Due to a current drought in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, enigmatic ancient engravings dating to between 1,000 and 2,000 years old have resurfaced from a riverbed. This discovery marks only the second time this remarkable phenomenon has been witnessed.
Located where the Rio Negro and Amazon River meet, outside Manaus, Brazil, the rare carvings, dated to between 1,000 and 2,000 years old, depict water, animals and little human faces. Archaeologists are so taken with this because the group of human faces have only ever been revealed once before, in a 2010 regional drought.
Ancient etchings such as these are normally lost underwater forever. However, a recent drought has taken water levels to a record low in over a century. Known as “Caretas” [little faces] the key questions that now face researchers in the Amazon is, who carved these petroglyphs, and what do they mean?
Little Faces With Big Stories
Alongside carved animals, and symbolic representations of water, the slightly square human heads feature mouths, but only some were given noses. In an article in The Guardian from when the faces were first discovered, Eduardo Neves, president of the Brazilian Society of Archaeology , “the carvings indicate a place of occupation.”
Jaime Oliveira of the Brazilian Institute of Historical Heritage (Iphan) added in comment to the resurfacing of these petroglyphs, that the ancient Amazonians also endured periods of drought, “more…
