Controversial rock art may depict extinct giants of the ice age

[Judi Lynn]

By Katie Hunt, CNNUpdated 3:11 PM ET, Mon March 7, 2022



(CNN)More than 12,000 years ago, South America was teeming with an astonishing array of ice age beasts -- giant ground sloths the size of a car, elephantine herbivores and a deerlike animal with an elongated snout.

These extinct giants are among many animals immortalized in an 8-mile-long (13-kilometer-long) frieze of rock paintings at Serranía de la Lindosa in the Colombian Amazon rainforest -- art created by some of the earliest humans to live in the region, according to a new study.

" (The paintings) have the whole diversity of Amazonia. Turtles and fishes to jaguars, monkeys and porcupines," said study author Jose Iriarte, a professor in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.

Iriate calls the frieze, which likely would have been painted over centuries, if not millennia, "the last journey," as he said it represents the arrival of humans in South America -- the last region to be colonized by Homo sapiens as they spread around the world from Africa, their place of origin. These pioneers from the north would have faced unknown animals in an unfamiliar landscape.

More:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/americas/rock-art-colombia-scn/index.html

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From September, 2021:

'Last Journey' offers clues to an ancient civilization
Lucy Sherriff, CNN • Updated 17th September 2021

(CNN) — For more than 12,500 years, one of the world's largest collections of prehistoric rock paintings lay undiscovered in Colombia's Amazonian rainforest.

Depicting now-extinct ice age animals, such as the elephant-like mastodon, stocky ice age horses and giant sloths, the drawings were painted by some of the first humans to ever reach the Amazon.

As groups of hunter-gatherers traversed the globe in search of food, shelter and land, they were confronted by the enormity -- and diversity -- of the Amazon Rainforest. Researchers have long been perplexed by the decision of early humans to settle in the Amazon basin, due to its harsh environmental conditions and seemingly inhospitable landscape.

The stunning rock art discovery was made in 2017 as part of an expedition named "Last Journey." Engineered by a British-Colombian archaeological team funded by the European Research Council, the art will take years to study.

More:
https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/rock-art-serrania-la-lindosa-colombia-last-journey-scn/index.html

Many more images of these ancient figures at google images:
https://tinyurl.com/ym7sfn46

[niyad]

1. Thank you for sharing this fascinating information.

[orwell]

2. Kind of astonishing...

...that SA was like that only 12,500 years ago.

Time flies when you're wrecking the ecosphere.

Thanks as always for your interesting scientific posts JL.

I appreciate you!