Sometimes the past resurfaces in the most unexpected ways. It is precisely on these occasions that we are faced with incredible testimonies from distant eras, fascinating and perfect discoveries to learn more about our origins and the distant past of our planet.
Imagine that you are an archaeologist and discover, in the middle of the Colombian Amazon rainforest, walls and walls of engravings and cave paintings, works that date back 12,500 years and that highlight representation of extinct creatures belonging to the ‘ice Age. The astonishment would be very strong, and this is exactly what the researchers who were the actors of such a discovery experienced, in what was called the “Rock Sistine Chapel of Antiquity”.
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image credit: Jame Andy – Earth Science TV/Youtube
The name “Sistine Chapel” is enough to understand the magnificence of the archaeological site in question. Tens of thousands of animal and human themed paintings have been found in Colombia, in a wooded area that stretches for nearly 13 kilometers. These rock carvings are so numerous and so well preserved that archaeologists could only compare them to the marvelous place decorated with frescoes by Michelangelo.
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image credit: Jame Andy – Earth Science TV/Youtube
Mastodons, paleolamas, giant bradypes and prehistoric “horses”: the animals represented in this incredible “collection” leave no doubt about the time when they were made. Their authors were probably among the first human beings to set foot in the Amazon rainforest, and these images are true “snapshots” of a civilization lost in a totally different world.
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image credit: Jame Andy – Earth Science TV/Youtube
Besides the immensity of the cave paintings, what impressed the researchers was the incredible skill of the people who made them, able to climb into high and uncomfortable positions to depict the scenes. The site, which is located in the Serranía de Lindosa, is also particularly remote: to reach it, you have to walk for about four hours, entering the depths of the forest, surrounded by an environment strewn with pitfalls.
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image credit: Jame Andy – Earth Science TV/Youtube
The discovery, made public in November 2020, actually dates back to last year, both because of the necessary investigations and because it was unveiled in a documentary dedicated to it and which is in preparation. “The immensity of the paintings is so great – commented the researchers of the British Columbia team who made the precious discovery – that it will take generations to study them .”
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image credit: Jame Andy – Earth Science TV/Youtube
A discovery to say the least sensational , which would represent only the emerged part of an iceberg made of precious testimonies that shed new light on distant periods and lost civilizations. To observe them is truly fascinating, just as it is captivating to think of the inhabitants who were there, in the middle of the forest, trying to tell their present.
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image credit: Green Cathedral – Amazon Forest / Wikimedia
sources: The Guardian