The Serranía de La Lindosa in north-west Colombia is home to an extraordinary collection of rock art. On the bare rock faces of these sacred hills are ‘panels’ filled with boldly painted animals, people, plants and patterns, crowded together as if jostling to tell their stories.

Some paintings have been placed over each other in so many layers that they seem to blur into a wash of red paint. Others are sharp and clear on the sandstone ‘canvas’. Many are painted high up on sheer cliff-faces, well beyond the reach of a standing human.

Some images are clearly identifiable as particular species of local wildlife. Others remain controversial, like the paintings which some researchers identify as giant ground sloths, which have been extinct for thousands of years.

Until scientific dating analysis reveals more, researchers do not know the precise age of any of the paintings which are visible today. We do know that people have been painting on these rocks for over 12,000 years, since humans first arrived in this part of the Amazon.

Far from being purely ancient relics, these paintings are part of living Amazonian cultures. Researcher Carlos Castaño-Uribe believes that uncontacted peoples in the nearby area of Chiribiquete may still be making traditional rock art in similar ways today.

To find out how the paintings were made, archaeologists excavating the site have studied the tools and techniques used by the artists. Local shaman Ulderico from the Upichia group says instead that the paintings appeared as the rocks spoke, to impart vital knowledge.

Although they did not use European-style phonetic alphabets, pre-Columbian Americans did use forms of writing; rock art is one way of expressing ideas through images and symbols. Rock art has been used to record and pass on essential knowledge for many thousands of years.

Rock art has been used for storytelling, historical memory, map-making, recording dances and rituals, and in shamans’ work to maintain the ecological balance of the forest. By painting the hills, the first people to arrive in the Amazon humanised these unfamiliar landscapes.

The paintings at La Lindosa are not only spectacular works of art. They represent the roots of an indigenous Amazonian way of life, a living culture which has coexisted with the rainforest and maintained its ecological balance for thousands of years. 

The survival of the Amazon rainforest depends on the culture and expertise of Amazonian peoples in managing the land and its resources. Now that human activity threatens the forest and its biodiversity, the message of these paintings has never been more fragile or more vital.

Since the area around La Lindosa was pacified around the time of Colombia’s 2016 Peace Agreement, researchers have been able to excavate the rock art sites to understand more about their historical importance and modern-day relevance.

La Lindosa is protected as an archaeological heritage site by the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History, and local people play a central role in safeguarding this unique heritage from threats to the Colombian Amazon. All of us can help to defend against these threats.

Probably by many different groups of people. Archaeologists have been conducting detailed studies of the paintings and the surrounding area over the last few years.

Since the 2016 Colombian Peace Accord made outside research possible again following decades of conflict. This research has revealed fascinating details about the earliest people to paint on the rocks of La Lindosa.

Archaeologists excavating at La Lindosa have used radiocarbon dating to discover when the first humans arrived in this part of the Amazon. Analysis of organic remains left behind by these people, like seeds and bones, shows that humans arrived here around 12,600 years ago.

These pioneers became the first humans in the region we now know as the Amazon. They likely found a more open and mixed terrain than exists today. The biodiverse wildlife was also different, including animals which are now extinct such as giant ground sloths and mammoths.

These first people of La Lindosa likely brought with them the culture and beliefs of their ancestors in Siberia and North America. Some experts see common threads linking the role of shamans in indigenous cultures in Siberia, North America, and the Amazon today.

Archaeologists study the remains left by these early Amazonians, like seeds and bones, to see how they used the practical resources around them. They ate fish, small mammals and reptiles, and many types of palm and other tree fruits and tubers. They also used simple stone tools.

Amongst finds from the time of the earliest humans at La Lindosa, archaeologists found thin fragments which had fallen from the rock faces. Some had been painted with the same ochre pigments used in the rock art we can see today.