Finding traces of ancient civilizations is not uncommon. What is a little more difficult is finding relics from the past and no historian knows who they belonged to.
Archaeologists have recently discovered sites containing several cave paintings. So far, so good, except that they don’t know who they might have belonged to. A life-size Clue that is mysterious in many ways.
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Paintings of unknown origins
A team of archaeologists recently discovered around twenty sites containing cave paintings in the heart of Venezuela , reports Live Science . It is at an ancient site where the discovery was made, more precisely, in the Canaima National Park , located in the southeast of the country. If this park means anything to you, it is because it is where the highest waterfall in the world is located, the Angel Falls .
The colourful paintings found were composed of pictograms as well as various red geometric shapes, probably painted with ochre . Researchers were thus able to discover numerous dots, but also lines, rows of Xs, not to mention stars and simple, stylised shapes that could represent people. And when faced with these petroglyphs , the question immediately arises as to who could have created them.
The answer is extremely frustrating, because archaeologists do not currently know. However, this is not the first time that similar cave paintings have been found in South America. But according to José Miguel Pérez-Gómez, an archaeologist and researcher at the Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, these cannot be linked to any already known civilization. Fine, but why?
Why can’t researchers identify its origins?
Learning that unknown pre-Columbian civilizations exist is a bit like discovering a secret room in your apartment when you’ve lived there for years. Obviously, that comes as a surprise. In addition to paintings, researchers found remains of ceramic objects and stone tools . If they likely belonged to the individuals who created the petroglyphs, analyses must be carried out to confirm this.
This is the first time that signs of human activity have been detected in this inaccessible region of South America. This explains why archaeologists are having difficulty identifying the authors. For José Miguel Pérez-Gómez, it is not impossible that the area was the “ground zero” of a hitherto unknown culture. This would have subsequently spread to other regions. In Brazil, for example, similar works dating back 4,000 years have been found . Those in Venezuela are believed to be older.
According to initial interpretations, the paintings could represent a birth, an illness or even a renewal. But still, according to the researcher, “it is almost impossible to get into the heads of people who lived so many years ago .” Therefore, the mystery remains complete.
Read also:
- Mysterious painting of 12 zodiac signs revealed in ancient Egyptian temple
- Cave paintings suggest our ancestors were already practicing astronomy 15,000 years ago
- The Mayans: the history and secrets of this disappeared civilization
