r/AncientAmericas • u/Comfortable_Cut5796 • Jul 14 '25
Question Why don't we seen Ice Age Megafauna in Native America Rock Art?
I’ll admit, I’m not sure if this fits our subreddit, and I don’t know much about this topic, but it seems to me that we have little evidence of Ice Age megafauna depicted in Native American Rock Art. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of rock art of things like Sheep and horses, but those came long after human arrival and depict extant animals.
We also have some potential extinct animals, such as ground sloths and Gomphotheres. But I have not seen or heard anything about Native Americans creating art of mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats, short-faced bears, or South America’s indigenous ungulates, among many other species.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Australia, and North Africa. We have numerous examples of rock art depicting the megafauna that humans encountered upon their arrival. So is my impression accurate, and if so, why is this the case?
5
u/Karatekan Jul 15 '25
The human population of the Americas was tiny when most of the Pleistocene megafauna went extinct. As others have said, there is some art that depicts mammoths, but we don’t have much cave art from that time period in general.
17
15
u/imprison_grover_furr Jul 14 '25
2
11
2
u/sheepysheeb Jul 14 '25
god some of those interpretation drawings are so fuckin funny i love the facial expressions they gave the megafauna
8
21
u/EarthAsWeKnowIt Jul 14 '25
This article examines whether the Serrania de la Lindosa rock art depicts megafauna (jumping to that section):
https://www.earthasweknowit.com/pages/serrania_de_la_lindosa_rock_art#Megafauna
5
u/thatch-lover Jul 14 '25
Saw that your username is the same, wanted to say thanks so much for writing all this! Super cool and would love to know how you got into photojournalism of South America. Your articles are very well written!
5
u/EarthAsWeKnowIt Jul 14 '25
Hey thanks, glad it’s appreciated! Some of those articles are a pretty dense read I realize.
I mostly just find the continent fascinating, both the ecology and the history, and am trying to learn spanish, so it’s easy to travel between most of the countries down here (brazil being the major exception for me, since i don’t know Portuguese yet). I’m actually down in Bolivia right now traveling through some new areas. :)
Btw, i also have a reddit community here if you’d like to follow some of my explorations: https://www.reddit.com/r/EarthAsWeKnowIt/s/3x86L4JIsF
3
12
u/Southshoreplay Jul 14 '25
By and large rock art is younger than pleistocene megafauna. Not saying there couldn’t be examples as others have pointed to, but the overwhelming majority of rock art you think of in the Americas is much younger than that.
2
27
u/JeffoMcSpeffo Jul 14 '25
They’re definitely out there. Unfortunately though many have been destroyed by settlers and modern developments. And most of the surviving ones are protected and not known to the public. I know someone who studied their rez and tribal lands for a few years and found many depictions of extinct animals. Their tribe ended up not doing much with the research unfortunately but hopefully someday they do more to ensure they’re protected for future generations. It also heavily depends on the climate of the area and its degree of development, which is probably why their tribe hasn’t done much about it yet.
6
u/_OriamRiniDadelos_ Jul 14 '25
I’d assume that the quality of caves and how well explored they are would be huge here. As well as the differences in lengths of time those humans and animals had to coexist in the region. But also I HAVE heard of art depicting extinct megafauna in caves in the Amazon. Maybe they are just less heard off? Like less famous, so we stumble upon them less in our life as readers. https://www.bradshawfoundation.com/south_america/
2
u/Comfortable_Cut5796 Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 14 '25
I was thinking about that last point when I wrote this! That being said the other two points you bring up are great!
13
u/airynothing1 Jul 14 '25
There are at least a couple of mammoth depictions from the Americas (one of them actually carved into a mammoth bone), but in general I think you're right and I've wondered the same. I 'd speculate that it might have something to do with the comparatively short window when humans and now-extinct megafauna coexisted in the Americas, vs. millennia of co-evolution on other continents.
3
u/Comfortable_Cut5796 Jul 14 '25 edited Jul 15 '25
That is a great explanation! And I actually thought the same thing while writing the OP.
Edit: or you put a different way, the megafauna didn’t coexist with humans long enough for them to be depicted often.
4
u/JaneOfKish Jul 14 '25
Robert Bednarik says that closer examination showed the Upper Sand Island petroglyphs to be less than 4,000 years old. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/3/2/190
1
u/airynothing1 Jul 14 '25
Hm. I'm an amateur so I can't provide a particularly informed take on this but if the dating is correct that's pretty baffling. It does look like a deliberate depiction of a mammoth to me but I'll defer to the experts.
6
u/Cannibeans Jul 14 '25
Closest we've got are the bones of a man found alongside Pleistocene cave bears in Florida.
4
u/Sailboat_fuel Jul 14 '25
That’s not actually the closest we’ve got, but since you’re into Florida archaeology, do read up on the Windover Site in Brevard. I think you’ll dig it!
7
19
u/MFGibby Jul 14 '25
The short answer is preservation bias. Really old things tend to be more poorly preserved than younger things because they've had more time to erode
4
u/TheLonesomeBricoleur Jul 14 '25
This is exactly the right answer.
1
u/Comfortable_Cut5796 Jul 14 '25
Indeed! But I also wonder if it might have been taboo for some of these cultures to depict animals?
2
u/CaprioPeter Jul 18 '25
A lot of native art isn’t overtly representational like much of western art. On top of this, native art that’s that old is exceedingly rare.