In the interior desert of Argentine Patagonia there is a remote cave decorated with almost
900 paintings of human figures
, animals and abstract drawings.
Until recently, archaeologists assumed that the rock art at that site, known as Cueva Huenul 1, was created in the last few thousand years.
But in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, archaeologists say one of the cave's most mysterious drawings,
a comb-shaped pattern
, first appeared about
8,200 years
ago , making it by far , in the oldest known example of rock art in one of the last places on Earth to be inhabited by our species.
Rock artists continued to draw the same comb design with black pigment for thousands of years, a time when other human activities were virtually absent from the site.
The rock art offers a rare glimpse into a culture that may have relied on that drawing to
communicate valuable knowledge
across generations during a period of climate change.
"We received the results and we were very surprised," said Guadalupe Romero Villanueva, author of the study and archaeologist from 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."
Patagonia was not reached by humans until about 12,000 years ago.
Those early inhabitants thrived in Huenul Cave 1 for generations, leaving signs of habitation.
Then, about 10,000 years ago,
the area became more arid
and hostile as a result of climate changes.
The archaeological record of the cave also disappears for the next few thousand years, which would indicate that the site was largely abandoned due to environmental pressures.
The comb motifs coincide with that long period of difficulties, according to Romero Villanueva and his colleagues, who determined the age of the paintings with radiocarbon dating.
The team also discovered that the black paint was probably made from charred wood, perhaps from burned bushes or cacti.
“As interesting as the ages are, for us it is more significant that they cover more or less
3,000 years of painting basically the same motif
during all that time,” said Ramiro Barberena, author of the study and archaeologist also from Conicet, as well as from the Catholic University of Temuco in Chile.
He added that this is proof “of the continuity in the transmission of information in these very small and very mobile societies.”
Although
the meaning of the comb motif
has been lost to time, researchers speculate that it could have helped preserve the collective memories and oral traditions of the peoples who endured this unusually warm and dry period.
Relationships between groups of ancient humans who developed and shared that rock art may have increased the chances of survival in that complicated environment, Barberena said.
Andrés Troncoso, an archaeologist in the anthropology department at the University of Chile who was not involved in the research, said he agreed with that interpretation.
The paper "offers a contribution to the debate about
how humans dealt with climate change
in the past," he said.
Although the purpose of the comb motif likely remains a mystery, the persistent presence of the drawing in the cave opens a new window into the prehistoric peoples of Patagonia.
“You can't stop thinking about those people,” said Romero Villanueva, adding: “They were in the same place, admiring the same landscape;
the people who lived here, perhaps families, gathered for social reasons.
"It's very emotional for us."
The New York Times. Special
Translation: Elisa Carnelli
P.S.