HomeEntertainmentA largest Cave Art revealed by 3D scans in America

A largest Cave Art revealed by 3D scans in America

In the depths of a humid cave in northern Alabama, archaeologists have uncovered a giant. On a three-foot-high [1 m] underground roof, researchers have unearthed the art of the largest cave found in North America: intricate etchings of human and snake figures, carved by Native Americans more than 1000 years ago.

“It is an exemplary and important work,” said Carla Klehm, an archaeologist at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (UAF).

Although the U.S. Southwest is famous for its petroglyphs carved out of ravines and cliffs, much of the southeastern rock art hidden beneath the caves. “Forty years ago, no one could have imagined that the southeastern world had a lot of cave art,” said Thomas Pluckhahn, an archaeologist at the University of South Florida who was not involved in the paper. But a few decades ago, archaeologists, including the University of Tennessee, Jan Simek of Knoxville, proved otherwise.

Simek first visited the 19th Anonymous Cave — so named in scientific papers to protect its rightful place in the private world — in the 1990’s. At its cool, humid depth where it does not filter out the outside light, Simek and his colleagues’ flashes reveal a glimpse of the ceiling depicting birds, snakes, wasps, and scattered rows of patterns. This painting was similar to the designs found on pottery in the southeast of the Woodland period, between 1000 B.C.E. and by 1000 C.E.

The roof of the cave fell just over half a meter high where the glyphs were found, so researchers had to lie on their backs to see most of the images, explains Simik. There is no place to stand and see the whole roof, he said.

For a complete picture of the art, Simik also visited the cave in 2017 with Stephen Alvarez, a photographer and founder of the non-profit Ancient Art Archive, which records ancient rock art worldwide and shares it online via virtual reality. Alvarez wanted to use a new method called 3D photogrammetry to create a realistic 3D model of the cave — and see if they could expose the unseen images in a solid space.

The researchers went down into the cave and used a tripod to start taking pictures. In just 2 months, they took about 16,000 scattered photos, with high resolution. Next, they merge images, using computer software to direct images into a 3D environment; the researchers were then able to manipulate the resulting model using virtual software, Alvarez explains. “We can light up the space any way we want and then throw it down” so we can go back and see the whole ceiling, he said. As researchers modified their images to make the drawings more visible, the five large glyphs in the past were too large and unconscious to see and find relief. They included three human-like creatures wearing royal robes, a swarm of fangs with a snakelike tail, and a long, scaly snake. The images measure between 0.93 meters and 3.37 meters in height, making them the largest of the largest cave art in North America, researchers say today at Antiquity.

The pictures, which may have been made by throwing new mud on a wet roof, are timeless. Fragments of coal and wood smoke from the walls of the cave, probably from the arches of painters, date back to the first millennium. The Native Americans of Woodland who lived in the area at the time lived in villages, built large clay mounds for religious worship, and traded extensively across the south, east, and west. Their descendants lived in the area for hundreds of years; but by the late 1800’s, many had been forced to move west under U.S. government policies. to remove Native Americans.

The aforementioned figures share elements with other forms of rock art in the southeast, such as rock paintings at Alabama’s Painted Bluff, and in the Southwest, such as human-like images in Canyonlands National Park. The figures are also similar to those found in Woodland style pottery. Although the exact meaning of glyphs is unclear, caves similar to those found in it were often linked to the underworld, say researchers.

While completing the work, the authors interviewed the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, whose national homeland covers the area where the cave is located.

Creating glyphs required an “incredible level of artistic ability” said UAF George Sabo. But much about artists is still a mystery. “Who were they in their communities?” she wonders.

Although the location of the cave was not disclosed to protect the art from vandals, the team created a video of its model for anyone to explore. Klehm is pleased to see 3D photogrammetry continue to expose the hidden art of other sites and make it accessible. “Thiscan help us to see things that we cannot see, beyond the normal human eye,” he says.

Source Journal Reference:  Tess Joosse, Largest Native American cave art revealed by 3D scans, May 2022, Nature, doi: 10.1126/science.abq8329

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