When it feels like we know the world around us all too well, and there are few things that can surprise us, the wonders of history and nature prove us wrong. Just recently, the British-Colombian team of archaeologists led by José Iriarte announced the bombshell news.

Tens of thousands of cave paintings created up to 12,500 years ago were discovered in Serranía La Lindosa, in the remote Amazon rainforest. Painted across a cliff, the rock art stretches to nearly 8 miles.

According to the statement, these are drawings of deer, tapirs, alligators, bats, monkeys, turtles, serpents, and porcupines, as well as Ice Age megafauna. Among depictions, you see mastodons, camelids, ungulates with trunks, and giant sloths, and they represent the native animals that have gone extinct.

Dr. Mark Robinson of the University of Exeter, who was part of the research team, stated: “These really are incredible images, produced by the earliest people to live in western Amazonia. It is unbelievable to us today to think they lived among, and hunted, giant herbivores, some which were the size of a small car.” Let that sink in for a bit, and scroll for the breathtaking images below.

The ancient rock art that stretches across an 8-mile wall was discovered in the Amazon rainforest

Image credits: channel 4

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

The site hailed as “the Sistine Chapel of the ancients” was discovered last year, but has since been kept secret. It was initially filmed for the Channel 4 series “Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms of the Amazon” that will be screened in December. The documentary’s presenter Ella Al-Shamahi said that “The new site is so new, they haven’t even given it a name yet.”

Scientists say the paintings were made around 11,800 to 12,500 years ago

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

The site was discovered by an international team of British and Colombian researchers. José Iriarte, professor of archaeology at Exeter University and expert on Amazon and pre-Colombian history, commented on the discovery: “When you’re there, your emotions flow … We’re talking about several tens of thousands of paintings. It’s going to take generations to record them … Every turn you do, it’s a new wall of paintings.”

There are drawings of deer, tapirs, alligators, bats, monkeys, turtles, serpents, and porcupines, as well as what appears to be Ice Age megafauna

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Remarkably, all the paintings turned out to be well-preserved and incredibly detailed. “The pictures are so natural and so well-made that we have few doubts that you’re looking at a horse, for example. The ice-age horse had a wild, heavy face. It’s so detailed, we can even see the horse hair. It’s fascinating.”

Iriarte also said in a statement that this ancient art serves as spectacular evidence of how humans reconstructed the land, how they lived there, hunted, farmed, and fished. “It is likely art was a powerful part of culture and a way for people to connect socially. The pictures show how people would have lived amongst giant, now extinct, animals, which they hunted,” he concluded.

Although the discovery was made about a year ago, the drawings were first unveiled for an upcoming documentary series by Channel 4

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

Image credits: gipri

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