Colombia’s Serrania de Chiribiquete is home to millennia-old indigenous paintings that researchers say are now on the verge of being deciphered. The sprawling tepuyes, tabletop mountains which are among the planet’s oldest geological formations, were first ‘discovered’ by anthropologist Carlos Castaño Uribe during a rain-diverted flight between San José del Guaviare and Araracuara in 1986.
Designated a national park in 1989 with roughly 1.3 million hectares and expanded to 4.27 million hectares today, Chiribiquete is Colombia’s largest protected terrestrial area. In 1991, the first expeditions documented rock art: thousands of pictograms painted with mineral pigments on cliff walls deep in the Amazon.
From 2021 to 2024, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH) conducted the most recent investigation, employing noninvasive techniques, including laser scanning, photogrammetry, and 3-D imaging, to minimize impact on this sacred landscape. The team captured high-resolution digital records of eight mural panels in Chiribiquete and six in nearby La Lindosa, the park’s eastern gateway.
Scientists in Colombia are on the verge of deciphering Chiribiquete’s Indigenous paintings
In total, researchers cataloged more than 1,000 rock art figures, averaging 1.4 images per square meter. The paintings include at least 60 animal species, such as jaguars, otters, tapirs, turtles, and catfish, alongside plants and human forms. Many illustrated species are no longer found locally, offering clues to ancient ecological conditions.
Fernando Montejo, ICANH’s subdirector of heritage management, noted that Chiribiquete’s paintings are more naturalistic than the predominantly abstract motifs at La Lindosa. “At first glance, this suggests a pictorial tradition distinct from what we’ve seen, which could open new hypotheses about the artists,” he told local newspaper El Tiempo.
To establish a chronology, the team carried out controlled excavations and radiocarbon dating of charcoal and palm seeds, yielding six AMS dates between 1,175–1,273 and 4,150–3,973 years before present. The oldest date, nearly 4,150 years ago, is the earliest yet confirmed by ICANH in the tepuyes. For the first time in Colombia, archaeomagnetic dating was also applied successfully to rock art, paving the way for future studies.
ICANH also assessed the conservation status of the art
Beyond recording the art, ICANH assessed its conservation status, finding only natural weathering consistent with a humid-tropical environment. The team also unearthed stone tools and charcoal fragments for anthropological analysis, shedding light on ancient fuel use and wood-selection practices.
Alhena Caicedo, ICANH director, reminded Colombians that in 2018 Chiribiquete was declared a mixed natural and cultural World Heritage site, home to over 70,000 known rupestrian drawings. Yet she cautioned that the 65 panels already recorded may represent less than 5 percent of the region’s total.
President Gustavo Petro underscored the findings on June 14 in San José del Guaviare, warning that threats such as deforestation and illegal mining would harm not only biodiversity but also “the memory of humanity.” ICANH plans to continue analyzing the digital imagery in the coming months, hopeful that the emerging data will finally unlock the stories painted by Colombia’s ancient forest dwellers.