Argentinian archaeologists discovered the oldest rock paintings in South America in a cave in Patagonia. About 8,200 years ago, people began to draw comb patterns – it was probably how they reacted to stress.

This was reported by The New York Times, referring to the material in the specialized publication Science Advances. Scientists explored the cave Cueva Uenel 1. In it they found the oldest painting in South America.

The cave is located in the northwest of the Patagonia region in Argentina. It is the southernmost point of America and the last continental region to be inhabited by modern humans during the late Pleistocene (up to 11,700 years ago). This ecosystem differs from the Andes, where the climate was wetter and warmer, with excellent preservation of paleoecological and archaeological artifacts.

In the cave, in which there are about 900 drawings, they began to explore the comb images. These are parallel vertical lines branching from a horizontal one, similar in appearance to a comb, or horizontal lines branching to the sides from a vertical one. At first, scientists assumed that the rock painting in the cave was about several thousand years old. However, the radiocarbon analysis surprised scientists. They discovered that the oldest drawings are about 8,200 years old, and the newest ones are about 5,000 years old. These are the oldest drawings found not only in Patagonia, but also in South America.

“We got the results, and it surprised us a lot. We had to rethink some things,” Guadalupe Romero Villanueva, the author of the study from the Argentine government agency CONICET and the National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought in Buenos Aires, told The New York Times.

According to the study, the first signs of life in the cave date back to about 18,000 years ago. At the same time, the appearance of the first people took place approximately 11,721 – 10,162 years ago – this is evidenced by guacano bones with cuts, coal from hearths, grass from litter. Scientists also believe that the cave became culturally important as soon as people appeared there.

The tradition of cave painting lasted for about 3,250 years – on average, people then lived 25 years, so the knowledge of rock paintings was passed down for about 130 generations, scientists say. The cave is a kind of place of collective memory: the tradition was passed down from generation to generation (in particular, the same pigment was used for painting).

Scientists believe that the appearance of the drawings may be related to climate change, the difficulty of life in northwestern Patagonia, aridity and cold climate. That is, probably, the drawings became a reaction of people to stress. They also suggest that the drawings were an important source of information transmission, among other things, to warn people about danger.

We will remind you that not so long ago Guatemala found the ancient burial place of the Mayan ruler of the 4th century AD. Until now, science did not know his name. This discovery corrects scientific knowledge about the Mayan government system.