EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

Possible Neanderthal Hunting Tactic Explored

Possible Neanderthal Hunting Tactic Explored

Juan Negro crouched in the shadows just outside a cave, wearing his headlamp. For a brief moment, he wasn’t an ornithologist at the Spanish National Research Council’s Doñana Biological Station in Seville. He was a Neandertal, intent on catching dinner. As he waited in the cold, dark hours of the night, crowlike birds called choughs entered the cave.

Possible Neanderthal Hunting Tactic Explored
A red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax) is an elusive species to hunt during the day. But its nighttime roosting habits could have made it easy prey for Neandertals to catch with their bare hands, a new study suggests.

The “Neandertal” then stealthily snuck in and began the hunt.

This idea to role-play started with butchered bird bones. Piles of ancient tool- and tooth-nicked choughs bones have been found in the same caves that Neandertals frequented, evidence suggesting that the ancient hominids chowed down on the birds. But catching choughs is tricky.

During the day, they fly far to feed on invertebrates, seeds and fruits. At night though, their behaviour practically turns them into sitting ducks. The birds roost in groups and often return to the same spot, even if they’ve been disturbed or preyed on there before.

So the question was, how might Neandertals have managed to catch these avian prey?

To find out, Negro and his colleagues decided to act like, well, Neandertals. Wielding bare hands along with butterfly nets and lamps — a proxy for nets and fire that Neandertals may have had at hand— teams of two to 10 researchers silently snuck into caves and other spots across Spain, where the birds roost to see how many choughs they could catch.

Researchers in Spain attempt to capture choughs with their bare hands in roosting sites such as this building. The effort was part of a study to see if Neandertals could have successfully hunted the birds.

Using flashes of light from flashlights to resemble fire, the “Neandertals” dazzled and confused the choughs. The birds typically fled into dead-end areas of the caves, where they could be easily caught, often bare-handed. Hunting expeditions at 70 sites snared more than 5,500 birds in all, the researchers report September 9 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

The birds were then released unharmed. It was “the most exciting piece of research” Negro says he’s ever done.

The results demonstrate that through teamwork, choughs can be captured without fancy tools at night and offer a likely way that Neandertals could have captured choughs. But actual Neandertal bird-catching behaviour remains unknown. If this is in fact how Neandertals hunted, it adds to claims that their behaviour and ability to think strategically is more sophisticated than they are often given credit for.

Red-billed choughs, captured as part of an experiment to see if Neandertals could have caught the birds, sit in a sack. The birds were released unharmed.

“The regular catchment of choughs by Neandertals implies a deep knowledge of the ecology of this species, a previous planning for its obtaining, including procurement techniques, and the ability to plan and anticipate dietary needs for the future,” says Ruth Blasco.

A taphonomist at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution in Tarragona, Spain, Blasco is an expert in the Neandertal diet.

Such role-playing, she notes, is “commonly used by scholars as valid analogies to infer processes that happened in the past.” For instance, reenactments with replicas of wooden spears have suggested that Neandertals could have hurled the weapons to hunt prey at a distance.

The researchers re-creating chough hunts used butterfly nets to catch birds fleeing sites with narrow entrances, as well as bigger nets partially covering larger openings. But “the easiest thing was to grab the birds by hand,” Negro says.

“You have to be intelligent to capture these animals, to process them, to roast and eat them,” he notes. Previous studies have shown that Neandertals may have been similarly adept at foraging for seafood. “We tend to think that [Neandertals] were brutes with no intelligence,” Negro says, “but in fact, the evidence is accumulating that they were very close to Homo sapiens.”

ASIA, LEBANON, WORLD

Mass Grave of 13th Century Warriors Uncovered by Archaeologists in Lebanon

Mass Grave of 13th Century Warriors Uncovered by Archaeologists in Lebanon

Archaeologists digging near a Middle Eastern castle have unearthed two mass graves containing the grisly remains of Christian soldiers vanquished during the medieval Crusades — and some of them could have even been personally buried by a king.

The chipped and charred bones of at least 25 young men and teenage boys were found inside the dry moat of the ruins of St. Louis Castle in Sidon, Lebanon. Radiocarbon dating suggests they were among the many Europeans who, between the 11th and the 13th centuries, were spurred by priests and rulers to take up arms in a doomed effort to reconquer the Holy Land.

Much like many who came to fight and plunder before them, the soldiers’ long and arduous journeys ended with their deaths  — all as a result of wounds they received in battle. But despite the widespread casualties, mass graves from this bloody period of history are incredibly difficult to find. 

In a study published on August 25 in PLOS One, the researchers detailed their findings.

“When we found so many weapon injuries on the bones as we excavated them, I knew we had made a special discovery,” Richard Mikulski, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University in the U.K., who excavated and analyzed the remains, said in a statement.

The archaeologists analyzed DNA alongside naturally occurring radioactive isotopes in the men’s teeth to confirm that some were born in Europe, and an analysis of different versions, or isotopes, of carbon in their bones, suggests that they died sometime during the 13th century. Crusaders first captured St. Louis Castle just after the First Crusade in 1110.

The invaders held onto Sidon, a key strategic port, for more than a century, but historical records show that the castle fell after it was attacked and destroyed twice — at first part by the Mamluks in 1253 and later by the Mongols in 1260.

The researchers said it is “highly likely” that the soldiers perished during one of these battles, and by brutal means: The bones all bear stab and slice wounds from swords and axes, as well as evidence of blunt-force trauma.

The soldiers had more wounds on their backs than on their fronts, suggesting that many were attacked from behind, possibly as they fled during a rout, and the distribution of these blows implies that their attackers charged them down on horseback.

A number of the men’s remains also have blade wounds to the back of their necks — a sign that they may have been captured alive before being beheaded. 

“One individual sustained so many wounds (a minimum of 12 injuries involving a minimum of 16 skeletal elements) that it may represent an incident of overkill, where considerably more violent blows were applied than was actually required to overcome or kill them,” the researchers wrote in their study. 

Charring on some of the bones suggests that someone tried to burn the mens’ bodies in the aftermath of their brutal deaths, after which their corpses were left to rot on the battlefield. 

But the bodies were later swept into a mass grave, possibly after the royal intervention. A belt buckle found among the bones indicates that the soldiers were Frankish and hailed from a region that encompassed modern-day Belgium and France. Their origin, and the date they were killed, suggests that the soldiers could have been buried by King Louis IX of France. 

“Crusader records tell us that King Louis IX of France was on crusade in the Holy Land at the time of the attack on Sidon in 1253,” Piers Mitchell, an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge who was the project’s Crusades expert, said in the statement. “He went to the city after the battle and personally helped to bury the rotting corpses in mass graves such as these. Wouldn’t it be amazing if King Louis himself had helped to bury these bodies?”

The French king, one of the most celebrated rulers of his time who was later canonized as a saint, led two invasions into the Holy Land — the Seventh and Eight crusades — after vowing to God he would retake the territory if he was granted divine assistance in recovering from malaria.

READ ALSO: MOSAICS FROM THE ROMAN ERA WERE JUST UNCOVERED IN LEBANON

The legend was that the devout king later died of plague in 1270 while leading the Eighth Crusade, but a more recent analysis points to him dying of scurvy caused by his refusal to eat foreign food, Live Science previously reported.

The archaeologists may never know who killed and later buried the soldiers in Sidon, but their graves provide a rare insight into a brutal period that is usually only described in written records.

“So many thousands of people died on all sides during the crusades, but it is incredibly rare for archaeologists to find the soldiers killed in these famous battles,” said Mitchell. “The wounds that covered their bodies allow us to start to understand the horrific reality of medieval warfare.”

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Israel winery: 1,500-year-old Byzantine wine complex found

Israel winery: 1,500-year-old Byzantine wine complex found

A 1,500-year-old wine-making complex, said to have been the world’s largest at the time, has been discovered in Israel, archaeologists say.

Five presses were unearthed at the huge Byzantine-era winery at Yavne, south of Tel Aviv, which is estimated to have produced two million litres a year.

After a sophisticated production process, it was exported around the Mediterranean.

The wine was aged in clay jars known as Gaza Jars, many of which were found intact at the site

Those working at the site said they were surprised by its size. There are plans to make the complex a visitor attraction once preservation work is completed.

The site contains five wine presses spread over a square kilometre (0.4 sq miles), warehouses for ageing and bottling the wine, and kilns for firing the jars used for storing it.

The end product was known as Gaza and Ashkelon wine, after the ports through which it was exported to Europe, North Africa and Asia Minor.

The site is spread over a square kilometre

It had a reputation for quality throughout the Mediterranean region, but at that time wine was also a staple for many.

“This was a major source of nutrition and this was a safe drink because the water was often contaminated,” said Jon Seligman, one of the excavation’s directors.

Decorative niches in the shape of a conch indicate that the factory owners were very wealthy
Tens of thousands of fragments have been found at the site
WORLD

Primordial “Hyper-Eye” Discovered: Astonishing 390 Million-Year-Old Hyper-Compound Eye With 200 Lenses

Primordial “Hyper-Eye” Discovered: Astonishing 390 Million-Year-Old Hyper-Compound Eye With 200 Lenses

A fossilized trilobite first studied by an amateur palaeontologist half a century ago has provided researchers with a whole new way of seeing the world, in a very literal sense. X-rays taken of the ancient arthropod back in the early 1970s have been given a second look, revealing a structure of an eye that is unlike any seen on any animal before or since.

Phacops geesops, a trilobite from the Devonian age.

As head of Siemens radiology department, Wilhelm Stürmer knew a thing or two about using X-rays to reveal hidden secrets. This was especially true when it came to studying fossils, a passion he fueled by fitting out a minibus with X-ray equipment to take out to palaeontology sites. In spite of his expertise in radiology, Stürmer wasn’t a palaeontologist, so few took his claim of discovering optic nerves inside a 390-million-year-old Phacops geesops fossil seriously.

“At that time, the consensus was that only bones and teeth, the hard parts of living things, could be seen in the fossils, but not the soft parts, such as intestines or nerves,” says the University of Cologne palaeontologist Brigitte Schoenemann.

In addition to the nerves was an arrangement of ‘fibres’ that looked uncannily like photoreceptor cells called ommatidia. Only in this case, they were strangely elongated, roughly 25 times their own diameter; far too long to seem plausible as a light-gathering structure.

A lot has changed since then. Today, palaeontologists are comfortable with the idea that soft tissue structures can leave a clear signature in fossilized material. And super-long ommatidia have since been uncovered in the compound eyes of aquatic arthropods.

With that in mind, Schoenemann and her colleagues went back to Stürmer’s original images for a closer look. After double-checking the fossil with modern CT technology, they determined the filaments he spotted were almost certainly optic nerve fibres after all.

But it was what the foam-like nest of fibres was connected to that really grabbed the researchers’ attention: What seemed like two compound eyes were actually hundreds, split across left and right clusters.

“Each of these eyes consisted of about 200 lenses up to one millimetre in size,” says Schoenemann.

“Under each of these lenses, in turn, at least six facets are set up, each of which together again makes up a small compound eye. So we have about 200 compound eyes (one under each lens) in one eye.”

Trilobites more or less dominated the oceans for hundreds of millions of years, adapting to fill a broad range of aquatic niches with a variety of weird and wonderful body plans.

One of their most clever inventions was a visual system of unprecedented complexity. While comparably simple in modern terms, their version of eyes gave them the edge in hunting or hiding and in detecting the subtlest of changes in brightness and movement.

Though their eye anatomy came in many forms, the most common structures would be easily recognizable to most zoologists today, consisting of a neatly arranged pattern of lenses working together to turn diffuse light into a heavily pixelated map of their surroundings.

Modern insects and other arthropods continue to rely on compound eyes like these to great effect. What this pixelated view lacks in resolution is easily made up for in simplicity and adaptability, evolving to overcome limitations with a few tweaks of anatomy.

Yet for the incredible diversity of trilobite eyes, those on certain members of the suborder Phacopina have had palaeontologists stumped.

In what’s known as a schizochroal eye, each lens sits a short distance away from its neighbour, leaving a lot of empty space that could be put to use catching more light.

We now know what appears to be a single lens is, in fact, a single compound eye within two ‘hyper-eyes’.

While it doesn’t tell us why these eyes evolved, it does change what questions we need to ask about this unusual arthropod. Rather than pondering the waste of space between each lens, biologists can now speculate over the benefits hundreds of tiny eyes have in adjusting to low light, or responding to rapid changes in light conditions over a wider area.

“It is also possible that the individual components of the eye performed different functions, enabling, for example, contrast enhancement or the perception of different colours,” says Schoenemann.

READ ALSO: SCIENTISTS DISCOVER “ONCE-IN-A-GENERATION” FOSSILIZED WATER BEAR IN 16-MILLION-YEAR-OLD AMBER

Stürmer must have suspected there was something worth looking at in the eyes, having drawn an arrow in red pen pointing right at the half-dozen facets beneath one of the lenses.

Sadly, the radiologist passed away in the 1980s, long before his discovery was given the validation it deserved.

Like the trilobite, Stürmer was clearly a visionary before his time.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Obsidian ‘Spirit Mirror’ Used by Elizabeth I’s Court Astrologer Has Aztec Origins

Obsidian ‘Spirit Mirror’ Used by Elizabeth I’s Court Astrologer Has Aztec Origins

According to a recent study, an obsidian “spirit mirror” used by a confidant of Queen Elizabeth I was actually a product of Aztec culture. The obsidian mirror, made of volcanic glass, and three other comparable items at the British Museum were discovered to have Mexican origins after an examination.

Obsidian ‘Spirit Mirror’ Used by Elizabeth I’s Court Astrologer Has Aztec Origins
Researcher Elizabeth Healey holds John Dee’s obsidian mirror.

The obsidian mirror with the Elizabeth I connection belonged to John Dee, an adviser of hers from when she became queen in 1558 and through the 1570s. Dee served as the queen’s astrologer and also consulted with her on science. This included Dee acting “as an advocate of voyages of discovery, establishing colonies and improving navigation,” said Stuart Campbell, study author and professor at the University of Manchester.

“John Dee is a remarkable historical figure, a Renaissance polymath — interested in astronomy, alchemy and mathematics — and confidant of Elizabeth I,” Campbell wrote in an email. “Later he became involved in divination and the occult, seeking to talk to angels through the use of scryers (those who divine the future), who used artefacts — like mirrors and crystals.”

Dee may have bought the mirror in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) in the 1580s.

While it had been previously suspected that the mirror had been made by the Aztec culture, there were no records accompanying the object to show how it came into Dee’s possession.

A team of researchers used geochemical analysis to target the four obsidian objects with X-rays. This in turn caused the objects to emit X-rays, helping the scientists determine their composition by revealing the elements of the obsidian. In addition to Dee’s mirror, they studied two other Aztec mirrors and a rectangular slab of obsidian.

The analysis showed that all four were made using Mexican obsidian. Dee’s mirror and a similarly designed mirror were made using obsidian from Pachuca, a city that is a source of obsidian the Aztecs used. The third mirror and the slab are made of obsidian from the town of Ucareo, another obsidian site in Mexico.

A study on the findings was published Wednesday in the journal Antiquity. The researchers estimate that Dee’s mirror is about 500 years old, most likely made in the final decades before the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521, Campbell said.

“We know that Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés sometimes commissioned items from Aztec craftsmen so he could send them back to the Spanish court,” Campbell said. “So it is even possible that some of the circular mirrors like John Dee’s were specially made by Aztec craftsmen at the time of the conquest of the Aztec Empire to send back to Europe.”

This figure shows Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the smoking mirror, with circular obsidian mirrors on his temple, his chest and his foot highlighted.

While researchers haven’t been able to pinpoint the obsidian mirrors’ intended use in Aztec culture, depictions remain that show circular obsidian mirrors made at this time.

“They’re shown particularly in drawings of the god Tezcatlipoca, in place of a missing foot, or attached to his chest or head,” Campbell said. “The mirrors that have survived may well have actually been attached to statues of the god.

Tezcatlipoca was the god of divination and providence, amongst several other things, and the obsidian mirrors were probably much more than simply symbols of power — they also seem likely to have been used for divinatory purposes.”

Tezcatlipoca’s name also means “smoking mirror.”

The Aztecs believed that obsidian had spiritual significance, and it was used in their medicinal practices, as well as a way to ward off bad spirits or even capture souls by using the reflective nature of the volcanic glass.
Items of such significance to the Aztecs would have been intriguing to the Europeans exploring Mexico.

Aztec codices created around the time of the Spanish Conquest depict mirrors, apparently in frames.

“The 16th century was a period in which new exotic objects were being brought to Europe from the New World, and opening up exciting new possibilities in the intellectual world of the period,” Campbell said.
Dee, the first person known to use the term “British Empire,” would have been fascinated by the idea of the mirrors if he heard stories of how the Aztecs used them, Campbell said. Dee had an interest in the occult early on, and once he obtained the obsidian mirror, he used it to try communicating with spirits, according to the study.

John Dee was a mathematician, astrologer, alchemist and advisor to England’s Elizabeth I.

Understanding the origins of the obsidian mirror can help researchers retrace the paths of such objects from a time when appropriation occurred frequently.

“To me, it helps us understand something of the way in which the European voyages of discovery and engagement with other parts of the world, often through disastrous conquest, was matched by intellectual attempts to understand how the world worked,” Campbell said. “Novel artefacts brought back to Europe from the Americas entered collections of nobility and of intellectuals, and were used and appropriated in the efforts of people, who — like John Dee — saw themselves as scientists, to understand the world in new ways.”

During his time as Elizabeth’s confidant and adviser, she visited him several times at his home, Campbell said. Dee was considered to be one of the reigning intellectuals of that period; he had the largest library in England and one of the greatest in Europe, Campbell said.
“The surviving record of (the library) is actually of major importance in understanding 16th- and early 17th-century intellectual thought,” Campbell said.

To Dee, the supernatural was indistinguishable from science. “It may have been his growing interest in those areas of study that gradually undermined his role in the court by the end of the 1570s,” Campbell said.

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Prehistoric hooks and sinkers show early humans used advanced fishing techniques

Prehistoric hooks and sinkers show early humans used advanced fishing techniques

Courthouse News Service reports that a 13,000-year-old collection of 19 bone fishhooks and six grooved pebbles thought to have been used as sinkers has been unearthed on the banks of the Jordan River in northern Israel by a team of researchers led by Antonella Pedergnana of the Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioral Evolution.

A reconstruction of a hook and a small grooved pebble on a line. Note the sophisticated knot.
Prehistoric hooks and sinkers show early humans used advanced fishing techniques

According to a study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. It’s some of the earliest evidence of complex fishing technology. Fish remains have been found at sites inhabited by human ancestors dating back to nearly 2 million years. But studying what technology early humans used to acquire fish is difficult because the fishing gear was typically made from perishable materials like wood and plant fibres, and they’re only preserved in unusual conditions.

The waterlogged Jordan River Dureijat site was discovered in 1999 as a result of a drainage operation. But back in the Levantine Epipaleolithic periods, it was a short-term encampment that was intermittently occupied over a span of about 10,000 years, according to an earlier study published in the PaleoAnthropology journal. It was never used for habitation, but rather it was a place that people repeatedly visited fish and hunt and take advantage of other natural resources.

In addition to the fish hooks and pebbles — the largest collection of early fishing technology to be found — arrowheads and limestone axes have also been found at the site. And because the site has been covered in water, tiny rodents and fish bones are well-preserved.

In Wednesday’s study, a team of archaeologists – led by Antonella Pedergnana of the Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution in Mainz, Germany – found plant residue on the hooks and stones that indicate the use of fishing line.

They also found a wide variety of hook shapes, suggesting they were used for catching a variety of fish sizes, and grooved lines and fibre residues on some hooks indicate the use of artificial lures.

“A look at the [the Jordan River Dureijat] fishing gear reveals that all fishing techniques and knowledge already existed some 13,000 years ago,” the study’s authors wrote in a statement. 

The innovations coincide with the beginning of the transition to agriculture, and the use of lures and a wide variety of hook shapes “suggests the humans of this time were not only hunting a broad spectrum of fish but also that they had a profound knowledge of fish behaviour and ecology,” researchers note.

Based on the size of the hooks and their grooves and the remains of captured fish at the site, researchers estimate the lines used in fishing were likely strong enough to pull a 2-pound, “and possibly even heavier,” fish out of the water, according to the study.

But the hooks don’t have any eyes or holes in the shank through which to thread the line, something researchers note was likely because it weakened the narrow shank. Instead, they have grooves or knobs on the shaft, and traces of wear indicate the line wasn’t connected by a single twist but by a “complex method of binding, wrapping and tying.”

Archaeologists also found residual evidence of an adhesive being used to secure the line.

The use of artificial bait was confirmed by the presence of deep grooves, adhesives and animal hair on the end of two hooks. These lures may have included “shell flutters,” or pieces of shiny mother-of-pearl that spin in the water and attract fish.

READ ALSO: PRESERVED IN POOP: 1,000-YEAR-OLD CHICKEN EGG FOUND IN ISRAEL

Modern anglers still use shiny lures today, and the use of lightweight lures are used with specific casting techniques, such as fly fishing.

“Given the small dimensions of the hooks likely to have been equipped with artificial lures at [Jordan River Dureijat], the possibility that a similar angling method was already in use during the Natufian [era] should not be ruled out,” the study authors note.

“Except for the use of metal and plastic, modern fishing has not invented anything new since the Natufian,” they added in a statement. 

SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Amazon rainforest rock art ‘depicts giant Ice Age creatures’

Amazon rainforest rock art ‘depicts giant Ice Age creatures’

This huge collection of ancient cliff art paints a dramatic picture of early humans and giant beasts in the Amazon. Early inhabitants worshipped and hunted elephant-like mastodons and giant horses – alongside other Ice Age animals – back when the lush rainforest was a parched savannah.

Researchers say these drawings include a depiction of a pig-like peccary, deer, humans performing rituals, felines and canines

At least that’s according to the extraordinary paintings, made with red ochre by long-dead artists.

They are believed to be between 11,800 and 12,600 years old and took at least hundreds of years to create. Experts are staggered at the scale of the find, one of the largest of its kind in South America.

Located in the Serranía La Lindosa region of Colombia, the discovery has been dubbed “The Sistine Chapel of the Ancients”. However, instead of a beautiful man-made structure, this canvas is all Mother Nature’s handiwork.

The cliff faces paintings number in the tens of thousands and was spotted across a trio of rock shelters. Cerro Azul is the biggest, stretching nearly 3 miles. There is around 8 miles’ worth of historic artworks in total. The quality is said to be highly realistic for the time.

Human figures are depicted with colossal creatures. How big were they? Mark Robinson, speaking via a statement from the University of Exeter, refers to “giant herbivores, some which were the size of a small car.”

Researchers believe this rock art depicts a giant sloth (a); a mastodon (b); a camelid (c); horses (d and e); and a three-toed ungulate with a trunk (f)

This “megafauna” gave Robinson and co a possible insight into the ancient art exhibit. Examples of extinct wildlife, such as super-sized sloths and mastodons, offered major clues concerning dates. As Business Insider writes, “by about 11,600 BC, humans had likely killed many of the mastodons off.”

Other features daubed include trees, handprints and “geometric shapes”. A tree wasn’t just a tree to humankind in the dying years of this Ice Age.

Quoted by The Guardian, team leader Prof José Iriarte (University of Exeter) says plants had souls, and that they communicated with people “in cooperative or hostile ways”.

The group, funded by the ERC (European Research Council) and made up of experts from Britain/Colombia, also noted the surroundings.

Artists took their lunch to work with them it seems, before leaving litter on site. Delicacies like frog, armadillo and piranha were consumed, according to the University’s statement.

Amazon rainforest rock art 'depicts giant Ice Age creatures'

It sounds like the painters needed their strength. Some art is so high up it required drones to take a gander. Images of towers made from wood are displayed.

Reportedly the artists clambered onto these before jumping down. All that work was worth it in the end. Quoted by the statement, Prof Iriarte says the art was “a powerful part of the culture and a way for people to connect socially.”

The team began investigating the area in 2017. It was no easy task. For starters, the journey there was punishing. Once they completed a 2-hour drive from the town of San José del Guaviare, they had a 4-hour trek to look forward to. And access was only permitted after the signing of a peace treaty in 2016 between the Colombian government and FARC (the People’s Army). A civil war raged there for half a century.
Even then additional permissions had to be sought to avoid danger.

While the cliff paintings were known about since April this year, the find was kept under the radar till now. A TV crew from Channel 4 joined the group throughout the process. Exciting details are about to be revealed to the public as part of a new series, ‘Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon’.

Presented by archaeologist Ella Al-Shamahi, it really was a matter of life and death. As reported by The Guardian, at one point the party had to sneak past a highly venomous bushmaster snake in the dark.

The ancient cliff art provides a much-needed window into a mysterious time for the Amazon. This rich and diverse environment changed a lot over the centuries. What role humans played in the shift can be examined like never before, thanks to these stunning and perfectly preserved visuals.

CHINA, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

The Atacama Giant: The Largest Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Geoglyph in the World

The Atacama Giant: The Largest Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Geoglyph in the World

The Atacama Giant is a large anthropomorphic geoglyph in the Atacama Desert, Chile. The Atacama Giant is one out of nearly 5,000 geoglyphs – ancient artwork that is drawn into the landscape – that have been discovered in the Atacama in the last three decades.

The Atacama Giant: The Largest Prehistoric Anthropomorphic Geoglyph in the World
The Atacama Giant in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

It is the largest prehistoric representation of a human figure in the world with a height of 119 metres (390 ft). Its location is about 497 miles (800 kilometres) south of Peru’s Nazca lines – the best-known geoglyphs in the world.

The Atacama Giant lies in the Atacama Desert, the driest non-polar desert on Earth. The desert plateau stretches almost 1,000 miles along the coast of Chile and Peru. Scattered over the desert in hills, valleys, and plains, these motifs are found alongside tracks that pre-Hispanic civilizations built and used for llama caravans.

In fact, llama caravans are depicted in geoglyphs across the Atacama, suggesting the images were somehow deeply linked to the nearby trade routes.

Moon Valley, Atacama Desert, Chile.

The geoglyphs include geometric designs such as stepped rhombuses, concentric circles, and arrows. Figures resembling people (or perhaps gods) are also represented performing different activities—for example, hunting. Animals, too, are found among the figures. Llamas, lizards, and monkeys are just a few examples.

Scholars believe some animals may correspond to divine rites, such as amphibians being used in water rituals. Modern flight and drone abilities have enabled closer study and better photography of such ancient creations around the world.

Geoglyphs are generally categorized into three types. The first is additive, or positive, meaning that rocks and other materials are strategically piled on top of the ground to create the desired shape.

A second type is considered extractive, or negative. In this case, topsoil and other materials are scraped away to reveal differently coloured subsoil.

The third type of geoglyph is a combination of both styles. While it may seem like these ancient creations would be very ephemeral, a shocking number have survived to modern times.

In the Atacama desert, the dry climate likely contributed to the preservation of the thousands of ancient designs still visible today. However, even in wetter climates such as the United Kingdom, geoglyphs such as the Uffington Horse still survive.

Other geoglyphs in the Atacama Desert, Chile.

The Atacama geoglyphs are thought to have been created by a succession of cultures, including the Inca. However, the purpose of many of the images remains a mystery. Some may have been intended as guiding information for the ancient llama caravans. Others may have been devoted to deities or used in religious practices.

The Atacama giant—notable for its size and hillside position on the hill Cerro Unitas—has been assumed to be an astronomical guide. The rays emanating from the figure’s head may have represented a headdress, but they align with the moon to tell the time in a way that was probably quite practical. By gauging the seasons, the ancients who crafted the hill figure sometime between 1000 and 1400 CE could better predict the rainy season.

READ ALSO: ANCIENT WALL PAINTING IN THE NUBIAN PYRAMIDS DEPICTING A GIANT CARRYING TWO ELEPHANTS

Hill figures are often thought to have been intended to view from some distance, suggesting the giant may have been strategically placed.

Another giant figural geoglyph; part of the Nazca Lines UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru.

Another famous set of geoglyphs are the Nazca Lines, located in the Nazca Desert in Peru. Created earlier than the Atacama images, the Nazca Lines date from about 500 BCE to 500 CE. They draw their name from the heavy use of long lines, created in an extractive style.

These lines surround or compose shapes and animals. Spiders, humans, hummingbirds, and more are depicted in the dry soil. Over the years, experts have suggested a variety of explanations for the geoglyphs. Ritual use, representations of constellations, and other astronomical purposes have all been hypothesized. Still, others have suggested the lines, in part, performed an important irrigation function.

While the true function of the Nazca Lines remains a mystery, much the same can be said of geoglyphs around the world. The clear importance of the sites—and the fascination they hold for modern audiences—suggest that the Atacama Giant and others of its stature will remain the focus of research for years to come.

Spider geoglyph; part of the Nazca Lines UNESCO World Heritage Site in Peru.

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