintings.
Molina mentions Joaquín Frenguelli and a publication about bovids. I found the publication, but it is not digitalized (Frenguelli, ]., 1933. Restos de Bovino en el Lujanense de Santa Fe. Anales de la Sociedad Científica de Santa Fe, 5: 14-24.) the title is "Remains of Bovine in the Santa Fe Lujanenese".
Another source about Frenguelli and his comments on bovids is a newspaper article, Were there Horses and Cows in the Prehistoric Pampas? Crítica, July 8, 1935, p.6. This article mentions Joaquín Frenguelli, Director of the La Plata Museum, and his discovery of prehistoric bovids in Argentina, it says that "The Findings of Dr. Frenguelli... nevertheless does not got beyond believing very possible, and in no way proven, the bovine origin of the remains he found." It also mentions a previous finding by Florentino Ameghino and Muñiz of the remains of primitive American oxen, though later Ameghino said they were antelopes. The photograph below is from the Critica article:
This is the link to Ameghino's bovid publication, which he die not publish with Muñiz, but with Gervais (Mamíferos Fósiles de América del Sur. Henri Gervais, F. Ameghino, 1880). The text reads:
"1ANTILOPE ARGENTINA - H Gerv and Amegh SYN.
Bos pampaeus - Amegh
We establish this species on the extremity of a horn belonging without a doubt to an antelope. It has been collected in the province of Buenos Aires.
LXX GEN. PLATATHERIUM - H Gerv and Amegh
We propose to create this generic name for a large ruminant found in fossil form in the province of Buenos Aires and represented in the collections of the Museum of Natural History of Paris by a left half of the lower jaw, some limb bones, and a portion of the hip.
PLATATHERIUM MAGNUM - H Gerv and Amegh We will call the only species of this genus Platatherium magnum and give an idea of the size of this animal by saying that the space occupied by the molars of the second dentition must be at least 0.164 m The lower half of the jaw is provided with all the teeth of the first dentition. These teeth are close to falling out and the permanent molars are already visible underneath, ready to replace them. The molars of the P magnum are very compressed, very different in shape from those of deer, but on the contrary, they seem to resemble those of antelopes. The true molars are composed of two yokes or columns and present in the external groove that divides the two parts a column quite similar to that which occupies the inner part of the upper molars of cattle. The false molars, at least of the first dentition, differ in shape from those of antelopes, resembling in their characteristics those of cervines and bovines."
Fig 4 in Torricelli's Obras Completas Vol. 9 (Complete Works of Ameghino), shown below is the "tip of one of the horns of the Platatherium pampaeum.
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025 by Austin Whittall ©
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