February 16: Lecture by José Iriarte
The Painted Forest: The Rock Art of the Serrania de la Lindosa, Colombian Amazon
The Colombian Amazon has one of South America’s largest and possibly oldest concentrations of rock art, which may include the earliest forms of graphic communication used by Amazonian people. The hills of the Serrania de la Lindosa (Colombian Amazon) are home to a remarkable rock art collection. On the sheer faces of sacred tabletop hills are “panels” painted with a diversity of humans, handprints, animals, plants, and geometric designs. These paintings contain fascinating information about the people who painted them, the world they lived in, and the ideas they developed to make sense of the environment. La Lindosa rock art is an encyclopedia of Amazonian wildlife while it also depicts people dancing, performing customary and repetitive rituals, displaying somatic transformations, and interacting with plants and animals. In this presentation, I summarise the work of our LASTJOURNEY project in this region, providing a tour of the region’s rock art. I also discuss the intriguing potential depictions of Ice Age megafauna found by our team, including a giant sloth, a gomphothere, a camelid, horses, and three-toed ungulates with trunks. Finally, I will examine the implications of our findings for understanding the early human history of South America.
February 16 at 6:00 pm
✎ Webinar Registration Required (click here)
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