Amazon Rainforest Inhabitants Lived Alongside Ice Age Creatures, Researchers Find Rock Paintings of Now-Extinct Animals
In 2020, archaeologists announced the discovery of an 8-mile-long "canvas" filled with various Ice Age illustrations in the Amazon rainforest. The subject of the drawings included giant sloths, mastodons, and other now-extinct beasts, stated Live Science. All the illustrations were created with red ochre, a material used as paint in ancient times. The drawings were all made on structures placed above three rock shelters in Serranía La Lindosa. Findings regarding these drawings have been published in the journal Quaternary International.
Researchers believe the earliest inhabitants of the Colombian Amazon made these drawings. "These really are incredible images, produced by the earliest people to live in western Amazonia," study co-researcher Mark Robinson, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter, who analyzed the rock art said. As per examinations, these drawings dated from 12,600 to 11,800 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. Amazon was still in a transformative phase during that time.
Experts noted several different kinds of drawings on the structures. There were geometric designs, handprints, and typical portraits. Many of the portraits focused on a wide variety of animals. Some subjects were small like deer, turtles, monkeys, porcupines, and serpents, while some were large such as horses and camelids. Other illustrations also centered on humans, depicting them hunting and interacting with greenery around them.
The findings were valuable for researchers even though they have observed animal rock art in several other sites in central Brazil. But these stood apart because they were more detailed and provided a better visual of how many of the now-extinct animals looked. "The paintings give a vivid and exciting glimpse into the lives of these communities," Robinson said. "It is unbelievable to us today to think they lived among, and hunted, giant herbivores, some of which were the size of a small car."
Analysis of rock shelters unveiled that they were one of the first places of residence used by humans in the Colombian Amazon. This finding made them assert that the paintings were made by the earliest known inhabitants of the region. Researchers believe these paintings give hints about the lifestyle followed by these early humans and are also proof of art's importance in that community. "These rock paintings are spectacular evidence of how humans reconstructed the land, and how they hunted, farmed and fished," study co-researcher José Iriarte, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter said. "It is likely art was a powerful part of culture and a way for people to connect socially."
Excavations of the shelters have helped experts in figuring out the main diet of these early humans. Plant and bone remains indicate that this group's food included palm and tree fruits and flesh of animals like piranhas, armadillos, frogs, snakes, and alligators. The exploration took place between 2017 and 2018 following a peace treaty between the Colombian government and FARC, a rebel guerrilla group. The excavation was part of a project titled 'LastJourney' which aims at finding out more about humans that first settled in the Amazon.