Wolly rhinoceros. Online image, public domain. On 10 January 2015 I published a column on RockArtBlog about the Doheny Expedition to the Grand Canyon to record petroglyphs of dinosaurs. In this column I wrote “This expedition was led by Samuel Hubbard, director of the expedition and an honorary curator of archaeology at the Museum (The Oakland Museum, Oakland, California), and accompanied by Charles W. Gilmore, Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at the United States National Museum. The report on this expedition was written by Hubbard and published on January 26, 1925.” (Faris 2015) I tend ..read more

The site of the discovery of the new ammoglyph. The arrow points to a human figure for scale. Illustration from Helm et al., 2024, Fig. 2. On May 22, 2021, I wrote about what we might call a completely new kind of rock art discovered in South Africa. I wrote “It is not often I get to pass along news about a whole new kind of rock art, but it was with some excitement that I found this report of a team of South African researchers who have discovered ammoglyphs. These originated as human created designs in beach sand which was later turned to sandstone, preserving the markings in the process, v ..read more

European Steppe Bison. Illustratuon by Constantine Fierow, 1989, from Pinterest. I have written previously in RockArtBlog that rock art in general, and cave art in particular, might provide insights into extinct animals that otherwise are only known from fossils. Of course, in the past decade or so, DNA analysis has reached the point that quite an amazing amount of knowledge can be gleaned from those fossils. However, I believe that having good art showing a subject can also help in the understanding of the real creature. A paper published in 2016 by a team of researchers led by Julien Soubr ..read more

  Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. Photograph by Ancient-origins. There is an isleand named Ometepe, rising out of Lake Nicaragua, in Nicaragua. The island of Ometepe has a large number of remarkable prehistoric petroglyphs as well as carved statuary. Monkey petroglyph with concentric circles. Internet image, public domain. Children with a statue of a figure with an eagle headdress. Internet image, public domain. “Ometepe is an island formed by two volcanoes rising out of Lake Nicaragua in the Republic of Nicaragua. Its name derives from the Nahuatl words ome ..read more

Praia das Lajes, Brazil. Image from wikimedia.org. Online image, public domain. Rock art that had been submerged in Brazil’s Rio Negro river has now been exposed because of a serious drought in that region that has lowered the water level. Faces carved in high relief. Online images, public domain. “Drought in Brazil’s Amazon has drastically reduced river levels in recent weeks, affecting a region that depends on a maze of waterways for transportation and supplies. The Brazilian government has sent emergency aid to the area, where normally bustling riverbanks are dry, littered with str ..read more

Paleolithic rondelles, online image, public domain.  On 20 April 2019, I wrote a column in RockArtBlog titled “Prehistoric Animation – Paleolithic Thaumatropes?” It discussed one possible purpose for the myriad of Magdalenian bone discs that have been recovered in Europe. At that time I had not seen a paper from a team headed by Andy Needham (January 2019) of the University of York in the U.K. that had decided that these artifacts were most likely spindle whorls. Paleolithic rondelle, image from hominides.com. Scapula with rondelles cut out, from Mas d'Azil. Photograph from donsm ..read more

Map of the study area. Cooper and Vanhulle, 2023, Fig. 1. Recent rock art surveys in the eastern desert of Sudan in the Sahara desert have found quite a lot of rock art indicating that back during the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods the region was wetter and supported populations of pastoralist. Interestingly, along with the expected range of zoomorphs and cattle one would expect to find in pastoralist rock art, there are also representations of a new type of boat. Boat petroglyph. Cooper and Vanhulle, 2023, fig. 4. “The Eastern Desert of Sudan, commonly referred to as the ‘Atbai’, is a vas ..read more

Location of Cosquer Cave. Image from  thearchaeologist.org. Diagram of Cosquer Cave. Image from thearchaeologist.org. Rising sea levels – that, in a nutshell, is one of the greatest dangers to the magnificent art in Cosquer Cave, the undersea Paleolithic site in the Mediterranean off the coast of southern France. Sea levels have risen threatening art painted on the cave walls. The cave entrance is 37 meters (120 feet) below the Mediterranean and three cave divers died exploring the cave before the art was discovered. Indeed, the rising sea level has already claimed some of the pai ..read more

                 DNA from sediment reveals history of Denisova Cave. Image from phys.org. For some time now it has been possible for scientists to extract DNA from the sediments in caves, including human and hominin DNA. This leads me to speculate that perhaps we may also be able to detect DNA from manually applied cave paintings such as positive handprints and get an analysis of the artists themselves. Considering that the human body sheds cells constantly it would seem logical that any paint on a cave wall that was applied by hand might contain de ..read more

Back in 2021 (February 13) I published a column titled ‘A New Candidate for the Oldest Pictograph – the Sulewesi Pig.’ This was based on reports of newly dated painted images found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Now, another cave on Sulawesi has provided an even older painted figure as well as re-dating the one previously reported on. Researchers used a brand new dating technique to re-date the previously reported figure as well as date the newly discovered image to an even older period. Approx. 52k year old narrative painting of Sulawesi native pig surrounded by humans (hun ..read more