Archaeologists discover prehistoric rock paintings
Archaeologists discover prehistoric rock paintings
SINGAPORE (AFP): A team of archaeologists said on Friday they had uncovered 11 new caves with more than 500 prehistoric handprints, paintings and other rock art in Kalimantan.
The discovery of 375 handprints in one cave was "one of the most important finds" of the expedition, said Frenchman Luc-Henri Fage, one of the mission's leaders who presented their findings at a media conference here.
Another team leader, Jean-Michel Chazine, said the team found 11 caves with such handprints in the last five years. They discovered 11 more during their latest trip to Kalimantan's limestone mountains from May 23 to June 20, he said.
This was the team's eighth trip to Kalimantan. The prehistoric paintings were first discovered in 1994 by Chazine and Fage.
The month-long expedition saw four French and one Indonesian explorer covering 25 caves in a cliff called Gunung Marang. They hope to return next January with more colleagues.
The handprints, dating back more than 10,000 years, cover walls at the entrances of the caves and stretch across the walls and ceilings inside.
They are mostly negative prints created by blowing red or orange dye over the hand and creating an outline of it. Some are also decorated with dots, lines and curves that link one handprint to another. Both adult and child-sized prints were found.
While the symbolism is still unclear, Chazine said that he thought they were probably important to the initiation, healing and other spiritual rituals of the prehistoric communities.
The team also found primitive paintings of human figures dancing and wearing what appear to be special masks or head dresses.
More importantly, these figurative paintings were painted over some of the eroded handprints and suggest that they are younger than the handprints.
Other rock paintings of prehistoric mammals as well as broken ceramics, dating back up to 8,000 years and decorated with shell carvings, were also unearthed.
With much of the rock art eroded by the elements, the team is concerned about their preservation.
"The conservation of the paintings is very bad due to the excess of light they receive and the development of what seems to be bacteria eating the limestone," they said in a press statement.
There are fears the situation could worsen with the Indonesian Ministry of Culture and Tourism hoping to develop the caves into attractions.
But Chazine said that the inaccessibility of the region would keep tourists away for at least 10 years.
He added that the task at hand was to educate the locals not to destroy the caves and their surrounding forest.