February 22, 2018

Newly Discovered Ancient Rock Art in Chile Depicts Whale Hunting

Ancient Rock Art depicting whale hunting has been found in the Atacama Desert of Chile at the site of Izcuna. The art shows how hunters used multiple harpoon lines. The rock art also shows hunting strategies, numbers of sailors involved, hunting devices and prey selected. The new discovery is of 328 paintings on 24 slabs of rock. The artists depicted the prey as the antagonist. The art is dated to 500 CE.

The people who lived here specialized in marine hunting.  They used fish-hooks made from shell, bone, cactus spines and copper, and rafts made of sea lion skin. The paint is iron-oxide red. And they depict whales, swordfish, marlin, squid, sea lion, turtles and sharks.

Yahoo UK has this report with photos:

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/ancient-rock-art-depicting-marine-130002696.html

And the Daily Mail adds more info to the report, with their always good collection of photos. The research was published in American Antiguity.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5408369/Ancient-Chilean-rock-art-suggests-hunters-killed-whales.html

Mike Ruggeri’s Ancient Americas News on Tumblr

http://michaelruggeriancientamericas.tumblr.com