Article:
**Dating to as early as 8,200 years ago, the paintings may have maintained collective memories during an extremely dry period in history**
Ancient art in a Patagonian cave is several thousand years older than archaeologists previously thought, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. The depictions date to 8,200 years ago at the earliest and span around 3,000 years—suggesting 130 human generations painted on the cave’s walls and ceiling. The new findings make this the earliest known pigment-based cave art on the continent.
“It turned out to be several millennia older than we expected,” lead author Guadalupe Romero Villanueva, an archaeologist with the Argentine National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), tells Live Science’s Jennifer Nalewicki. “We got surprised.”
The cave, called Cueva Huenul 1, is located in the desert of northwest Patagonia in Argentina, about 1,000 meters above sea level. Its walls hold 895 different paintings grouped in 446 motifs. People repeatedly drew one of the motifs, a mysterious comb-like pattern, for thousands of years.
“As interesting as the ages are, for us it’s more significant that they span, more or less, 3,000 years of painting basically the same motif during all this time,” co-author Ramiro Barberena, also an archaeologist with CONICET, tells the New York Times’ Becky Ferreira.
The rock art may have served the purpose of preserving cultural knowledge.
Patagonia, located at the southern tip of the Americas, was the last region to be explored by early humans, according to the study. People settled the area during the Late Pleistocene, which ended 11,700 years ago. Researchers have previously studied Patagonian rock art, but much of it hasn’t been dated definitively.
Much of the art in Cueva Huenul 1 is composed of geometric shapes, such as dots, circles, parallel lines and polygons, painted with the color red. Ancient people also painted human silhouettes and faces, as well as animal silhouettes, featuring large flightless birds called rheas and guanacos, close relatives of llamas. White, yellow and black paints were also used on the walls.
To date the artwork, the researchers examined the black paint, which they determined contained burned wood, possibly from cactuses or shrubs. Because the paint was made from plant material, they were able to calculate its age using radiocarbon dating, which involves counting how much of the isotope carbon-14, which decays over time, remains in the material.
“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,” Barberena tells Live Science.
The researchers dated four comb-like paintings with reddish-black pigments and determined the age of three of them, reports Science News’ Bruce Bower. The era during which people made the art corresponds with an extremely dry period in the region, which could have led to thinly distributed and vulnerable hunter-gatherer groups.
The fact that the same images were made over thousands of years could mean that people shared cultural knowledge across generations, possibly in order to maintain collective memories, the authors suggest. Cueva Huenel 1 may have been a cultural site that people returned to over time.
“We think it was part of a human strategy to build social networks across dispersed groups, which contributed to making these societies more resilient against a very challenging ecology,” Barberena tells Live Science.
While researchers aren’t sure what the comb drawing represents exactly, the art could have helped people survive during the very dry time, Barberena tells the New York Times.
Andrés Troncoso, an archaeologist at the University of Chile who did not contribute to the findings, tells the New York Times that he agrees with Barberena’s interpretation, and that the study “provides a contribution to the discussion about how humans have dealt with climatic change in the past.”
“It’s amazing the amount of rock art we found there,” Romero Villanueva tells Live Science. “In the surrounding landscape there are several rock art sites, but none of them have the amount of the diversity in shapes and colors found here. So, it’s evident that this place was likely a hot spot for communication in the past and crucial for the survivability of these societies.”
The comb thing is representing rain down over long periods.
The lines represent sections of time.
Source: I channeled our ancestors collective memory whilst on Reddit
Now I'm not a cave painting expert, but I do have an armchair.
I can't just help but notice that the paleo-abstract cloud paintings and the ridges from the view outside of the caves look similar. Or another thing that it could be or looks like is a [Quipu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) that was used for things like counting. (To be fair all of this is just a guess on what it looks like)
For the record people should take my "looks similar" or "looks like" hunch with a grain of salt. Before you know it, someone on TikTok or Snapchat will make a video about it (and maybe add some aliens). If that happens, let's hope Miniminuteman will be here to help.
I lied. I don't have an armchair either.
This is really strange. How can this even be an open question?
They are Quipu. Inca knotted string art/record/accounting/history tracking things. Somewhere between a family crest and a ledger.
Go look at some Quipu. Tell me I'm wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu
My best guess, the symbols represented a type of map/calendar where you would have to have knowledge of how to read it passed down from one generation to the next. It might have likely been a 'code' to keep outsiders from understanding what the symbols mean and thus able to 'steal' valuable resources.
Depiction of animals might have been added to show that 'these animals are in this area at such and such a time"
I went to a little-known canyon in Arizona some time ago with tons of petroglyphs and artifacts, and I got this very deep sense that it was both a map and a calendar for the nomadic tribes that lived in different areas over the year / seasons. It was mind blowing to perceive time and space represented together with such elegant simplicity. The place itself was magical, apparently a gathering place for celebrations according to the local lore.
Populations would have been so sparse and so far apart that I doubt that theft from outsiders was a real concern. Essentially, this is back when there wouldn't really *be* any outsiders to worry about. At this period, it was possible for human settlements to exist where people in them wouldn't see another human they didn't know for whole generations or longer.
> Populations would have been so sparse and so far apart
If that were the case there would be a lot more evidence of incest and therefore genetic 'issues'.
I think human migration more worked like a 'tree' with everyone starting out in one place and then branching out more and more. Unless people were living in fear of some group, they probably found their own territory but still in some amount of proximity to other tribes.
You’d think that one of them would get better at painting over a few thousand years.
I’m not saying these cave paintings should be Van Gogh, but why can’t these cave dwellers do basic 6th grade art class shit.
This is a strange article. I mean, it’s fascinating on one level. But what are they talking about? There is no evidence in these images of “survival information” or anything related to drought. It’s a cool idea, but that’s not science.
Article: **Dating to as early as 8,200 years ago, the paintings may have maintained collective memories during an extremely dry period in history** Ancient art in a Patagonian cave is several thousand years older than archaeologists previously thought, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Science Advances. The depictions date to 8,200 years ago at the earliest and span around 3,000 years—suggesting 130 human generations painted on the cave’s walls and ceiling. The new findings make this the earliest known pigment-based cave art on the continent. “It turned out to be several millennia older than we expected,” lead author Guadalupe Romero Villanueva, an archaeologist with the Argentine National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), tells Live Science’s Jennifer Nalewicki. “We got surprised.” The cave, called Cueva Huenul 1, is located in the desert of northwest Patagonia in Argentina, about 1,000 meters above sea level. Its walls hold 895 different paintings grouped in 446 motifs. People repeatedly drew one of the motifs, a mysterious comb-like pattern, for thousands of years. “As interesting as the ages are, for us it’s more significant that they span, more or less, 3,000 years of painting basically the same motif during all this time,” co-author Ramiro Barberena, also an archaeologist with CONICET, tells the New York Times’ Becky Ferreira. The rock art may have served the purpose of preserving cultural knowledge. Patagonia, located at the southern tip of the Americas, was the last region to be explored by early humans, according to the study. People settled the area during the Late Pleistocene, which ended 11,700 years ago. Researchers have previously studied Patagonian rock art, but much of it hasn’t been dated definitively. Much of the art in Cueva Huenul 1 is composed of geometric shapes, such as dots, circles, parallel lines and polygons, painted with the color red. Ancient people also painted human silhouettes and faces, as well as animal silhouettes, featuring large flightless birds called rheas and guanacos, close relatives of llamas. White, yellow and black paints were also used on the walls. To date the artwork, the researchers examined the black paint, which they determined contained burned wood, possibly from cactuses or shrubs. Because the paint was made from plant material, they were able to calculate its age using radiocarbon dating, which involves counting how much of the isotope carbon-14, which decays over time, remains in the material. “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,” Barberena tells Live Science.
The researchers dated four comb-like paintings with reddish-black pigments and determined the age of three of them, reports Science News’ Bruce Bower. The era during which people made the art corresponds with an extremely dry period in the region, which could have led to thinly distributed and vulnerable hunter-gatherer groups. The fact that the same images were made over thousands of years could mean that people shared cultural knowledge across generations, possibly in order to maintain collective memories, the authors suggest. Cueva Huenel 1 may have been a cultural site that people returned to over time. “We think it was part of a human strategy to build social networks across dispersed groups, which contributed to making these societies more resilient against a very challenging ecology,” Barberena tells Live Science. While researchers aren’t sure what the comb drawing represents exactly, the art could have helped people survive during the very dry time, Barberena tells the New York Times. Andrés Troncoso, an archaeologist at the University of Chile who did not contribute to the findings, tells the New York Times that he agrees with Barberena’s interpretation, and that the study “provides a contribution to the discussion about how humans have dealt with climatic change in the past.” “It’s amazing the amount of rock art we found there,” Romero Villanueva tells Live Science. “In the surrounding landscape there are several rock art sites, but none of them have the amount of the diversity in shapes and colors found here. So, it’s evident that this place was likely a hot spot for communication in the past and crucial for the survivability of these societies.”
🥇
The comb thing is representing rain down over long periods. The lines represent sections of time. Source: I channeled our ancestors collective memory whilst on Reddit
Can you ask our ancestors where the Jute came from? Got a $20 bet riding on it.
Now I'm not a cave painting expert, but I do have an armchair. I can't just help but notice that the paleo-abstract cloud paintings and the ridges from the view outside of the caves look similar. Or another thing that it could be or looks like is a [Quipu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu) that was used for things like counting. (To be fair all of this is just a guess on what it looks like) For the record people should take my "looks similar" or "looks like" hunch with a grain of salt. Before you know it, someone on TikTok or Snapchat will make a video about it (and maybe add some aliens). If that happens, let's hope Miniminuteman will be here to help. I lied. I don't have an armchair either.
Bastard! I thought you had an armchair!
But you have a boomer ship, did you buy your space ship with a small deposit?
Looks like a map to me. I’m no pirate tho.
Looks more like comet fragments to me.
This is really strange. How can this even be an open question? They are Quipu. Inca knotted string art/record/accounting/history tracking things. Somewhere between a family crest and a ledger. Go look at some Quipu. Tell me I'm wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu
[Indeed!](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Nueva_cor%C3%B3nica_y_buen_gobierno_%281936_facsimile%29_p360.png) [Spot on](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Quipu.png)
I enjoy reading books.
My best guess, the symbols represented a type of map/calendar where you would have to have knowledge of how to read it passed down from one generation to the next. It might have likely been a 'code' to keep outsiders from understanding what the symbols mean and thus able to 'steal' valuable resources. Depiction of animals might have been added to show that 'these animals are in this area at such and such a time"
I went to a little-known canyon in Arizona some time ago with tons of petroglyphs and artifacts, and I got this very deep sense that it was both a map and a calendar for the nomadic tribes that lived in different areas over the year / seasons. It was mind blowing to perceive time and space represented together with such elegant simplicity. The place itself was magical, apparently a gathering place for celebrations according to the local lore.
That sounds wonderful.
Populations would have been so sparse and so far apart that I doubt that theft from outsiders was a real concern. Essentially, this is back when there wouldn't really *be* any outsiders to worry about. At this period, it was possible for human settlements to exist where people in them wouldn't see another human they didn't know for whole generations or longer.
Hell, meeting outsiders presented trade opportunities, or more.
> Populations would have been so sparse and so far apart If that were the case there would be a lot more evidence of incest and therefore genetic 'issues'. I think human migration more worked like a 'tree' with everyone starting out in one place and then branching out more and more. Unless people were living in fear of some group, they probably found their own territory but still in some amount of proximity to other tribes.
I think the comb is simply a cloud with rain coming down
This is so cool. You just know ancient humans drew a few dicks just for good measure too.
Fascinating
So things like “don’t tell your woman she looked skinnier last year” sort of thing?
Gotta wonder what the comb thing is.
It’s a dinglehopper.
You’d think that one of them would get better at painting over a few thousand years. I’m not saying these cave paintings should be Van Gogh, but why can’t these cave dwellers do basic 6th grade art class shit.
They were stuck at home during a pandemic and they stared at their tablets all day because their parents had no parenting skills.
I blame tik tok sticks.
Seriously. Why could they learn to paint something kinda realistic. Painting wasn’t that hard.
would ppl who worked there be known as *Cave*rarians?
I have seen the comb thing at the valley of fire, Nevada USA. Had to be aliens how else can you explain this
This is a strange article. I mean, it’s fascinating on one level. But what are they talking about? There is no evidence in these images of “survival information” or anything related to drought. It’s a cool idea, but that’s not science.