Thousands of ancient paintings on cave walls and in ravines have been discovered by archaeologists in Mexico, according to Yahoo! News. They date back to a time before Spanish rule.
The art demonstrates that native cultures lived in the area surrounding the Sierra de San Carlos, a mountain range that is located in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, according to researchers.
The paintings, numbering around 5,000, were found across 11 different archaeological sites in the region and were created with colored pigments, including red, yellow, black and white. The images are of different animals, among them deer, lizards and centipedes. There are also other images of people and tents, hunting and fishing, as well as what archaeologists believe may be an astronomical chart. These images together create a view of what the ancient culture may have been like.
The discovery shows the presence of groups of people before the Spanish arrived.
"Where before it was said that there was nothing, when in fact it was inhabited by one or more cultures," Gustavo Ramirez, an archaeologist with the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History, said in a statement.
The ancient people left little evidence of their culture and lifestyle for archaeologists to piece together. Little is known of their language, rituals or customs, other than what is referenced later by the conquistadores and friars who colonized the area.
The people resisted Spanish rule by living in the mountains, "where they had water, plants and animals to feed themselves," Martha Garcia Sanchez, another archaeologist, told Yahoo!.
Archaeologists discovered the rock art in 2006, and they began studying the site two years ago, in 2011. Researchers haven't been able to precisely date the rock art but are conducting further testing on samples, hoping to determine the age.
"We have not found any ancient objects linked to the context, and because the paintings are on ravine walls and in the rainy season, the sediments are washed away, all we have is gravel," Ramirez said.
The institute presented their findings at the Second Conference of Archaeological History in Mexico City.
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