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Cave art of a social lion with a toothsome mane drawn deeply in a Puerto Rican cave about 500 years ago might have been create by an enslaved African , new research evoke .
" We have an image that calculate like a lion — but in Puerto Rico , we do n’t have social lion , " task researcherAngel Acosta - Colón , an adjunct professor of geophysics at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo and an expert on the island ’s caves , said in a statement .
This cave drawing of what looks like a lion was made around A.D. 1500. Researchers think it may have been made by an African who was taken as a slave to the Americas.
or else , the drawing may have been made by someone who ’d seen one in Africa before they were enslave and taken to the island by the Spanish .
The idea was controversial , Acosta - Colón sound out . " But the age of the art is around [ A.D. ] 1500 , " he said . " We have data point to corroborate what , I guess , is one of the first [ instance of ] slave artistic production in caves in Puerto Rico . "
Acosta - Colón andReniel Rodríguez Ramos , an archaeologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Utuado , have radiocarbon - dated some of the drawings in Puerto ’s Rico ’s cave to more than 2,000 years ago , harmonize tounpublished researchpresented Oct. 18 at the Geological Society of America ’s annual conference in Pittsburgh .
Much of the cave art in Puerto Rico was made before the Spanish arrived in 1493 and includes detailed portrayals of humans and animals, like this stingray.
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Their find refute a colonialist claim that the great unwashed had lived on Puerto Rico for only a few hundred years before 1493 , when the Italian navigator Christopher Columbus claimed the Caribbean island for his frequenter in Spain .
Ancient evidence
Determining theage of rock artis difficult . Substances like themineral ochreoften used to inscribe them ca n’t be reliably dated , and some of the drawings are superimposed on others . Oftentimes , the age of cave artistic creation in Puerto Rico is estimated by link up it to nearby artifacts that have datable organic stuff , Acosta - Colón said .
To acquire more precise dates , Acosta - Colón and Rodríguez took sample distribution of 61 pigments used to make drawings in 11 cave on La Isla Grande , Puerto Rico ’s master island . The sample destroys a tiny part of the draught — between 1 and 2 milligram ( 35 millionths to 7 millionths of an ounce ) of the pigment — so the researchers were careful to sample only cave fine art that was ordinarily seen .
Many of the pigments turned out to be made of a black constitutive material , andradiocarbon datingrevealed that the cave drawing were made in three phases : the earliest , of nonobjective and geometrical form , date to between 700 and 400 B.C. ; the 2d phase , with round-eyed flesh of human bodies , dated to between A.D. 200 and 400 ; and the third phase , with more detailed portraying of humans and animals , started between 700 and 800 .
Cave art is difficult to date. Some drawings are superimposed on earlier drawings; here a drawing of a lizard is superimposed on an earlier drawing of the sun.
The discovery of the earliest phase was key . " That is very important to us , " Acosta - Colón tell . " This prove that we were here [ thousands ] of class before the European encroachment . "
Meanwhile , the last form continued through the period of European settlement after about 1500 and admit pictures of horses , ships and other animals , such as the king of beasts .
This feline was likely paint by someone who had in reality encounter a Leo , perchance an enslaved individual from Africa who had been take to the island by the Spanish , Acosta - Colón said .
The cave drawings exemplify the history of the Puerto Rican people , Acosta - Colón say . " Normally we get the European history version of Puerto Rico , but this is direct grounds that the story in Puerto Rico did n’t go with the European invasion ; it part much , much earlier in story , " he said .
He thinks further research could push back the record book of human story on the island to around 7,000 years ago . late research find some of thehuman remain from Puerto Rico were up to 3,800 years old .
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Alice Samson , an archeologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom , was n’t involve in the research but has studiedcave art on Puerto Rico ’s Mona Island . " This really authoritative work … sheds Light Within on thousands of year of human fundamental interaction with caves throughout precolonial and historic era , " she narrate Live Science in an email .
Jago Cooper , a professor of fine art and archeology at the University of East Anglia in the U.K. , was n’t involved in the enquiry but crop alongside Samson on Mona Island .
" Such cash advance will aid untap the huge ethnic source of knowledge preserved in the spectacular cave - scapes across the Caribbean , " he tell Live Science in an email .
