Cave paintings uncovered in Burgos, Mexico

Archaeologists in Mexico have found 4,926 well-preserved cave paintings in the north-eastern region of Burgos.

The images in red, yellow, black and white depict humans, animals and insects, as well as skyscapes and abstract scenes.

The paintings were found in 11 different sites - but the walls of one cave were covered with 1,550 scenes.

The area in which they were found was previously thought not to have been inhabited by ancient cultures.

The paintings suggest that at least three groups of hunter-gatherers dwelled in the San Carlos mountain range.

Experts have not yet been able to date the paintings, but hope to chemically analyse their paint to find out their approximate age.'No objects'

"We have not found any ancient objects linked to the context, and because the paintings are on ravine walls and in the rainy season the sediments are washed away, all we have is gravel," said archaeologist Gustavo Ramirez, from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (Inah).

In one of the caves, the experts found depictions of the atlatl, a pre-Hispanic hunting weapon that had not yet been seen in other paintings in the Tamaulipas state.

The paintings are being considered an important find because they document the presence of pre-Hispanic peoples in a region where "before it was said that nothing was there", Mr Ramirez said.

Lascaux 4 plans axed in €1bn cuts

Plans to help fund a giant facsimile of the Lascaux caves in the Dordogne have been scrapped under government cuts - but local councillors say they will save the €50million project.

Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti said that several cultural projects announced by the previous government - totalling almost a billion euros but mostly unbudgeted - would be scrapped, delayed or postponed.

These included the Lascaux 4 reconstruction near Montignac, the Maison de l'Histoire de France national history museum, a reserve art store for the Louvre at Cergy-Pontoise, and an extra theatre for the Comédie-Française.

Ms Filipetti said that Lascaux 4 was "not a priority project" but Bernard Cazeau, president of Dordogne conseil général, said that was "surprising" as the plans to safeguard the hillside above Lascaux were laid under instructions from the government and Unesco.

Niah Caves: Painted Cave Trail Temporarily Closed

The Loagan Bunut National Park in Miri, which has Sarawak’s largest natural lake, is temporarily closed with immediate effect for visitors due to water shortage caused by the current dry season.

The Painted Cave Trail in the Niah National Park, near Miri, also remains closed due to maintenance work on the plank-walk system while its main gate at Gan Kira is currently inaccessible.

"The Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) will update when they are ready for reopening and any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted," SFC said in a statement, here, today.

At one of the most unusual aquatic ecosystems in Malaysia, the shallow lake normally covers an area of approximately 65 hectares but when the water level in the adjacent Tinjar River is low, it drains completely, leaving behind a huge expanse of dried and cracked mud.

It is said that this normally occurs two to four times a year, in February and in late May or early June/July.

The park is home to a considerable variety of birds and during the dry spells in February and May-June, darters, egrets, herons, bitterns, storks and broadbills arrive in huge numbers to feed on the trapped fish while eagles, swallows, malkohas, stork-billed kingfishers, magpies, robins, doves, bulbuls, racket-tailed drongos, pied hornbills and kites can be seen all year round.

Welsh Reindeer Is Britain's Oldest Rock Art, U-Series Dating Suggests

The image was carved using a sharp-pointed tool,
probably made of flint. Credit: Dr George Nash

A reindeer engraved on the wall of a cave in South Wales has been found to date from at least 14,505 years ago -- making it the oldest known rock art in the British Isles.

The engraving was discovered in September 2010 by Dr George Nash from the University of Bristol's Department of Archaeology and Anthropology while he was exploring the rear section of Cathole Cave, a limestone cave on the eastern side of an inland valley on the Gower Peninsula, South Wales.

Found to the rear of the cave on a small vertical limestone niche, the engraved cervid -- probably a stylised reindeer -- is shown side-on and measures approximately 15 x 11cm. It was carved using a sharp-pointed tool, probably made of flint, by an artist using his or her right hand. The animal's elongated torso has been infilled with irregular-spaced vertical and diagonal lines, whilst the legs and stylised antlers comprise simple lines.

The reindeer was engraved over a mineral deposit known as a 'speleothem' (cave formation), which itself developed over a large piece of limestone. Extending over the left side of the figure is a flowstone deposit (speleothem cover) which extends across part of the animal's muzzle and antler set.

In April 2011, Dr Peter van Calsteren and Dr Louise Thomas of the NERC-Open University Uranium-series Facility extracted three samples from the surface of the speleothem covering the engraving. One of these samples produced a minimum date of 12,572 years BP (before present), with a margin of plus or minus 600 years. A further sample, taken in June 2011 from the same flowstone deposit, revealed a minimum date of 14,505 years BP, plus or minus 560 years.

Dr Nash said: "The earlier date is comparable with Uranium-series dating of flowstone that covers engraved figures within Church Hole Cave at Creswell along the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire border. However, the new minimum date of 14,505 + 560 years BP makes the engraved reindeer in South Wales the oldest rock art in the British Isles, if not North-western Europe."

Source: University of Bristol

Australian Cave Painting Found To Be One of World's Oldest

Firefighter discovers Neolithic rock art at the Spanish-Portuguese border

Destiny seems obsessed with rock-art these days. Juan Carlos Jiménez, forest firefighter at Valencia de Alcántara at the Spanish-Portuguese border, in Extremadura, discovered several Neolithic rock art weeks ago at San Roque pass and other mountain locations (Sierras of San Pedro and Santa Catalina).

Archaeological experts from the regional government estimate the age of these paintings on 3500 to 2250 years BCE.

Examples of the findings:

Source: Radio Interior.es via Terrae Antiqvae

Clottes questions the dates of Iberian rock art

Red dots from El Castillo, one of which is
claimed to be older than 40,000 years

Highly respected archaeologist and prehistorian Jean Clottes has raised a question mark on the AMD datings of the Iberian rock art, recently claimed to be older than 40,000 years in some cases. He essentially questions the method of dating, frontally clashing with JoãoZilhão, who in the press conference defended the high reliability of the Uranium series method, which he says has not yet been fully demonstrated in its efficiency.

Another highly reputed expert questioning the dating is Hellene Valladas, who dated Grotte Chauvet.

Sources: Pileta, Bradshaw Foundation, Bloomberg.

Simek to hold local cave art presentation at Palace Theatre

Dr. Jan Simek

Thousands of years ago, the familiar places that people call home on the Cumberland Plateau were the hunting grounds of several Native American Indian tribes. Then, as now, deer and other game were plentiful, rivers ran clear, and caves for shelter were abundant.

Rain leaching through the soft layers of sandstone that make up the Plateau carved out numerous caves. With at least 9,600 caves in Tennessee, more caves are found here than in any other part of the U.S.

Dr. Jan Simek, professor of anthropology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and a leading expert on prehistoric cave art in the southeastern United States, has made a career of studying ancient drawings and pictographs in caves around the world, including Devil’s Step Hollow Cave in Cumberland County. Dr. Simek’s publications on caves appear in several books, including Discovering North American Rock Art, and The Rock-Art of Eastern North America: Capturing Images and Insight.

Devil’s Step Hollow Cave in Cumberland County contains one of the oldest and largest collections of Native American art in the U.S., said to be over 1,000 years old. To preserve this legacy, Devil’s Step Hollow Cave has been sealed to the public. However, Dr. Simek will be in Crossville Tuesday, June 26 at the Palace Theatre, 72. S. Main St., for a presentation of the photographs and history of these petroglyphs and pictographs. The photography of this ancient art is by Alan Cressler of Chattanooga.

Sponsorship for this program about the fascinating early history of the county is by the city of Crossville, PEG Broadcasting and the Crossville Chronicle.

Coordinating this effort have been Billy Loggins for the city of Crossville, Ann Looney of Arts Roundup and Sharron Eckert of CACE and the Shanks Center for the Arts. They will welcome you at the Palace Theatre for a reception at 5 p.m. Dr. Simek’s presentation will begin at 6 p.m.

Admission is free, but a ticket is required for admission. Tickets are available at the Palace Theatre, the Shanks Center for the Arts, First National Bank on Peavine Rd. and at Cumberland Eye Care (Dr. Galloway) on Peavine Rd.

Following the presentation, there will be a free exhibition of Alan Cressler’s photographs of the cave art from Devil’s Step Cave Thursday, July 5 through Friday, Aug. 31 at the Shanks Center for the Arts, 140 N. Main St. across from the Crossville Depot.

For more information, contact the Palace Theatre at 484-6133, or the Shanks Center for the Arts at 787-1936.

Video: The Prehistoric Cave Art Of Cantabria, Spain

Cave women in a different light

Abri Castanet

It could be cave man pornography. Researchers have discovered illustrations of female anatomy in a rock shelter in France that date back 37,000 years. It is ''the oldest evidence of any kind of graphic imagery'', said Randall White, an anthropologist at New York University and one of the researchers working on the project.

He and his colleagues report their findings in the current issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The drawings include what appear to be images of the female vulva, illustrated by circles with small slits on one side. ''You see this again and again and again,'' Professor White said. There are also very simple images, in profile, of animals, including horses and lion-like big cats, he said.
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The work was discovered on a collapsed roof of a rock shelter at the Abri Castanet site in the Vezere River valley in south-west France. Humans at the time lived in such shelters, Professor White said, and it was a period of cultural emergence. ''They were working with ivory beads and other personal ornamentation,'' he said. ''They were decorating their bodies in complex ways.''

Professor White and his team are continuing their excavation work at the site and hope that by deciphering more of the art, they can understand the culture of the people better. ''What we hope to be able to do is map the distribution of images on the ceiling and all of the activities of the time,'' he said. ''There may be a relationship between the art on the ceiling and their lives.''

The work is less sophisticated than the elaborate paintings of animals found in France's Grotte Chauvet, which was more remote and difficult to access, believed to be between 30,000 and 36,000 years old. The engravings and paintings at Castanet are rougher and more primitive in style, and were likely done by everyday people.

''This art appears to be slightly older than the famous paintings from the Grotte Chauvet in south-eastern France,'' Professor White said. ''But unlike the Chauvet paintings and engravings, which are deep underground and away from living areas, the engravings and paintings at Castanet are directly associated with everyday life, given their proximity to tools, fireplaces, bone and antler tool production, and ornament workshops.''

Source: SMH

Scientific Paper
Randall White et al, Context and dating of Aurignacian vulvar representations from Abri Castanet, France, PNAS 2012 ; published ahead of print May 14, 2012,doi:10.1073/pnas.1119663109 (PPV)

Analysis suggests French cave art oldest

3D LiDAR view of the modern Chauvet cave area
showing the sample positions

Experts have long debated whether the sophisticated animal drawings in a famous French cave are indeed the oldest of their kind in the world, and a study out Monday suggests that yes, they are.

The smooth curves and fine details in the paintings of bears, rhinoceroses and horses in the Chauvet cave in southern France's picturesque Ardeche region are so advanced that some scholars believe they date from 12,000 to 17,000 years ago.

That would place them as relics of the Magdalenian culture, in which human ancestors used tools of stone and bone and created increasingly advanced art as time went on.

But scientists have previously shown through radiocarbon dating evidence of rock art, charcoal and animal bones in the Chauvet cave that the drawings are older than that, likely between 30,000-32,000 years old, befuddling some who believed that early art took on more primitive forms.

Now, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a US journal, scientists believe they have confirmation that the paintings are "the oldest and most elaborate ever discovered."

Their findings are based on an analysis - called geomorphological and chlorine-36 dating - of the rockslide surfaces around what is believed to be the cave's only entrance.

The research shows that an overhanging cliff began collapsing 29,000 years ago and did so repeatedly over time, definitively sealing the entrance to humans around 21,000 years ago.

Stone-Age artists practised Flintstones-like animation

The art of the moving image may have been invented 30,000 years ago by Stone-Age artists, according to the latest research into early humans.

Anthropologists investigating caves in France have found artefacts that may have represented animated movement by using "flickering" images.

At the heart of cinematography is the principle of retinal persistence, the phenomenon whereby the human eye retains images of an event for fractionally longer than it actually happens. This is what lets us see movement in films as continuous, even though films are no more than a series of rapidly changing pictures.

Marc Azema, a researcher at the Prehistoric Art Research and Study Centre in Toulouse, said it appeared that Stone-Age humans had discovered retinal persistence and used it to make toys and artefacts that foreshadowed the modern cinema.

In a paper to be published in the academic journal Antiquity, Mr Azema and Florent Rivere, a co-researcher, said: "Paleolithic (Stone-Age) artists invented the principle of sequential animation, based on the properties of retinal persistence. This was achieved by showing a series of juxtaposed or superimposed images of the same animal."

The artefacts on which the researchers based their theory have been found in Stone-Age cave dwellings in France including the renowned Chauvet cave in the Ardeche and the Baume-Latrone cave in Gard, Languedoc-Roussillon.

Quai Branly sheds further light on Chauvet cave art

Wall drawings of lions in the Chauvet cave complex

The Musée du Quai Branly, Paris’s museum of art and ethnography, has initiated a new cultural partnership with the Chauvet cave complex in the Pont d’Arc valley in Ardèche, southern France. The first exhibition under the new agreement is due to take place next May at the 17th-century Vogüé chateau in Ardèche.

Drawn from the Quai Branly’s permanent collection, the show will include religious and hunting objects. “This show is due to be the first [in the partnership] and will reflect the themes seen in the murals painted in the caves,” says a museum spokeswoman.

Meanwhile, the Quai Branly has beefed up its contemporary art programme with a major show on recent art’s relationship with shamanism opening this month as well as an important exhibition of Australian Aboriginal work of the 1970s, set to open in October.

As part of a cultural cooperation agreement with the National Museum of China in Beijing, a show focusing on Chinese dining traditions is due to open in June.

Source: The Art Newspaper

Chinese Cave painting mimics Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch

The picture parody features a monk seemingly recreating the famous The Seven Year Itch scene, has been thrown into the limelight after being snapped days ago and posted online.

Cultural magazine editor, Chen Shiyu, photographed the painting in the Mogao Grottoes of Dunhuang before uploading it onto douban.com.

Thousands of people have now shared the mysterious picture, being dubbed The Unexplainable Dunhuang, along with a snapshot from the hit 1955 film to highlight the uncanny similarities.

The film, which contains one of the most iconic scenes of the 20th century, sees Monroe standing on a subway grate as her white dress is blown above her knees by a passing train.

But it is thought the mural painter actually drew a scene depicting a master about to physically punish a student who had been misbehaving.

A mural which appears to mimic the signature pose of
Marilyn Monroe has been discovered in a cave in China

Marilyn Monroe and Bob Ewell in the film 'Seven Year Itch'

Source: The Telegraph

Black mark for cave biocides: Identifying cave fungi with denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

Painting of an auroch (ancestor of
domestic cattle) in Lascaux cave.

Black stains
The use of biocides to control a fungal outbreak in the Lascaux cave in France, home to some of the best known Paleolithic cave art, probably just made the problem worse, conclude European scientists. Rather than controlling the outbreak, the biocide treatment merely encouraged the growth of fungi that are now covering the cave in black stains, they say.

Discovered by a group of teenagers in 1940, the Lascaux caves contain hundreds of paintings, comprising a mix of abstract symbols, human figures and animals such as horses, cattle, birds and felines, estimated to be over 17,000 years old. The cave soon became a popular tourist attraction, but this changed the microclimate in the cave and caused green algae to start growing on the walls. As a consequence, the cave was closed to the public in 1963.

Nevertheless, the cave was still open to scientific visitors and in 2001 it experienced an outbreak of the fungi Fusarium solani, which was controlled with a benzalkonium chloride (BC) biocide. Soon afterwards, black stains started to appear in the caves. These stains have since spread over many of the ceilings and walls, and now present the main threat to the cave's paintings, as biocides have failed to control them.

Finding the culprits
So scientists are now hard at work trying to determine exactly what fungal species are responsible for the black stains. A recent study identified two new species of the fungal genus Ochroconis in the stains, but now a team of scientists led by Cesareo Saiz-Jimenez at the Spanish Institute for Natural Resources and Agrobiology in Seville show that this is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Google takes African rock art online

Ancient African cave paintings will become available online as Google partners with the South African National Gallery and Wits Rock Art Research Institute.

Art from the Giant's Castle Nature Reserve and Kamberg Nature Reserve will go online as well as several works by artists such as Sophie Peters, Thami Mnyele and Alexis Preller. Virtual visitors can browse them via Google's Art Project.

"We encourage you to come to make a pilgrimage to these special sites. Be inspired - by visiting these sites you will not only have a life changing journey into the African past, you will be helping to preserve our priceless heritage for future generations," said Professor Benjamin Smith, director of the Rock Art Research Institute.

The project is part of Google's programme of illustrating unique sites, including the Amazon and a recent partnership with the Catlin Seaview Survey which allows visitors to have a 360° view of the Great Barrier Reef.

"Through the Art Project we’re aiming to bring local history and culture online and make it accessible," said Dr Julie Taylor, Google's head of communications for Sub-Saharan Africa.

Source: News 24

Two New Caves With Rock Art Discovered In India

Maraiyur, located near Udumalaipettai, houses many Neolithic
and megalithic structures made of stone and granite.

In an exciting find, a young archaeologist has found two caves with stunning rock art belonging to the prehistoric and early historic era. The caves, ‘Vanapechialai’ and the ‘Vanaraparai’ abound with red and white ochre paintings and are located in the Udumalaipettai forest range in Tirupur district.

Sharing his discovery with Express, C Vijayakumar says Vanapechialai has a large number of faded red-ochre paintings. “There are six red hand marks and certain unidentifiable images. However, there are six bright parallel lines in a zig zag fashion in red ochre resembling flickering of flames.” In the same cave, there is also a white-ochre painting, which portrays a man seated on an elephant (22 cm long, 18 cm wide). Vijayakumar says the white-ochre drawing has been done over red-ochre.

The Vanaraparai cave has the famed ‘hand’ mark, which is early man’s first effort in documenting his identity. “It is imprinted twice in pure red-ochre. In the right hand, the ring finger is missing, suggesting that the imprint is that of the village chieftain or Moopan. In primitive societies during pre-historic period, the Moopan’s ring finger was always cut.”

The cave - big enough to house 150 cows - has paintings ranging between 5 cm and 32 cm. There are altogether 28 sketches of early man, besides images of animals, which include a couple of elephants, men on deer with a primitive hunting weapon, monkeys, the sun and a faded moon.

Once thought lost, the rock-art images of ancient peoples are seen again

Stones were once canvas for stories. We marked milestones and journeys on rocks, painting vivid images of big hunts, mighty warriors and spiritual quests. Tens of thousands of tales have been told in bright shades of ochre - stories that, under the stress of weather and time, have been fading from our landscape. Lost forever in some cases, or so we thought.

The digital age is breathing new life into ancient rock art around the globe, from Mexican caves to the Sahara Desert to the mountains and foothills of Western Canada. With the help of NASA-inspired software called DStretch, pictographs no longer visible to the naked eye are being revived, giving cultural archivists a fresh look into the past and a vital new preservation tool.

The software has allowed Parks Canada to uncover myriad hidden treasures at aboriginal pictograph sites in British Columbia and Alberta. Forgotten tales are resurfacing.

“It opens an entirely new chapter in rock art analysis and … rock art preservation,” said Parks Canada archeologist Brad Himour. “DStretch has the ability to bring back images and pictographs that we would have thought of as being lost up until just very recently.”

Three New Cave Art Sites Found in Cuba

Three new stations of cave art were discovered in the Imias Wild Reserve, to the southeast of the Cuban eastern province of Guantanamo.

The paintings are characterized by the use of red, a color that has been seen in only other three stations in the eastern region of the island.

The finding was made during a joint expedition by the Pedro Borras and Fernando Ortiz groups, both members of the Speleological Society of Cuba, and the Cuban Cave Art Research Group (GCIAR), of the Institute of Anthropology.

According to Granma newspaper, the Pedro Borras Group’s president Efren Jaimez Salgado and the GCIAR national deputy coordinator Divaldo Gutierrez Calvache agreed on considering that the new finding ratifies the importance of the region for studies on this type of cultural expression of our native peoples.

Cave art includes pictographs, that is, symbols or pictures representing ideas; and petroglyphs (rock drawing) executed in caverns, rock shelters, grouts and on rocks by pre-Columbian groups or populations.

In Cuba, 285 cave art sites or stations have been officially registered. The largest amount have been located in the provinces of Matanzas, Guantanamo and Pinar del Rio.

Source: Radio Cadena Agromonte

Teen will chart Namibian caves

A teenager from Stithians is raising funds for a scientific expedition to Namibia later this year.
Morgan Whittaker, 15, has managed to secure one of only 28 places nationwide for the five-week trip.

He said: "This will not be a holiday, but a test of survival skills, while carrying out important scientific projects."

The first part of the fieldwork will be in the desert mountains, known as the Brandberg Massif, and involve climbing, abseiling and caving.

Prehistoric paintings in the cave networks have been observed and documented since the early 20th century, but they have never been mapped, which will form the basis for the work in that area.

The next part of the fieldwork will be based in the savannah grasslands monitoring the elephant herds in conjunction with Elephant-Human Relations Aid (EHRA).

This will involve tracking, observation and recording of accurate data while trekking in an area of big game.