Unearthing prehistoric art is always exciting, but when that art consists of eight miles of Ice Age paintings, it’s the discovery of a lifetime.
Researchers in the Amazon rainforest have discovered an incredible “canvas” that is up to 12,600 years old and features images of extinct animals, including mastodons and giant sloths.
Ancient artists used ochre, a red pigment, to create this monumental work of art, which stretches over about 13 kilometers (8 miles) into a rock formation in the Amazon foothills of Colombia.
“These are truly remarkable images, made by some of the earliest known people to have lived in the western Amazon,” archaeologist Mark Robinson from the University of Exeter wrote in a paper published in the journal Nature about the historic find. Quaternary International,Said statement.
Robinson and his team believe that indigenous people began making these drawings at the archaeological site of Serranía la Lindosa, at the northern end of the Amazon in Colombia, towards the end of the last ice age.
This magnificent painting has been called the “Sistine Chapel of the Ancients.”(Marie Claire Thomas/Wild Blue Media)
During this time, between 12,600 and 11,800 years ago, “the Amazon was still transforming into the tropical forest we recognize today,” Robinson said.
Rising temperatures transformed the rainforest from a patchwork of savannah, thorny scrub and woodland into the tropical landscape we see today. Live ScienceNote.
The remarkably well-preserved Ice Age paintings feature hand prints, geometric patterns and a wide variety of animals, from crocodiles, bats, monkeys and turtles to three-toed, snout-nosed, ungulate mammals.
Other sculptures depict humans hunting and interacting with the natural world around them, including extinct species.
“These paintings provide a vivid and evocative glimpse into life in these communities,” Robinson said.
“It seems incredible to us today to think that they lived and hunted amongst giant herbivores, some of which were the size of a small car.”
The researchers noted that many of South America’s megafauna became extinct at the end of the last ice age, probably due to a combination of human hunting and climate change.
The paintings depict a variety of creatures and landscapes.(Professor Jose Iriarte)
Robinson and his colleagues excavated the rock shelter in 2017 and 2018 as part of a project called “Last Journey.”
The effort aimed to determine when humans first settled in the Amazon and how their activities affected the region’s biodiversity.
“These rock art are incredible evidence of how humans rebuilt the land, hunting, farming and fishing,” archaeologist José Iriarte, a co-author of the study, said in the same statement. “Art was a strong part of culture and was likely a way for people to connect socially.”
a Channel 4 A documentary about this discovery,Jungle Mystery: The Lost Kingdom of the Amazon‘ was broadcast in the UK in December 2020.
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