Major breakthrough as rock art reveals amazing 12,500-year-old relationship

 A new study into rock art in the Colombian Amazon has revealed an amazing new insight into the relationship between the region's first humans and animals.

A new study analysed rock art images in the Cerro Azul, in the Guaviare state of Colombia, a series of rocky outcrops and galleries. It served as a canvas for rock art painting for over a 1,000 years.

His findings were published in express.co.uk.

“These rock art sites include the earliest evidence of humans in western Amazonia, dating back 12,500 years ago,” says Dr Mark Robinson, Associate Professor of Archaeology in Exeter’s Department of Archaeology and History.

“As such, the art is an amazing insight into how these first settlers understood their place in the world and how they formed relationships with animals.”

During the 1990s, while the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) dominated the region, Colombian researchers were able to identify tens of thousands of rock paintings in the country’s largest national park, Chiribiquete. The site was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2018.

The paintings in the area also include vivid red handprints and hand stencils, which were created by using a tube to blow a mineral pigment over a hand to leave a ghostly imprint.

Researchers also studied zooarchaeological remains from nearby excavations as part of the study, which indicated that the early settlers had a varied diet of fish, mammals and reptiles.

However, the animal bones found do not align with the frequency of the animals depicted in the rock art, which implies that the artists did not paint the animals they frequently ate.