Rock art discovery could shed light on when New World was settled

Telegraph UK ^ | February 23, 2012 | Fiona Govan

[SunkenCiv]

The outline of a figure scratched into a cave in Lapa do Santo in central-eastern Brazil is believed to be between 10,000 and 12,000 years and has been dubbed "the horny little man" because of its oversized phallus.

The team of archaeologists from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil made the discovery during excavations in 2009 but unveiled their findings in this month's PLoS ONE scientific journal.

"It shows that about 11,000 years ago, there was already a very diverse manifestation of rock art in South America, so man probably arrived in the Americas much earlier than normally is accepted," explained Walter Alves Neves, the archaeologist and biological anthropologist leading the team.

The figure, which appears to be squatting with his arms outstretched, is about 12 inches tall from head to feet and about 8 inches wide. The phallus is about 2 inches long, about the same length as the man's left arm.

"The figure, which we named 'the horny little man', is probably linked to some kind of fertility ritual," Mr Neves said.

Carbon dating and other tests of the sediment covering the petroglyph suggest the engraving dates between 10,000 and 12,000 years old -- making it the oldest reliably dated example of such rock art found yet in the Americas.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

Looks like a map to me.

[DManA]

Psychiatrist: You seem to have a sexual fixation.

Patient: Hey! You’re the one with the dirty pictures.

[Popman]

That’s one strange looking “ man “ ......someone has a very vivid imagination

[SunkenCiv]

;’)

[aruanan]

I need to check the date in the PDF. I think it may be a lot more recent that 20k bp. Okay, from the second paper (IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 35, NO.4, August 2007, Characteristics for the Occurrence fo a High-Current Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity Part II: Directionality and Source, Peratt AL, McGovern J, Qoyawayma AH, Vander Sluijs MA, and Peratt MG) I read Neolithic, Early Bronze Age.

[Osage Orange]

That or the baked drool of Obama supporter’s after a night of gay sex and tequila shooters.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Paleoporn?

[aruanan]

There is evidence worldwide of something in human history as awesome as a huge Z-pinch aurora caused by a massive solar storm that probably had lasting effects on civilization and myth and all they can see in the rock art are schlongs?

[SaraJohnson]

Paleoporn?

---

Porn for paleoconservatives?

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks aruanan.

[Battle Axe]

Neck too long to be man.

Three digits, no man I know, but a bird maybe.

[Steve Newton]

They call that big???

Snicker

[TheOldLady]

It looks like a map of a series of canals to me. Who says it’s a man? That’s just pure fantasy and speculation.

[Beowulf9]

[Fred Nerks]

Scribbles from one species of scribbly gum moth on the trunk of a eucalypt

Scribbly gums: interpreting their scribbles

It's a snake with wings!

[Fred Nerks]

I have a collected a large number of these representations - of what? They appear all over the world, in the Alps, on Easter Island, on the African continent - and here's one from CARAL in Peru:

[YHAOS]

"Why would anyone even consider that it is a picture of MAN...why not a lizard...."

Uhhh . . . hyper imagination?

[YHAOS]

Well . . . it is.
Maybe . . .

[SunkenCiv]

Could have been a cartoon character, or maybe an early version of Kokopeli?

[JoeProBono]