Colombia’s Ice Age Animal Temple

It is generally agreed human groups first populated the American tropics during the end of the Late Pleistocene (ca 16,500–11,000 BCE). Between 12,900 and 11,700 years ago, during the Younger Dryas Stadial, known as the El Abra Stadial in South America, while the Northern Hemisphere underwent significant cooling, South America experienced a warmer and wetter climate. [1]

During the Younger Dryas in the high Andes, the Bogotá savanna in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in present-day central Colombia was covered by glacial Lake Bogota (Humboldt): surrounded by snowy peaks and islands which today form the Eastern Hills, El Majuy, La Pena de Juaica and the Suba Hill ranges. As the lake receded, the Younger Dryas brought about a resurgence of Andean cloud forests which enhanced hunting opportunities for early human populations. [2]

Between 1967 and 1969, Professor Gonzalo Correal Urrego (Instituto Colombiano de Antropología), Professor Wesley R. Hurt (Indiana University) and Professor Thomas van der Hammen (University of Amsterdam) discovered four preceramic (Ice Age) sites in central Colombia - “potentially the oldest evidence of Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in northern South America.” [3]

At Pubenza, flaked stone tools were discovered alongside the remains of mastodons, turtles, and armadillos, initially dated to 16,400 ± 420 BP; however, this dating remains controversial. (Correal 2005). The three oldest widely accepted archaeological sites in Colombia are Tequendama, dating to 10,920 ± 250 BP, Tibitó at 11,740 ± 110 years BP, and El Abra, where lithic tools, bone implements and ceremonial assemblages of butchered mastodons, American horses, turtles, armadillos, vipers, and deer, date to 12,400 ± 160 BP (van der Hammen, 1991) [4]

The rock shelters at Tibitó and El Abra were located on small islands within Glacial Lake Humboldt during the Younger Dryas, at an elevation of precisely 2,570 metres (8,430 feet) above sea level. Since the 1970s, due to a lack of funding for such research, the hills of the Bogotá savanna, once Ice Age islands, have remained largely unexplored. [5]

Since 2018, my research partner, Jay Parker, and I have systematically explored prominent hills across the savanna, using the 12,400 ± 160 BP, or 10,400 BCE, lake level as a guide. Near the tip of what was the largest Ice Age island in the centre of Glacial Lake Humboldt, situated between Tequendama, El Abra, and Tibitó, we uncovered four rock shelters, situated lakeside during the Younger Dryas.

The deepest features incised geometric petroglyphs and a red-ochre pictogram. Surrounding the cave, towering sculpted creatures are embellished with scales, snakeskin, and carapaces, depicting the megafauna, reptiles, and birds excavated at Pubenza, El Abra and Tibitó. Linked by paths, ponds, and stone steps, some of these giant figures are mounted on smaller rocks and feature circular petroglyphs, with libation holes carved on top, indicating a ritual function.

Since 2019, we have conducted three privately funded, non-intrusive site surveys with anthropologists, archaeologists, artists, and drone pilots. This film presents our discoveries and poses the question: is this a Younger Dryas temple complex constructed around 10,400 BCE? If so, it predates GöbekliTepe in Turkey, challenging our understanding of the world’s oldest known religious structures.

Supporting the theory that this collection of ancient sculptures functioned as a temple complex during the Younger Dryas, the site not only aligns with the shoreline of Glacial Lake Humboldt around 10,400 BCE, but all the stones depict species that inhabited these islands during that period. Furthermore, many correspond with the zoological remains excavated at El Abra and and Tibitó, and to have executed these life-like renderings, the artists must have observed the creatures firsthand before their extinction. [6]

In France’s Fontainebleau Forest, giant sculpted Ice Age creatures are similarly adorned with scales, snakeskin, and tortoiseshell, featuring deep libation holes and ponds. And the geometric petroglyphs we discovered in the cave closely resemble those found in Fontainebleau's rock shelters, dating to the Younger Dryas. [7]

However, while the hunters of El Abra and Tibitó left behind stone tools and animal remains, this culture, like their contemporaries in France, enjoyed a profound relationship with animals that extends far beyond mere utility, resulting in this animal-oriented stone megastructure.

Being on the lakeside, where megafauna, reptiles and birds would have been unloaded from kayaks and butchered, the surrounding sculptures reflect day to day life, offering new insights into the development of art and worldviews during the Younger Dryas in the Americas. [8] Perhaps the still pulsing hearts of slaughtered beasts were ceremonially placed in the libation holes atop the carved heads in rituals associated with animal spirits. [9]

And if this vast open-air temple was established around 10,400 BCE, it predates Göbekli Tepe in Turkey, challenging current assumptions about the world's oldest religious monuments.

References

  1. Partin JW, Quinn TM, Shen CC, Okumura Y, Cardenas MB, Siringan FP, Banner JL, Lin K, Hu HM, Taylor FW. Gradual onset and recovery of the Younger Dryas abrupt climate event in the tropics. Nat Commun. 2015 Sep 2;6:8061. doi: 10.1038/ncomms9061. PMID: 26329911; PMCID: PMC4569703.

  2. Van der Hammen, Thomas and Gonzalo Correal-Urrego (1978): "Prehistoric man on the Sabana de Bogotá: data for an ecological prehistory"; Paleography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology , 25: pp. 179-190, 1978.

  3. Correal Urrego, Gonzalo (1980): "Current status of research on the lithic stage in Colombia"; Anthropological , 2: pp. 11-30. Bogotá: Anthropological Society of Colombia, 1980.

  4. Correal Urrego, Gonzalo (1990): "Cultural evidence during the Pleistoene and Holocene of Colombia"; Journal of American Archaeology , 1: pp. 69-89. Mexico: Pan American Institute of Geography and History, 1990.

  5. Correal, Gonzalo; Thomas van der Hammen and JC Lerman (1970): "Lithic artifacts from shelters at El Abra, Colombia"; Colombian Journal of Anthropology , 14: pp. 9-46, 1970.

  6. Hurt, Wesley; Thomas van der Hammen and Gonzalo Correal-Urrego (1976): "The ecology and technology of rock shelters in El Abra, Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia"; Bulletin of the Colombian Geographical Society , XXX (109): pp. 1-21. Bogota, 1976.

  7. Colas Guéret, Alain Bénard, “Fontainebleau rock art” (Ile-de-France, France), an exceptional rock art group dated to the Mesolithic? Critical return on the lithic material discovered in three decorated rock shelters, Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Volume 13, 2017, Pages 99-120

  8. Van der Hammen, Thomas; and E. González (1963): "History of climate and vegetation of the upper Pleistocene and Holocene of the Sabana de Bogotá"; Geological Bulletin , XI (1-3): pp. 189-266, Bogota, 1963.

  9. Van der Hammen, Thomas (1992): "Prehistoric man in the Sabana de Bogotá: data for an ecological prehistory"; in History, Ecology and Vegetation , pp. 217-231. Bogota: Araracuara Corporation, 1992.