Near the southernmost tip of South America, people may have started cave painting nearly 8,200 years ago, several millennia earlier than previously suggested by ancient rock art in that area.
Dating of comblike depictions in a cave in Argentina indicates that these designs belonged to a rock art tradition that lasted more than 3,000 years, ending around 5,100 years ago, researchers report February 14 in Science Advances. Ancient South Americans painted a variety of designs on the cave’s internal wall and part of its ceiling over roughly 130 generations, probably to preserve cultural knowledge shared by regional hunter-gatherer groups, archaeologist Guadalupe Romero Villanueva and colleagues say.
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