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Researchers from Durham University have decoded the meaning of markings found in Ice Age drawings, providing evidence of early writing at least 20,000 years ago.The team were studying cave art, found in at least 400 European caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, which contains a series of lines and dots found alongside drawings of animals...The team has revealed that the lines and dots indicate the mating and birthing seasons of animals. A "Y" sign formed by adding a diverging line to another has also been determined to mean "giving birth".By using the birth cycles of equivalent animals today as...

Cave paintings of the Spanish Altamira Cave and the French Lascaux Cave, to the Hurrian Hymns from "Music of the Ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, and Greeks." They're around 17,000 years old.

57 prisoners were killed by other inmates during clashes between organized crime groups in the Altamira prison in northern Brazil Monday with 16 of the victims being decapitated, according to prison officials. Para state prison authorities said a fight erupted around 7 a.m. between the Rio de Janeiro-based Comando Vermelho and a local criminal group known as Comando Classe A. “Leaders of the (Comando Classe A) set fire to a cell belonging to one of the prison’s pavilions, where members of the (Comando Vermelho) were located,” the statement read. State prisons chief Jarbas Vasconcelos said the fire had spread rapidly...

This image released by the Diputacion Floral de Bizkaia on Friday May 27, 2016, shows a cave drawing. Spanish archaeologists say they have discovered an exceptional set of Paleolithic-era cave drawings that could rank among the best in a country that already boasts some of the world's most important cave art. Chief site archaeologist Diego Garate said Friday that an estimated 70 drawings were found on ledges 300 meters (1,000 feet) underground in the Atxurra cave, Berriatua, in the northern Basque region. He described the site as being in "the Champions' League" of cave art, among the top 10 sites...

The cave joins that at Altamira as one of Spain’s most exciting and best-preserved set of cave paintings and for Garate, marks a career high. "Without doubt it is the most important discovery of my career," he told The Local. "I have been searching the caves of the Basque Country for ten years and have discovered lots of new caves but none as important as Atxurra. It could very well be the cave with the most animal figures in the Basque Country," he added. The Atxurra caves were originally discovered in 1929, but as the paintings are at a depth...

For 12 years, visitors wanting to see Spain's prized prehistoric Altamira cave paintings have had to settle for a replica in a museum a few hundred feet away. But from Thursday, small groups of visitors will again be allowed in the cave, which has been described as the Sistine Chapel of paleolithic art, as part of an experiment to determine whether the paintings can support the presence of sightseers. The vast cavern complex, in the Cantabria region of northern Spain, was made a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1985. It is covered in paintings dated to between 14,000 and...

POLITICAL VIOLENCE Silvio Merida tortured for a week, according to family members Altamira Activist rescued and jailed MARIA ISOLIETT IGLESIAS EL UNIVERSAL The Altamira Plaza activist who was illegally arrested on Friday October 31 octubre, was found as if by magic by CICPC agents, Thursday 11:00 pm in Valencia. According to the police report by Silvio Daniel Mérida Ortiz, he was taken by his captors to a hut near Valencia, where he was forced to sit at gunpoint until the arrival of the CICPC Immediate Rescue Unit who rescued him but did not make any arrests. Between torture and hoods...