The Geography of Patagonia Explained
Patagonia Rock Art Reveals Ancient Messages Transmitted Across Generations
Cave painting in the southern areas of South America may have started 8,200 years ago, several millennia earlier than previously thought. The cave art, located in Patagonia, Argentina, was thought to previously be only several thousand years old, but new research shows that some of this cave art was created during the late Holocene epoch (11,700 years ago – present).
What’s In A Comb?
With nearly 900 human figures,
animals, and abstract designs painted, the scientists studied one of
the cave’s most puzzling motifs – a comb-like pattern, which has been
dated the earliest of them all.
While the significance of the comb
motif remains obscured by the passage of time, researchers speculate
that it may have played a role in preserving the collective memories and
oral traditions of the peoples who navigated through this exceptionally
hot and dry period.
For millennia, cave artists persisted in depicting a recurring comb design using black pigment, even during periods when little other human activity occurred at the site. Recent dating of these comb-like depictions in an Argentine cave reveals that they were part of a rock art tradition spanning over 3,000 years, concluding approximately 5,100 years ago, reveals the new study published in Science Advances.
“We got the results and we were very surprised,” said Guadalupe Romero Villanueva, an author of the study and an archaeologist at the Argentine government agency CONICET and the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought in Buenos Aires. “It was a shock, and we had to rethink some things,” she added, quoted in an NYT report.
To ascertain the age of the artwork, archaeologists utilized a methodical approach. They carefully chipped away several small fragments of black pigment from the drawings to determine the age of the cave art. Since the pigment was derived from plant materials, scientists employed radiocarbon dating techniques to establish its age. The analysis revealed that the black paint likely originated from charred wood, possibly from burned shrubs or cacti.
"It's usually really hard to date rock art unless it has an organic component, otherwise there really isn't any material that you can date," study co-author Ramiro Barberena, an archaeologist at Temuco Catholic University in Chile and CONICET, told Live Science. "[The cave] is not the oldest occupation in South America, but it is the oldest directly radiocarbon-dated pigment-based rock art in South America."
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