In a cave in Alabama, researchers have uncovered hundreds of pre-Columbian rock art, including some of the largest ever found in North America. The motifs carved into the sediment layer of the cave roof cover more than 400 square meters and show abstract designs, animals and numerous anthropomorphic figures. Also exciting: Because of the low aisles, the artists must have painted some of these pictures without ever being able to see them in full.
Cave painting is one of the oldest forms of human expression. More than 40,000 years ago, people in Europe and Southeast Asia decorated rock faces with colored images or carved motifs. For a long time, only above-ground examples of rock art were known in North America – rock carvings on cliffs or in the entrance areas of caves. It was not until 1979 that archaeologists discovered paintings in the dark zone of a cave for the first time. Since then, 89 other pre-Columbian cave paintings have been discovered. These are mostly monochromatic motifs carved into the natural sediment layer of the cave walls or ceilings.
Only photogrammetry revealed the motifs
One of the most prominent and richest sites of pre-Columbian cave art is the so-called 19th unnamed cave in the US state of Alabama. The cave, located in a limestone formation, includes more than five kilometers of wet passages, some of which are only 60 centimeters high. “They contain hundreds of glyphs carved into the natural sediment coating of the cave ceiling,” say Jan Simek of the University of Tennessee and his colleagues. “These images cover an area of almost 400 square meters with varying densities, ranging from single figures to palimpsests of heavily overlapping incised drawings.” These images have been dated to between 133 and 949 AD, the team reports.
However, so far only a part of the rock paintings could be recorded and examined more closely, because the corridors are so low in many places that the motifs can only be viewed lying on your back. However, the even then small distance to the cave ceiling makes it impossible to see or photograph the motifs as a whole. That is why Simek and his team have now mapped the inside of the cave using photogrammetry. To do this, they first created more than 16,000 overlapping partial images of the cave walls and ceiling. These were then assembled into a three-dimensional model using a special computer program.
Anthropomorphic figures and a rattlesnake
The result is a first complete virtual image of the rock paintings from the 19th unnamed cave. For the first time, it offers researchers the opportunity to view some of the motifs in their entirety – with surprising results: “The 3D models of the cave made it possible to identify very large glyphs that were not recognizable in person,” report Simek and his team. Among these newly discovered motifs is a 12-foot snake with a round head and a pattern on its back resembling the body markings of a diamondback rattlesnake. “This impressive animal was sacred to the peoples of southeastern North America,” the researchers explain. According to you, this snake image is also the largest rock carving that has been found in North America to date.
Also spectacular are three up to 1.80 meter tall human-like figures. These show angular heads and trunks, which are usually filled with patterns of transverse and longitudinal lines. Lines radiating from the heads of these figures could represent feathers or, in one case, pointed ears. “We do not know who these anthropomorphic figures are intended to represent – they do not correspond to any of the ethnographically documented characters from the histories of the indigenous peoples of the Southeast, nor to the iconographic materials from archaeological finds,” the archaeologists explain. However, the figures share some features that are consistent with other rock carvings, including anthropomorphic figures with headdresses. Rattlesnakes and some of the abstract patterns also appear in similar form elsewhere.
The team therefore assumes that the motifs in the cave they examined also had a religious significance. In addition, caves were believed by the natives to be entrances to the underworld. “The large figures in the 19th unnamed cave therefore probably represent spirits of the underworld,” write Simek and his colleagues. “Their power and importance was expressed in the size and context of these images.” However, what is fascinating about the rock carvings in this cave is also the circumstances under which they must have been created: “The motifs are so large that their creators drew them without ever seeing it as a whole,” the archaeologists explain.
Source: Antique, doi: 10.15184/aqy.2022.24