Posted on 03/07/2022 7:03:07 PM PST by Theoria
The animals painted in ocher in Colombia may include giant ground sloths and other creatures that vanished from the Americas. But some researchers say the art has a more recent origin.
At the end of the last ice age, South America was home to strange animals that have since vanished into extinction: giant ground sloths, elephant-like herbivores and an ancient lineage of horses. A new study suggests that we can see these lost creatures in enchanting ocher paintings made by ice age humans on a rocky outcrop in the Colombian Amazon.
These dazzling rock art displays at Serranía de la Lindosa, a site on the remote banks of the Guayabero River, were long known to the area’s Indigenous people but were virtually off limits to researchers because of the Colombian Civil War. Recent expeditions led by José Iriarte, an archaeologist at the University of Exeter in England, have sparked renewed interest and heated debate over the interpretation of the animals in the paintings.
“The whole biodiversity of the Amazon is painted there,” Dr. Iriarte said, both aquatic and land creatures and plants, as well as “animals that are very intriguing and appear to be ice age large mammals.”
Dr. Iriarte and his colleagues, who are part of a project studying human arrival in South America, defend the case that the rock art depicts ice age megafauna in a study that was published on Monday in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. But as the study itself acknowledges, the identification of extinct animals in rock art is extremely controversial — and the site at La Lindosa is no exception.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ayahuasca, baby!
Does This Amazon Rock Art Depict Extinct Ice Age Mammals?
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Amazon Rock Art is available for free two-day shipping and 30 day refund.
It’s a distorted cappibarra.
Looks like a short-faced bear to me...
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The short faced bear was one scary sounding creature. Making the grizzly look like a baby bear in comparison to its size.
Capybara.
How I would love to see the paintings at Chauvet... I hear that the horses are painted three-dimensionally, so a smooth round outcropping of rock would be a horses haunches, etc. An extraordinary artist painted these.
I came across some petroglyphs today while out on a hike. I had hiked past that rock many times before, but had never stopped to look at it very closely. I located a spiral, a sun, either a lizard or a dude with a huge phallis, a family (man woman, child) all holding hands. Then I found a hunting scene: three deer with antlers, what looked like a dead coyote upside down (or maybe this was a small deer, not sure), and two hunters with their arms up (assuming this means successful hunt). Next to the hunt scene was what looked like a Turtle Clan mark that was encircled. So the Turtle clan had a good hunt that day, I assume. I love finding petroglyphs!
I thought the same thing.
They taste great with bacon and cheese.
A capybara have short front legs, a big ass and hindlegs. I don’t think they would have screwed up the picture that much. The guys watching and making remarks, while drinking beer would have let the artist know he screwed up.
As I have posted many times on this subject, I believe we misinterpret these cave and rock paintings.
I believe they were done, not by the males, but by the females.
While the males were out ‘hunting’ for game, the females were decorating their domicile.
Not only decorative wallpaper, but the paintings also served a different purpose: They were what we would call a ‘grocery list’.
The females would point to the object or animal they wanted the males to hunt for dinner!............................
My husband and I are sitting here chuckling! Very cute! :)
My favorite part of that story is the “page” just to the left where Rocky and Bullwinkle cross the big water to fly balloon animals.
Nuthin’ up muh sleeve... Presto! [roar] Must be the wrong hat.
Ping would like to read.
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