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One of the world’s largest collections of prehistoric rock art has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest.
Hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients,” archaeologists have found tens of thousands of animal and human paintings created up to 12,500 years ago on rock faces that stretch nearly eight miles in Colombia.
Their date is based in part on their depictions of now extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that has not roamed South America for at least 12,000 years. There are also images of the paleolama, an extinct camelid, as well as giant sloths and ice age horses.
These animals have all been seen and painted by some of the first ever humans to reach the Amazon. Their images give a glimpse into a lost ancient civilization. Such is the vastness of the paintings that it will take generations to study them.
The discovery was made last year, but has been kept a secret until now as it was filmed for one of the main Channel 4 series to screen in December: Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon.
The site is located in the Serranía de la Lindosa where, along with the Chiribiquete National Park, other rock art has been found. The presenter of the documentary, Ella Al-Shamahi, an archaeologist and explorer, told al Observer: “The new site is so new that they haven’t given it a name yet.”
He spoke of the thrill of seeing “breathtaking” images created thousands of years ago.
The discovery was made by a British-Colombian team, funded by the European Research Council. Its leader is José Iriarte, professor of archeology at the University of Exeter and one of the foremost experts in Amazonian and pre-Columbian history.
He said: “When you are there, your emotions flow… We are talking about several tens of thousands of paintings. It will take generations to register … Every time you do, it’s a new wall of paintings.
“We started seeing animals that are now extinct. The images are so natural and so well done that we have little doubt that you are looking at a horse, for example. The ice age horse had a wild, heavy face. It is so detailed that we can even see horse hair. It’s fascinating. “
The images include fish, turtles, lizards and birds, as well as people dancing and holding hands, among other scenes. A figure wears a mask resembling a bird with a beak.
The site is so remote that after a two-hour drive from San José del Guaviare, a team of archaeologists and filmmakers walked for about four hours.
They somehow avoided the most dangerous inhabitants of the region. “Caimans are everywhere, and we have kept our intelligence with snakes,” Al-Shamahi said, recalling a huge bushmaster – “the deadliest snake in the Americas with an 80 percent mortality rate” – who blocked the their path in the jungle. The return had been delayed and it was already pitch dark.
They had no choice but to cross it, knowing that if they were attacked, there was little chance of getting to the hospital. “You’re in the middle of nowhere,” he said. But it was “100%” worth it to see the paintings, he added.
As the documentary notes, Colombia is a land torn apart after 50 years of civil war that raged between the Farc guerrillas and the Colombian government, now with a difficult truce in place. The territory where the paintings were discovered was completely banned until recently and still requires careful negotiation to get into safety.
Al-Shamahi said: “When we entered the FARC territory, it was exactly how some of us have been screaming for a long time. The exploration is not over. The scientific discovery is not over, but the great discoveries will now be found in controversial or hostile places. “
The paintings vary in size. There are numerous handprints and many of the images are on that scale, be they geometric, animal or human shapes. Others are much larger.
Al-Shamahi was struck by how tall so many of them are: “I’m 5 feet 10 inches and I’d break my neck looking up. How were they climbing those walls? ”
Some of the paintings are so tall that they can only be viewed with drones.
Iriarte believes the answer lies in the depictions of wooden towers among the paintings, including figures that appear to jump from them.
He added: “These paintings have a reddish terracotta color. We also found pieces of ocher that they scraped to make them. “
Speculating whether the paintings had a sacred purpose or otherwise, he said, “It is interesting to see that many of these large animals appear surrounded by little men with their arms raised, almost worshiping these animals.”
Noting that the images include hallucinogenic trees and plants, he added: “For Amazonian people, non-humans like animals and plants have souls and communicate and interact with people in cooperative or hostile ways through rituals and shamanic practices that we see represented in rock art. “
Al-Shamahi added: “One of the most fascinating things was seeing the megafauna of the ice age because it is a sign of the time. I don’t think people realize that the Amazon has changed the way it looks. It wasn’t always this rainforest. When you look at a horse or a mastodon in these paintings, they obviously wouldn’t have lived in a forest. They’re too big. Not only are they giving clues as to when they were painted by some of the earliest people – which in itself is simply stunning – but they are also giving clues as to what this point could have been: more like a savannah.
Iriarte suspects there are many more paintings to be found: “We’re just scratching the surface.” The team will return as soon as Covid-19 allows it.
Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon begins at 6.30 pm on Canale 4 on December 5th. The discovery of rock art is in episode 2, December 12th
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