Humans first arrived to the American continent from Asia through the Bering Strait, in several waves of migration, between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago. Migrant hunter-gatherers found virgin landscapes full of unknown plants and animals.
Paleoindigenous cultures that migrated through what is now Latin America left traces of their lives with their rock art in caves and cliffs.
These paintings show how early cultures learned to live in their new environments. They also give researchers clues about how ancient humans left their legacy on the region’s current biodiversity and culture.
The oldest rock art in Latin America comes from the Serranía de La Lindosa, in the Amazon department of Guaviare, in Colombia.
The paintings are believed to be around 12,800 years old, placing them around the end of the Ice Age.
Francisco Javier Aceituno, an archaeologist at the University of Antioquia in Colombia, described this art as “photographs of the past.”
The paintings, mainly in red ocher, depict various animal species, which some specialists suggest could be extinct animals, such as native horse species, or domesticated species, including cows and dogs.
But these nature scenes are more than just creative expressions. Experts believe that the drawings served as educational tools that helped teach younger generations when and how to handle different plants and animals, not only in Colombia, but throughout South America.
Samples found in a cave in Patagonia, for example, suggest that paintings from 8,200 years ago were used to transmit information to 130 human generations, and perhaps helped people survive climate changes.
Rock art, an example of spirituality
Much of the rock art in the Serranía de La Lindosa, like that in other parts of South America, includes symbolic works that represent the spiritual world.
Spirituality is evident in ancient art around the world, both through painting and music. Experts say these tests reveal the earliest forms of religion, when humans established a sacred connection with the natural world.
Hallucinogenic drugs, many of which originate in the Americas, may have played an important role in spirituality and early religious ceremonies.
It is believed that the paleoindigenous peoples of California, for example, used hallucinogenic drugs to induce spiritual states, such as the LSD parties that devastated California in the 1960s or the contemporary consumption of Ayahuasca in Brazil.
Paleoindigenous influence in the Amazon
Between 13,000 and 8,000 years ago, the Amazon changed from a dry savanna and scrubland to the tropical rainforest we know today.
During this period, rapid climate changes occurred and local cultures had to learn to adapt.
Excavations in the Serranía de La Lindosa allowed Aceituno and his colleagues to indirectly date the rock art to the beginning of this period of transformation.
But the most surprising discovery, according to Aceituno, was that human cultures had lived in the Serranía de La Lindosa for more than 12,000 years.
Aceituno believes that they may have greatly influenced the biodiversity and plant life of the Amazon during the climate transition, and that we can still see it today.
The region’s rock art, for example, shows evidence that humans managed plant species about 9,000 years ago. This could explain the persistence of useful plants in the current Amazon.
The genetic history of indigenous groups is not yet known
Another legacy, according to Aceituno, is the heritage of the Paleolithic groups in the ethnic groups that live in Latin America today.
Elements of the Mesoamerican worldview can be seen, for example, in the Day of the Dead ceremony.
But we cannot be sure that current indigenous communities are direct descendants of paleoindigenous cultures “in a biological sense,” says Aceituno. However, recent advances in ancient DNA testing could help uncover the genetic history of local indigenous groups and, with the help of rock art, trace how their cultures spread across South America.