Iriarte José, Ziegler Michael J, Outram Alan K, Robinson Mark, Roberts Patrick, Aceituno Francisco J, Morcote-Ríos Gaspar, Keesey T Michael
Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022 Apr 25;377(1849):20200496. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0496. Epub 2022 Mar 7.
Megafauna paintings have accompanied the earliest archaeological contexts across the continents, revealing a fundamental inter-relationship between early humans and megafauna during the global human expansion as unfamiliar landscapes were humanized and identities built into new territories. However, the identification of extinct megafauna from rock art is controversial. Here, we examine potential megafauna depictions in the rock art of Serranía de la Lindosa, Colombian Amazon, that includes a giant sloth, a gomphothere, a camelid, horses and three-toed ungulates with trunks. We argue that they are Ice Age rock art based on the (i) naturalistic appearance and diagnostic morphological features of the animal images, (ii) late Pleistocene archaeological dates from La Lindosa confirming the contemporaneity of humans and megafauna, (iii) recovery of ochre pigments in late Pleistocene archaeological strata, (iv) the presence of most megafauna identified in the region during the late Pleistocene as attested by archaeological and palaeontological records, and (v) widespread depiction of extinct megafauna in rock art across the Americas. Our findings contribute to the emerging picture of considerable geographical and stylistic variation of geometric and figurative rock art from early human occupations across South America. Lastly, we discuss the implications of our findings for understanding the early human history of tropical South America. This article is part of the theme issue 'Tropical forests in the deep human past'.
巨型动物绘画伴随着各大洲最早的考古背景出现，揭示了在全球人类扩张过程中，早期人类与巨型动物之间的一种基本相互关系，在此期间，陌生的地貌被人类化，身份认同也在新领土上得以确立。然而，从岩石艺术中识别已灭绝的巨型动物存在争议。在这里，我们研究了哥伦比亚亚马逊地区林多萨山脉岩石艺术中可能的巨型动物描绘，其中包括一只巨型树懒、一只铲齿象、一只骆驼科动物、马以及长着长鼻的三趾有蹄类动物。我们认为它们是冰河时代的岩石艺术，依据是：（i）动物图像的自然主义外观和诊断性形态特征；（ii）来自林多萨的晚更新世考古年代测定结果证实了人类与巨型动物的同时代性；（iii）在晚更新世考古地层中发现了赭石颜料；（iv）考古和古生物学记录证明该地区在晚更新世存在大多数已识别出的巨型动物；（v）美洲各地的岩石艺术中广泛描绘了已灭绝的巨型动物。我们的研究结果有助于呈现出一幅新的画面，即南美洲早期人类活动产生的几何和具象岩石艺术在地理和风格上存在相当大的差异。最后，我们讨论了研究结果对理解南美洲热带地区早期人类历史的意义。本文是主题为“人类深层过去的热带森林”的一部分。
