Recent Landslides
Landslides (2017) 14:1195–1205 Irasema Alcántara-Ayala I Ricardo J. Garnica-Peña I Leobardo Domínguez-Morales I
DOI 10.1007/s10346-017-0808-9 Alberto E. González-Huesca I Alberto Calderón-Vega
Received: 29 September 2016
Accepted: 13 February 2017
Published online: 3 March 2017 The La Pintada landslide, Guerrero, Mexico: hints
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017
from the Pre-Classic to the disasters of modern times
Abstract A landslide triggered by rainfall derived from hurricane
Manuel took place on Independence Day, 16 September 2013, in the
small village of La Pintada in Guerrero state, Mexico. There were
78 fatalities, 8 missing persons and 8 injured. Estimated cumula-
tive rainfall in La Pintada during 1–16 September was 278.6 mm.
The depth of the failure surface was 8 m in the middle and lower
areas and 10–14 m at the top. Landslide volume was estimated at
∼125,000 m3. This paper provides a general account of the factors
leading to hillslope instability in the region of La Pintada in terms
of hazard understanding and offers a hypothetical view of the
historical-cultural aspects of the foundation of the village, as a
potential expression of past landslide activity.
Keywords La Pintada landslide . Rainfall triggered . Hurricane
Manuel . Petroglyphs . Granite . Mexico
Introduction
Landslide disasters occur not only in developing countries but also
in the developed world (Alcántara-Ayala 2002); nonetheless, their
impact is greater in areas where vulnerability of exposed commu-
nities is higher. In the same way but at a smaller scale, within the
boundaries of a country, the frequency and impact of landslide
disasters are greater in marginalized communities that lack coher-
ent socio-territorial development and management. Mexico is no
exception. Quite frequently, especially during the rainy season, a
series of small-sized and medium-sized landslide disasters occur
in exposed communities situated in mountain areas, where levels
of poverty, inequality, marginalization and vulnerability are high.
The cumulative effects of such disasters enhance the consequences
of larger events (Velásquez and Rosales 1999; Lavell 2008) and
become major and unending barriers against development
(Maskrey 1993) and sustainability.
In September 2013, extensive floods and thousands of landslides
were triggered by the precipitation derived from the simultaneous
landfall of two hurricanes, Manuel and Ingrid (Fig. 1), affecting
exposed vulnerable communities across 20 of Mexico’s 31 states; of
these, 19 were officially declared disaster areas and 1 an emergency
(CENAPRED 2014; SEDESOL 2014). In spite of the extended na-
tionwide damage, but not surprisingly, the most devastating con-
sequences took place in Guerrero, the second-poorest state of
Mexico, where 2.4 million people (69.7% of its total population)
live in poverty, and for 1.1 million of these (31.7% of the total), the
poverty is extreme (CONEVAL 2013).
It was in Guerrero state that the most disastrous landslide
occurred, on Independence Day, 16 September, in the village of
La Pintada. The landslide involved 78 fatalities, 8 missing persons
and 8 injured. The purpose of the present paper is twofold: to
provide a general account of the factors leading to hillslope insta-
bility in the region of La Pintada in terms of hazard understanding
and to offer a hypothetical view of the historical-cultural aspects of
the foundation of the town, as a potential expression of past
landslide activity.
La Pintada village: the hazard of a place
La Pintada, situated in the north-eastern sector of the municipality
of Atoyac de Álvarez, 62 km NW of Acapulco and 257 km SW of
Mexico City, belongs to the physiographic province of Sierra
Madre del Sur, in the Costa Grande region, in the state of Guerrero
(Fig. 2). Owing to the subduction of the Cocos plate beneath the
North American plate, seismicity is high in this area; about 25% of
seismic events that take place in Mexico occur in the state of
Guerrero (SSN 2007), where the Guerrero seismic gap, an area
with a high probability of a large subduction earthquake (M > 8),
is located (Kostoglodov et al. 2001).
From 1998 to 2015, six earthquakes M ≥ 5.5 have occurred near
the area of interest (National Seismological Service (SSN) online
catalogue) (Table 1). The most severe event close to La Pintada was
an earthquake of M 7.2 and 10-km depth that occurred on 18 April
2014. It was felt in 12 states and in Mexico City, with Guerrero
being the most affected; Atoyac de Álvarez and 42 other munici-
palities were declared disaster areas (DOF 2014). According to the
Civil Protection Unit of Guerrero, approximately 1300 houses were
affected, 13 landslides occurred along the roads, and structural
damage was also registered in 11 governmental buildings, three
hospitals, four hotels, three schools and two churches (Gobierno
de Guerrero 2014).
The Sierra Madre del Sur is an isolated mountainous region of
high endemism and richness of vegetation. The predominant veg-
etation includes pine oak and cloud forest in the area of interest
and tropical deciduous forests towards the coast. It is also a
catchment of very high importance for the coastal urban area
owing to the presence of the Balsas River (Consejo Forestal
Estatal de Guerrero 2008). Land use is concentrated on forestry
and agriculture. Forest fires are quite common in the region and
are mainly anthropogenic, including those induced by land use
changes.
The municipality of Atoyac de Álvarez lies within the Costa
Grande hydrologic region, which is composed of three main wa-
tersheds: the Ixtapa, Coyuquillas and Atoyac rivers. The Atoyac
has a catchment area of 914 km2, with an annual runoff of 835.6
million m3. It is characterized by hills and mountains and severe
erosion. The northern sector comprises a series of low hills along
the Pacific, whereas the southern sector is formed by coastal
plains. The predominant climate is warm humid and semi-warm
humid. The rainy season is during the summer months of June,
July, August and September, and annual mean precipitation is
1236 mm (INAFED 2010).
The southerly slopes of the Sierra Madre del Sur consist of
primarily arc-related rocks of the Xolapa Complex (Campa and
Coney 1983; Ducea et al. (2004), also identified as the Chatino
Landslides 14 & (2017) 1195
 Recent Landslides
Fig. 1 Tracking and cumulative precipitation produced by hurricanes Manuel and Ingrid, September 2013 (source: National Hurricane Center/Tropical Prediction Center/
National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Weather Service/NOAA/U.S. Department of Commerce 2013)
terrane (Sedlock et al. 1993). The Xolapa Complex was first defined
as a sequence of metasedimentary rocks (De Cserna 1965), situated
along the Pacific Coast over an area 600 km long by 50–150 km
wide. It comprises a high-grade metamorphic to migmatitic
orthogneiss and paragneiss and a series of typically non-
deformed plutons that outcrop parallel to the coast line, also
interpreted as a magmatic arc (Ortega-Gutiérrez 1981).
The widespread growth of the Oligocene, granitic, granodioritic
and tonalitic plutons of the Xolapa Complex has been dated
between 35 and 27 Ma (Herrmann et al. 1994). However, a more
recent study (Valencia et al. 2009) indicated that most granitic
plutons from a transect located at the municipality of Atoyac de
Álvarez, mainly composed of quartz, plagioclase, biotite, horn-
blende and magnetite in varying proportions, yielded 52.7–
58.1 Ma crystallization ages and that only one of them revealed a
younger age of 40 Ma.
As in other granite areas of Guerrero, including Acapulco Bay,
the major morphological character of this landscape commonly
comprises rocky hillcrests, tors, convex rock slope sections and
boulder piles (Migoń and Alcántara-Ayala 2008). Features charac-
teristic of La Pintada are granite domes and corestones resulting
from high-resistance rock wedges excavated from the saprolite;
exfoliation due to the opening of sheeting joints is widely ob-
served, since deep spherical weathering is a major contributor to
granite disintegration and the formation of colluvia (Fig. 3).
From a social perspective, La Pintada is regarded as a community
with a high level of marginalization or social exclusion. In 2010, it
had 628 inhabitants; 21.12% of those aged 15 years or more were
1196 Landslides 14 & (2017)
illiterate, and 71.12% had not finished primary school studies; 52.23%
had no access to health services. Of 123 dwellings, 11.38% had no toilet
facilities, 61.79% had an earthen floor, 4.07% lacked electricity, 7.32%
lacked piped water, and 12.2% lacked sewerage systems (INEGI
2010). One of the main economic activities at municipal level is
agriculture, including crops such as maize, watermelon, forage sor-
ghum, beans, coffee and tropical fruits. Coffee used to be the main
source of income in La Pintada; however, the current crisis in
international coffee prices has considerably affected former cooper-
atives as value has plummeted, and these coffee growers are small
holders who have not been able to make more solid investments to
guarantee production and a reliable market.
The La Pintada landslide
Manuel, a category 1 hurricane (Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind
scale) made landfall as a tropical storm on the southern coast of
Mexico, dissipated and soon after was redeveloped in the Gulf of
California, reaching the mainland as a hurricane on 18 September
2013 (Pasch and Zelinsky 2014).
Derived from the rainfall generated by the trajectory of Manuel
(see Fig. 1), thousands of landslides were triggered in the state of
Guerrero. Of particular significance was their impact in the area
where the villages of Paraíso, La Pintada and El Edén are situated
(Fig. 2); no less than 200 landslides affected numerous dwellings,
and main roads were severely damaged; lack of communication
lasted for several days.
From 11 to 15 September, the period of the most intense precip-
itation, the highest cumulative rainfall, 729.5 mm, was recorded in
Fig. 2 Location of La Pintada, in the municipality of Atoyac, Guerrero, Mexico

the town of Altamirano, Guerrero (241 m a.s.l.), situated in the
north-eastern sector of the state. Along the coast, 373.4 and
345.4 mm were recorded in Acapulco (20 m a.s.l.) and 267.2 mm
in San Luis La Loma (20 m a.s.l.). Further into the mountainous
area, 224.2 mm were recorded at Chilpancingo (1253 m a.s.l.) and
201.6 mm at Chilapa de Álvarez (1400 m a.s.l.) (Table 2).
On 15 September, at approximately 16:00 h local time, two small
landslides took place along the main road entering the town of La
Pintada village (1073 m a.s.l.). Precipitation records were not
available owing to the lack of rain gauges within the area of
interest. Nonetheless, rainfall estimations based on imagery at
spatial and temporal resolutions of 8 km and 30 min, respectively,

Table 1 Earthquakes M ≥ 5.5 registered within the Atoyac de Álvarez región from 1998 to 2015 (based on National Seismological Service (SSN) online catalogue)
Date Latitude Longitude Depth Magnitude Zone Distance from La
(N) (W) (km) Pintada
10 May 2014 17.06 −100.95 12 6.1 38 km SW of Tecpan, Guerrero 89.098 km
8 May 2014 17.11 −100.87 17 6.4 28 km SW of Tecpan, Guerrero 79.195 km
18 April 2014 17.18 −101.19 10 7.2 40 km S of Petatlan, Guerrero 110.311 km
6 November 17.08 −100.14 9 5.6 10 km NW of Coyuca de Benítez, 29.647 km
2007 Guerrero
13 April 2007 17.09 −100.44 41 6.3 13 km S of Atoyac de Álvarez, 40.596 km
Guerrero
7 October 16.98 −100.16 10 6.1 Coast of Guerrero 40.578 km
2001

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 Recent Landslides

Fig. 3 La Pintada is characterized by granite landscapes, on which the presence of corestones (a) is quite common, and the main source of colluvial landsliding is the
availability of spheroidal (b) weathered and easily crumbled granite mantles (c), mainly composed of quartz, plagioclase, biotite, hornblende and magnetite (d)

and using the CMORPH Technique-Global Precipitation Analyses
(Climate Prediction Center/National Centers for Environmental
Prediction/National Weather Service/NOAA/U.S. Department of
Commerce 2011), indicated antecedent precipitation of 178.5 mm
between 1 September and the time of these two minor landslides.
That afternoon, some inhabitants of the community began to clean
up the displaced material, but rainfall continued. On Monday 16,
during the celebration of Independence Day when some of the
people were gathering for a meal at the central pavilion of the
town, within few seconds, a landslide triggered by rainfall had
buried half the village on its northern slopes.
According to information from local inhabitants, the major
landslide occurred between 15:30 and 15:40 h on Monday 16 Sep-
tember 2013, on a hillside adjacent to the north-east sector of the
community. The CMORPH technique estimated cumulative rain-
fall during 1–16 September at 278.6 mm in La Pintada (Fig. 4).
Uncertainties associated with radar estimations are in the order of
30%; however, cross-checking with recorded data from rain gauges
situated elsewhere in the state of Guerrero showed analogous
precipitation values.
The slope on which the landslide occurred consisted mainly of
deposits of soil and highly weathered granites. It was composed of
two inclined surfaces of 28° and 18°. The mass failure involved a
rapid and violent flow slide of soil, rock, vegetation and debris that
impacted, buried and destroyed nearly half of the homes of the
town, including a school, an auditorium, a basketball court and
the local church. The speed of the mobilized mass was so high that
some houses and parts of the auditorium were torn from their
foundations and deposited on the southern bank of the river. The
landslide deposit produced a temporary small dam, which was
eroded within minutes by the river flow. Some witnesses reported
a second and more fluid movement later that evening at

Table 2 Precipitation records for some localities of Guerrero state during the approach of hurricane Manuel
Location/rain gauge Precipitation (mm) Period Source
Altamirano 729.5 11–15 September 2013 CONAGUA 2013 (rain gauge)
Acapulco 373.4 11–15 September 2013 CONAGUA 2013 (rain gauge)
Acapulco (observatory) 345.4 11–15 September 2013 CONAGUA 2013 (rain gauge)
Chilpancingo 224.2 11–15 September 2013 CONAGUA 2013 (rain gauge)
La Pintada, Atoyac de Álvarez 126.7 11–15 September 2013 CMORPH satellite estimations
San Luis La Loma, Atoyac de Álvarez 267.2 11–15 September 2013 INIFAP 2013 (rain gauge)
Chilapa, Chilapa de Álvarez 201.6 11–15 September 2013 INIFAP 2013 (rain gauge)
La Pintada, Atoyac de Álvarez 278.6 1–16 September 2013 CMORPH satellite estimations
San Luis La Loma, Atoyac de Álvarez 597.6 1–16 September 2013 INIFAP 2013 (rain gauge)
Chilapa, Chilapa de Álvarez 450.0 1–16 September 2013 INIFAP 2013 (rain gauge)

1198 Landslides 14 & (2017)


Fig. 4 Daily and cumulative estimated rainfall for La Pintada [based on the
NOAA CPC Morphing Technique CMORPH-Global Precipitation Analyses (Climate
Prediction Center/National Centers for Environmental Prediction/National Weather
Service/NOAA/U.S. Department of Commerce 2011)]
approximately 20:30 h local time; hence, the La Pintada event can
be regarded as a compound or complex landslide (Fig. 5).
The depth of the failure surface was 8 m in the middle and
lower areas and 10–14 m at the top (Fig. 6). The landslide volume
was ∼125,000 m3; more than 50% of the mobilized material was
deposited on the dwellings, roads and yards of almost half the
village.
In order to know the strength of soils in areas surrounding
the landslide flanks and crown, 12 tests were performed with
a portable dynamic penetrometer of variable energy (PANDA)
to estimate the change in resistance of soils through depth
(Fig. 7).
Fig. 5 The La Pintada landslide. Side (a) and frontal views (b) of the landslide. c View of the town of La Pintada buried by the mass movement (from the crown to
the deposit area). d Material displaced by the landslide
According to the tests performed with the PANDA, the slip
surface was developed at the non-uniform interface of the residual
soil, whose weathered depth was not homogeneous. These can be
verified in the graphs of resistance to penetration shown in Fig. 7.
It can be seen (P1 to P3) that in some places, there is a thin layer at
approximately 3.5-m depth, which presents a considerable increase
of resistance. Likewise, the resistance values at each site studied
are significantly different from each other, which is a reflection of
the residual soil heterogeneity that prevails in each of the sites,
both outside and inside the slip zone. In the graph of the test P4, it
is observed that at 8.5-m depth, the resistance is greater than
5 MPa, which defines a change of resistance of the residual soil.
A similar behaviour can be observed in the graph P6. Also, in the
graphs P4 to P6, a slight increase of resistance with the depth is
noticed. Results of the resistance tests do not show signs of having
reached a homogenous material or the bedrock.
The results obtained with the tests of resistance to the penetra-
tion of the cone indicated that there is a variation in the shear
strength of the soils, which is related to the differential weathering
of the granites. For similar cases, where there is a homogeneous
residual soil layer, the results obtained with the PANDA allow the
estimation of the depth of the potential failure surface. In the case
of the La Pintada landslide, field estimations are not sufficient to
identify clearly this feature, given that the slip surface is irregular
(complex landslide) and this is indeed related to the variable depth
of the weathering profile.
La Pintada landslide can be regarded as a reactivation of an
older mass failure. According to information gathered from some
inhabitants during a field visit in February 2016, before the occur-
rence of the landslide 3 years earlier, in the hillslope affected by the
mass failure, a scarp was formed some decades ago (very likely in
the decade of the 1940s due to intense rainfall), and some symp-
toms of instability on the surface were recognized, although the
material was not fully mobilized. Furthermore, few hours before
Landslides 14 & (2017) 1199
 Recent Landslides

Fig. 6 Geological profile of the La Pintada landslide

Fig. 7 Aerial view of the La Pintada landslide and location of the tests performed with the PANDA portable dynamic penetrometer

1200 Landslides 14 & (2017)

the landslide of 2013, there was evidence that the existing cracks in
the upper part began to increase in size, and the water that was
entering the escarpment started to come out of the lower part of
the landslide.
La Pintada: from the Pre-Classic to modern age
Landslide history and the cultural landscape
Petroglyphs are images carved on rock, and their subject matter is
rather restricted; there are geometric and animal-like figures. They
have been found in many parts of the world and are a visual
language that in addition to being a sensitive means of identifying
cultural relations, patterns of communication, evidence of trade,
religious practises, ideologies and other modes of cultural interac-
tions (Schaafsma 1980) can be useful for understanding the
Fig. 8 Location of the granite block bearing the petroglyphs in the village of La Pintada
historical relationship between societies and nature. The various
geometric elements forming petroglyphs, such as simple or con-
centric circles, and lines, paired, complex, crescent, radiating or
meandering, symbolize the socio-cultural conditions and experi-
ence of a society and its relationship with the landscape.
The state of Guerrero is rich in rock heritage, and there is
abundant evidence that the engraving of petroglyphs in granite
rock was a significant and widespread practice (López-Wario
2008). They are dated as Mesoamerican Pre-Classic and Classic,
that is to say around 1000 BCE and 750 CE (Manzanilla-López and
Talavera-González 2008). Only in the municipality of Atoyac de
Álvarez, there are at least 60 sites with very heterogeneous petro-
glyphs, but no graphic styles have been fully established.
According to local inhabitants, the name La Pintada (graffiti)
derives from the existence in the village of a granite boulder
Landslides 14 & (2017) 1201
 Recent Landslides
bearing several petroglyphs made by previous indigenous commu-
nities. It stands on the south face of the main mountain ridge. La
Pintada is an archaeological site located to the north-east of the
town of the same name, in the backyard of a house. The engraved
petroglyphs are in a block cone-shaped granite rock that resembles
a mountain (Fig. 8). The rocky block is large, measuring about 5 m
high and 6 m long. There are 30 graphic elements that are located
at the top and south-east of the rock (in the more rustic area).
Because of its vertical location for the elaboration of the designs,
some type of support was used, such as an anchor or staircase. The
petroglyph figures were developed in bas-relief, and the
manufacturing technique is of indirect percussion retouched by
abrasion. The glyphs are in good state of conservation but with
high exposure to weathering.
The repertoire of representations of the petroglyphs is reduced to
a set of repetitive geometric forms mainly circles with different
designs (concentric, connected with lines and divided with internal
radial lines), rectangles with inner divisions, joined ellipses, net-
works and parallel wavy lines. There is only one figurative element,
a zoomorph motive seen in profile: Its body is formed by wavy lines
that connect to an ovoid head containing an eye, mouth and a pair of
antennas topped with a circle, apparently a horned snake.
The graphic designs are not distributed uniformly or continu-
ously on the rock but in sets of three or four motifs differentiated
from each other. At least six groups stand out. The representations
are possibly related to a cult of water, both flowing (rivers) and
Fig. 9 Petroglyphs carved on a granite boulder in the village of La Pintada, suggesting a direct relationship with mass movement processes. The presence of the
boulder suggests the displacement of material due to the occurrence of a slide rock (a). Some of the rock artworks (b, c, d, e, f) may indicate past events related to water
and sediment
1202 Landslides 14 & (2017)
represented with wavy lines, as well as the stagnant (springs)
represented with concentric circles. If this is so, the zoomorph
motif is especially interesting, particularly its body, because it
would formally represent an element of the landscape as the
riverbed transformed into a fantastic being by its anatomical
features that are not comparable with those of some known animal
species. It is also possible to symbolize stellar patterns related to
scheduled accounts or a natural event.
As patterns of circles, points and lines are carved in the rock
(Fig. 9), field observations and a review of a series of similar rock
artworks suggested that the petroglyphs found at La Pintada
(Fig. 9a) may be useful to trace the processes that have existed in
the dynamic of the landscape in pre-historic times. Presumably,
the petroglyphs were carved onto scattered boulders of granite
resulting from previous episodes of mass movement; there is
evidence for such episodes in that some of the houses that
remained intact from the 2013 landslide were built on the deposits
of older movements (Figs. 10 and 11). In that context, the boulder
bearing the petroglyphs can be interpreted as a re-deposited slide
rock. Furthermore, as mentioned before, the geometric motifs
carved in the granite of La Pintada may be representations of the
distribution of water resources, settlements and the relationships
among them and also perhaps of the occurrence of disaster events,
including floods and landslides.
In Mexico and Mesoamerica more generally, the snake is a
prominent motif linked to water (Martínez and Viñas 2007) and

Fig. 10 The presence of erratic granite boulders in La Pintada suggests mass
movement processes in pre-historic time; some houses are built on the deposits of
older movements
associated processes. Despite the spatial, temporal, linguistic and
even cultural distance that separates societies, this significance of
the serpent is common, as has been found also with the horned
serpent (Martínez and Viñas 2007). For the Huichol people of the
Sierra Madre Occidental, elongated vertical lines, or wavy or
zigzag snakes, symbolize rain or lightning, whereas horizontal
lines symbolize rivers, wind or the earthy walking trails of the
gods (Mountjoy 1987). Among the Mixe people of southern-
central Mexico, disasters triggered by torrential rains are alleg-
edly caused by a snake with horns that does not leave the water
and therefore causes the rivers to overflow (Torres-Cisneros
2001); Bwhen this snake has grown too much, it leaves its nest,
a lagoon inside the mountain, and as it descends down the
slopes, causes cracking of the land and rivers to overflow^
(Lipp 1991).
In the Zapotec culture centred around Oaxaca state, major
floods are caused by a water snake that has two horns on his head,
who comes down from heaven (Parsons 1936). In an Achi story
from Guatemala, a hunter saw a horned snake carrying a rock. It
started to rain, and he was given the task of killing her. When shot,
the snake jumped up and dropped the stone. Because it was the
snake that had covered streams, her death caused floods and the
water caused landslides (Shaw 1972).
For the Chortí people of Guatemala, chicchanes are divini-
ties who can appear as humans, huge snakes or in a form that
is half human and half feathered serpent. At the beginning of
the rainy season, the chicchanes, in the form of snakes, de-
scend from the hills and enter watercourses, driving up their
volume by water displacement. If many chicchanes swim
downstream at the same time, the waters overflow and cause
flooding. If a chicchan leaves a river and moves by land to
reach another stream, her long body, snaking down the slopes
of the hills, rolls away rocks and mud downslope, causing
landslides (Wisdom 1961).
The zoomorphic figure depicted in the engraving of the La
Pintada granite is a headed horned snake, similar to the one that
appears in the petroglyphs found in Paquimé (Chihuahua, Mexico)
and the south-west of the USA (Schaafsma 1980). This elaborate
petroglyph shows a zigzag snake-like creature with horns (Fig. 9b),
an image that could arguably represent water or a mudflow.
Likewise, serpentine and parallel lines could illustrate the fluidity
of a nearby stream course (see Fig. 9c, f), because in Mesoamerica,
wavy lines represent slithering snakes symbolizing flowing water
(López Wario 2008).
Lines linking circles can represent unions, kinship and consan-
guinity between members of communities or between communi-
ties (Manzanilla and Talavera 2008) (Fig. 9e, f), whereas three
concentric circles are the basic way to represent the sun; the outer
circle is the ring of light around the sun, the second the star
himself and the inner circle his force, which opens to provide
humanity with food, particularly quarry for hunting (Hernández-
Díaz 2011) (Fig. 9f, right hand side).
The general picture emerging from this preliminary analysis of
La Pintada’s petroglyphs is related to the possible existence of
floods and ancient landslides triggered by precipitation: The dis-
placement of the large granite boulders indicates prehistoric mass
movements, and the petroglyphs may reflect the relationships
between ancient societies and nature, including the occurrence
of floods and landslides.
Concluding remarks
The La Pintada landslide has been described as the most tragic
single landslide disaster in Mexico in a decade, with 78 people
killed and 8 persons missing, and the lives of the inhabitants of the
whole village drastically transformed. Field observations suggest
that landsliding has not been uncommon in the history of the
village and of that part of Guerrero state, where highly weathered
granites determine the existence of widespread low-resistance
materials susceptible to mass movement processes. Cultural-
historical local and regional art form expressions reveal a relation-
ship between man and nature. The name La Pintada (the graffiti)
derives from a granite boulder on which petroglyphs, or rock
engravings, show patterns related to water and sediment processes
including landslides (Fig. 8). Although these petroglyphs have not
yet been dated, regional comparisons suggest that they are from
Mesoamerican Pre-Classic and Classic times (between 1000 BCE
and 750 CE). The boulder itself, and others on which houses have
been built, demonstrates the occurrence of mass movement pro-
cesses and floods even before the establishment of the present
village.
Landslides 14 & (2017) 1203
 Recent Landslides
Fig. 11 Scarp of ancient landslides and location of the granitic boulder with the petroglyphs in the village of La Pintada
Field observations and documentation of other cases suggest
that the petroglyphs of La Pintada are just a small example of
the rock art of Guerrero that can be linked to the perception of
geomorphic and environmental processes, such as landsliding,
in this mountain region. Some of this art may have been in
places exposed to intense weathering and erosion and has
therefore disappeared, but some may still be awaiting discovery.
Hence, although research on the modern construction of disas-
ter risk may go back only through historical time, the interpre-
tation of rock art as a potential source of the understanding of
hillslope instability in Mexico has just begun. Rock art is an
expression of the human perception of the relationship between
nature and culture, and it socializes knowledge within a specific
territory; further research in this direction remains an interest-
ing challenge.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Clemente López-Bravo for providing the
estimations of precipitation by using the CMORPH Global Precip-
itation Analyses technique and Alejandro Hurtado-Díaz, from the
National Seismological Service (SSN), who provided earthquake
information. Thanks are also due to Ann Grant for the English
editing of the text.
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I. Alcántara-Ayala ()) : R. J. Garnica-Peña
Institute of Geography,
National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM),
Mexico City, Mexico
e-mail: Irasema@igg.unam.mx
L. Domínguez-Morales :
. E. González-Huesca
National Centre for Disaster Prevention (CENAPRED),
Mexico City, Mexico
A. Calderón-Vega
National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH),
Mexico City, Mexico
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