Tens of thousands of paintings in red ocher dating to the last Ice Age, discovered in Colombia on a rock face that stretches for 13 km, shed light on the inhabitants of the Amazon and its incredible megafauna of more than 12.000 years ago. The "Lost Civilization" theorized by Colonel Percy H. Fawcett, which until a century ago seemed like science fiction, seems more and more real.
di Marco Maculotti
Translation of the article 'Sistine Chapel of the ancients' rock art discovered in remote Amazon forest, Published on The Guardian, 29 November 2020. Cover photo: Marie-Claire Thomas / Β«Wild Blue MediaΒ»
Fawcett had come to the conclusion that a highly civilized ancient people still existed in the Brazilian Amazon and that that civilization was so refined and at the same time going back to a time so remote that it forever changed the West's view of the American continent. He had christened his lost world "the City of Z".
- David Grann, The Lost City of Z
One of the world's largest collections of prehistoric rock art was discovered in Amazon rainforest. In what has already been renamed "the Sistine Chapel of the Ancients", in Colombia, archaeologists have found tens of thousands of paintings of humans and animals dating back to thelast Ice Age, on rocky walls that extend for nearly eight miles (about 13 km, ndt). Their dating is based in part on depictions of now extinct ice age animals, such as the mastodon, a prehistoric relative of the elephant that became extinct in South America at least 12.000 years ago. 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 what are perhaps some of the first humans to have inhabited the Amazon (recent academic studies, however, have backdated the man-made occupation of the Americas to 30-35 thousand years ago, ndt). Such is the vastness of the paintings that it will take generations to study them. These rock representations allow us to take a look at what today presents itself as one of the oldest known civilizations, a real "Lost civilization" (it is automatic to think of the hypotheses of Colonel Percy H. Fawcett, who disappeared during an expedition to Mato Grosso in 1925, which in the light of this recent discovery return to impose themselves on the judgment of the academic potentates who at the time had mocked him so much for his assumptions, ndt).
The discovery dates back to last year, but has been kept secret until now to give exclusivity to one of the major series of "Channel 4" which will be screened in December: Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon. The site is located in the SerranΓa de la Lindosa, near the Chiribiquete National Park where other ancient petroglyphs have also been found in past years. The presenter of the documentary, Ella Al-Shamahi, archaeologist and explorer, told The Observer that "The new site is so new that they haven't given it a name yet," and 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 Jose Iriarte, professor of archeology at the University of Exeter and one of the foremost experts in Amazonian and pre-Columbian history. He stated:
We are talking about several tens of thousands of paintings. It will take generations just to register them all. There are also animals that are extinct (since the last ice age, ndt). The images are so natural and so well done that there is little doubt, for example, that you are looking at a horse. It is so detailed that we can even see the hair. It is extremely fascinating.
Al-Shamahi added:
One of the most fascinating things was seeing there megafauna of the ice age because it is a sign of the time. I don't think people realize that the Amazon has changed over the ages. It wasn't always the rainforest we see today. When you look at a horse or a mastodon in these paintings, you obviously understand that they could not have lived in a forest like the one we see today. They're too big. In this way, these drawings are not only giving us clues as to when they were painted - which in itself is simply stunning - but they are also giving us clues as to when they were painted. how could this geographic area be: more like a savannah than the rainforest we see today.
The site is so remote that it takes two hours by car from San JosΓ© del Guaviare and about four hours on foot to reach it. Channel 4 archaeologists and filmmakers have calculated the route to take by trying to avoid the region's most dangerous inhabitants, the caimans. "They are everywhere, and we have been paying attention to snakes too," said Al-Shamahi. "(Here is) the deadliest snake in the Americas, with a mortality rate of 80%."
But the risks don't come alone wildness. As the documentary notes, the Colombia it is a land torn apart by 50 years of civil war between the Farc guerrillas and the Colombian government. Now a difficult truce is in place. The area where the paintings were discovered was completely forbidden until recently and still requires careful negotiation to access safely. Al-Shamahi assured:
The exploration is not over. The discoveries did not end there, others await us in inaccessible and hostile places.
The paintings vary in size. There are numerous handprints and many of the images are on that scale, be they geometric shapes, animals or humans. Others are much larger. Al-Shamahi was struck by how tall many of these works of art are: βI am 1 meters tall and I get stiff just looking at them from below. How did they climb these rock faces (to paint them, ndt)? ". Some of the paintings are placed so high that they can only be viewed thanks to drones. Iriarte believes the answer lies in the depictions of wooden towers among the paintings, including figures appearing to jump from them, and added:
These paintings have a reddish terracotta color. We also found pieces of ocher that they scraped to make them.
Pictures include fish, turtles, lizards and birds, Besides people dancing and holding hands, among other scenes. A figure wears a mask that resembles a bird with a beak (a mythical representation, that of theBird-Man endowed with "magical" powers connected to ancient shamanic practices, which is also found in Peru, for example. in the Chimu culture, and on Easter Island, ndt). Speculating whether the paintings had a sacred or other purpose, Iriarte noted:
It is interesting to see that many of these large animals appear surrounded by small men with their arms raised, almost in the act of worshiping these animals.
Noting that the images include trees and hallucinogenic plants, he added:
For Amazonian Indians, even non-human subjects such as animals and plants have souls and communicate and interact with people in cooperative or hostile ways through the rituals and shamanic practices we see represented in rock art.
Iriarte suspects that there are many other paintings waiting to be found by his team: "We have only scratched the surface." The team will return to work as soon as the anti-Covid-19 measures allow it.
It would be wonderful to be there, to be able to look at such beauty