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Eight-mile frieze of Ice Age beasts found in Amazon rainforest (2020)
- oidar 3y agoThe rectangles seem suggestive of agriculture as well.
- akiselev 3y agoPrimitive forms of agriculture ("intensive gathering" and cultivation) among hunter gatherers were around long before sedentary agriculture developed, on the order of 10,000 years or more [1] [1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0131422 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- contingencies 3y agoIf you eat things and spit or defecate out the seeds then assuming a roughly endemic plant and suitable conditions you are going to get more plants of that type coming up where you were. Given hunter-gatherer societies often featured seasonal nomadism, and would thus have experienced plant growth in their seasonal environments through time-lapse staccato, it wouldn't have taken an abnormal intelligence to realise agriculture. It's probably far more ancient than we will ever know.
- billsmithaustin 3y agoI would not have guessed any of those were mastodons.
- olddustytrail 3y agoWhy would you? I never even knew there were mastodons in South America until today.
- tomrod 3y agoFascinating!
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y agoI had a hard time believing the 1st image were the actual drawings found. They look extremely well preserved, and quite frankly, gorgeous!
- nkingsy 3y agoAt the very end of the article, they state that local communities knew of and lead researchers to this art as a side effect of demilitarization of the area. So not exactly “found”, more “officially documented”.
- lostlogin 3y agoYou hit a similar thing with the language used to describe European colonising explorers ‘discovering’ populated lands. When was Australia discovered? When was New Zealand discovered?
- jahewson 3y agoI never understood this artificially forced point. Any explorer can only “explore” from the frame of reference of their culture’s knowledge. Even Australia’s indigenous population has distinct groups from different origins and necessarily different “discoveries”.
- darkerside 3y agoYes. The argument is over whether one frame of reference is valid and another is not, and why.
- bagacrap 3y agoTo discover simply means to find. If I'm playing hide and seek, and my location is uncovered, I might cry out "you found me!" This is not to deny that I existed or knew of my own whereabouts prior to being located. To say that some European "discovered" Australia is simply a statement that they found something they didn't hitherto know about. There's no implication of validity.
- darkerside 3y agoNobody says Europe discovered Australia. They talk about how Australia was discovered, in passive voice. And everybody knows what frame of reference you're supposed to be reading from.
- roger_ 3y agoWhere could one find high resolution photos of these?
- velosol 3y agoThere are some at [1,2,3] but I'd be curious to find more too (or at least download/purchase 3). 1: https://lastjourney.exeter.ac.uk/last-journey-wallpapers/ https://lastjourney.exeter.ac.uk/last-journey-wallpapers/ 2: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Ziegler-6/publication/363853661_The_Painted_Forest_Rock_Art_and_Archaeology_in_the_Colombian_Amazon_La_Selva_Pintada_Arte_Rupestre_y_Arqueologia_en_la_Amazonia_Colombiana/links/6331e17e694dbe4bf4c32c54/The-Painted-Forest-Rock-Art-and-Archaeology-in-the-Colombian-Amazon-La-Selva-Pintada-Arte-Rupestre-y-Arqueologia-en-la-Amazonia-Colombiana.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Ziegler-6/publi... 3: https://issuu.com/universityofexeter/docs/the_painted_forest_rock_art https://issuu.com/universityofexeter/docs/the_painted_forest...
- seaknoll 3y agoI've been here and to a few other, equally spectacular sites in this general part of Colombia. They're well-known among local people, but some are VERY hard to get to (freight or chartered plane to a community completely unattached to the rest of the country by road + hours-long boat journey + hours of hiking). They can be quite sad though, e.g. the relatively newer images depict colonization encroaching upon the region - horses (introduced by the colonists), swords, and scenes that appear to show imprisonment of people.
- cardamomo 3y agoThe "relatively newer" images you refer to seem to be nearly 12,000 years newer than the images mentioned in this article. They're likely from a different culture entirely. EDIT: Changed "older" to "newer."
- olddustytrail 3y agoYou mean 12k years newer, not older.
- freedomben 3y agoI'm not positive what GP meant either, but if they were talking about horses, that is mentioned in the article as being there about 12,000 years ago, which is significantly before colonization that first GP mentioned as having brought horses to the area: > the rock art shows how the earliest human inhabitants of the area would have coexisted with Ice Age megafauna, with pictures showing what appear to be giant sloths, mastodons, camelids, horses and three-toed ungulates with trunks.
- amatic 3y agoApparently, there were horses in the Americas, but they went extinct about 12k years ago, along with the other megafauna. What I understand is that different images could have been made in multiple time periods, from the first inhabitants up to today.
- abeppu 3y agoIs it surprising that a mere overhang in the rock has been sufficient to preserve art for that long? It sounds like they really are just pigment on cleaned rock, and I would have thought that water dripping, wind, lichens, animals or _something_ over the millennia would have ruined it.
- crazygringo 3y agoI too was baffled by this, in my experience modern paint isn't going to last that long. But I looked it up and supposedly: > Because ochre is a mineral, it doesn't wash away or decay, allowing it to persist through the ages. [1] > ...the ancient artisans of Babine Lake in British Columbia harvested ochre sediment... Then, MacDonald says, they carefully heated it to around 750 to 850 degrees Celsius over open-hearth fires to achieve the colour they desired... Not only would the process yield the vivid red, the ancient artisans must have known, but it would “improve colourfastness, stability and resistance to degradation”, the scientists’ article says... The iron in the material bonds easily to surfaces that are high in silica, like the rock faces, ensuring their durability. [2] So it seems it's due to actual chemical bonding. Which makes me wonder -- if you applied ochre to rock today, how hard would it be to then remove? Would it be impossible with regular washing, would you need power washing, or sandblasting even? [1] https://www.livescience.com/64138-ochre.html https://www.livescience.com/64138-ochre.html [2] https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2019/11/21/scientists-uncover-a-secret-to-rock-arts-durability https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2019/11/21/scientists-uncove...
- hrpnk 3y ago"(2020)" missing in the title? Story was published 1:51 PM EST, Wed December 2, 2020.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- atentaten 3y agoCan someone explain what eight-mile has to do with any of this? It's only mentioned in the title and not in the article's text.
- noSyncCloud 3y agoI found this paragraph on Wiki: >A site including eight miles of paintings or pictographs that is under study in Colombia, South America at Serranía de la Lindosa was revealed in November 2020. Their age is suggested as being 12,500 years old (c. 10,480 B.C.) by the anthropologists working on the site because of extinct fauna depicted. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_art - https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chapel-of-the-ancients-rock-art-discovered-in-remote-amazon-forest https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chap...
- olddustytrail 3y agoThere are 3 sites within 8 miles of each other.
- olddustytrail 3y ago> frieze of Ice Age beasts I wonder how long the headline writer has been waiting for an opportunity to use that one!
- qup 3y agoWhat is "eight-mile" referencing? It's totally unclear to me.
- version_five 3y agoIf you had one shot to paint any frieze you ever wanted, would you capture it, or just let it slide?
- freetime2 3y agoAnthropologists believe the long, wavy lines featured throughout the frieze depict mom's spaghetti.
- bpodgursky 3y ago> coexisted with Ice Age megafauna, with pictures showing what appear to be giant sloths, mastodons, camelids, horses and three-toed ungulates with trunks "Coexisted" is a loaded term given that the coexistence lasted for maybe a couple hundred years before every single one of those was hunted to extinction.
- trompetenaccoun 3y agoThat's a theory but not proven. Could have been climate change too, or another cause.
- bpodgursky 3y agoNorth America had megafauna for 55 million years. Do you really think it's coincidence that they all died out 10,000 years ago?
- stubish 3y agoThe same environmental changes that encouraged humans and other smaller predators to spread to the Americas may also have lowered the population of the megafauna. But yes, I tend to believe that the environmental change that killed of the megafauna was the arrival of predators smart enough to use pointy sticks and fire, which we call evolution.
- wumms 3y agoCovered eight years ago (2015): https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/20/colombia-wilderness-film-maker-prehistoric-rock-art https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/20/colombia-wilde... Edit: Channel 4 (UK) documentary from 2020 [0,1] as teased here [2] [0] https://youtu.be/aDmKC_h9Www https://youtu.be/aDmKC_h9Www [1] Show me the paintings! https://youtu.be/aDmKC_h9Www?t=3073 https://youtu.be/aDmKC_h9Www?t=3073 [2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chapel-of-the-ancients-rock-art-discovered-in-remote-amazon-forest https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/nov/29/sistine-chap...
- wswope 3y agoJust to add-on: Channel 4 has also put out related "Lost Kingdoms of Africa/South America/Central America" series, all of which are well-done and showcase offbeat archaeological sites in the same vein as this frieze. https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=lost+kingdoms&d=programmes_ps https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=lost+kingdoms&d=programmes_ps
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoI wonder if it’s possible that these were documenting something that they were losing, or had lost, as opposed to simply just a document to how they were living currently. Like a historical record of sorts. That specific period 18000 years ago, was the middle-end of the quaternary megafauna extinction [1] and the earth was transitioning from plenty of mega fauna to none - leading to the birth of property and modernity. [1] https://kemendo.com/Myth.pdf https://kemendo.com/Myth.pdf
- barbazoo 3y agoWould they have known that something disappeared in the short time span that they observed? Wouldn't it have been more like a frog slowly boiling type of situations? Perhaps they would have made them extinct by hunting them but I think that happened much later. But I'm not sure at all. This is so fascinating. What are folks reading in that field that's not too dry, something like Sapiens?
- AndrewKemendo 3y agoFascinating indeed! David Wengrow and David Graeber published the absolutely phenomenal The Dawn of Everything [0] which is a must read - though they ask the question (that I think I answer in my paper) "how did we 'get stuck' with hierarchical society proliferating from 10,000BC on?" The book Blood Relations[1] by Chris Knight is also fantastic here and I got started with my own research with Lionel Sims a British marxist [2] [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything [1]https://blackbooksdotpub.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/blood-relations-chris-knight.pdf https://blackbooksdotpub.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/blood-r... [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muya-MSX7uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muya-MSX7uk
- frankfrankfrank 3y agoI thought something like that myself, i.e., that it could have been legends, or a kind of proto-religion based on stories told by earlier ancestors that would have come from the north, which these people would of course not have known. They only knew that there were stories told “from the homeland” where there were large beasts and plenty.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- oldstrangers 3y ago"probably made around 11,800 to 12,600 years ago" Interesting timeline if you're entertained by the 'lost civilization' / cataclysm discourse.
- bcraven 3y agoThe ABC (Aussie) documentary _First Footprints_ is one of the most mind-boggling documentaries I have ever seen. It covers 50,000 years of Australian history. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/australia-culture-blog/2013/jul/14/first-footprints-broadchurch-abc https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/australia-culture-b...
- two_in_one 3y agoEspecially if you take into account that humans have just arrived in the Far North. That was a quick march south...
- hagbarth 3y agoYeah just 1000 years or so. Come on.
- hnfong 3y agoI could never look at the number `12k` the same ever since.
- pentagrama 3y agoThe title font is really hard to read. Thanks Firefox for your reader mode. Someone here browse the web blocking remote fonts? How was your experience? I know uBlock Origin has this option, I may give it a try.
- froggit 3y agoI block remote fonts w/ ublock! It's pretty handy in a "I always know text is gonna be rendered with a font I can read and it cuts down on having to make the connections to get them. ublock has a bit of a learning curve (half an hour reading on their wiki) to get the most outta it, but just blocking remote fonts just takes a couple clicks in check boxes.
- pentagrama 3y agoJust tried for a bit, all good til I noticed in some sites using icon fonts I got a weird character, it make sense, but is a problem there, specially for icons without labels, eg: https://imgur.com/a/8D1OC9n https://imgur.com/a/8D1OC9n Don't know why devs will use fonts instead of svgs for icons, I guess there is a reason.
- velosol 3y agoI have and briefly the majority of the time you're missing little to nothing by not using webfonts. Occasionally the design language of a physical media property is carried forward with the font in a way that is interesting enough to be worthwhile (ie _The Atlantic_'s title font is instantly recognizable but not critical). If you're bandwidth starved (ie ISDN or worse) then it's also a nice speedup.
- pentagrama 3y agoYeah, but as I mentioned in other comment, I found many issues with icons by blocking remote fonts, look at Google Podcasts https://imgur.com/a/6de4uNL https://imgur.com/a/6de4uNL
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- jibbit 3y agoI struggle to find an outdoor paint that lasts 2 years
- someweirdperson 3y agoIt's the fault of modern regulation, requiring it to never cause health issues or problems for the environment.
- mistercheph 3y agoYes, 20,000 years ago, people used cancer-causing chemicals to dye rocks that have been regulated out of existence, no small part of the improvements in mortality since that primitive time.
- trompetenaccoun 3y agoIt seems to be an overhang, but still... I've also never seen that anywhere in the tropics. Are there others? All the rock paintings I know are either in caves or very different climates.
- spaceman_2020 3y agoOchre is a mineral, not a paint.
- dudinax 3y ago+1 for the theory that humans wiped out the megafauna in America.
- froggit 3y agoMore evidence you can find anything on Amazon.
- frankfrankfrank 3y agoTurns out it’s a knockoff and not at all 12,000 years old
- RagnarD 3y agoEvery square millimeter of this work needs to be digitized in high color resolution with 3D scans, ASAP.
- LouisSayers 3y agoIn the paintings there are many cosine / sine wave type patterns, as well as www type patterns as well. Any ideas what these are referring to? It seems like they're documenting something?
- michaelsbradley 3y agoThey were possibly documenting lights in the sky: https://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003clr.pdf https://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003...
- wdb 3y agoFirst the Neatherhals cave paintings in France and now this! Cool
- benbojangles 3y agoThe Colombian frieze art looks awfully similar to Dogonland Art in Mali; perhaps they made it all the way to Colombia?
- oriettaxx 3y ago"Located in the Serranía La Lindosa in modern-day Colombia" why do they need to add "in modern-day" ??
- c420 3y agoHate that the term "rock art" is still being used. These are pictographs. Calling them rock "art" frames the context in the reader's mind that these represented something aesthetic for the creators, which is highly reductive for the purpose/s they more likely served.
- skribanto 3y agoWhat exactly is the intended purpose you envision?
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago[dead]