Archaeologists discover ancient culture from 'unprecedented' civilization

A team of archaeologists has discovered evidence of a previously unknown, 4,000-year-old ancient culture lost in the corridors of time.

The team found 30 rock art sites dating back thousands of years in Canaima National Park, located in the southeastern part of Venezuela.

While archaeologists have found similar rock art designs elsewhere in South America, the newly discovered art "represents a new culture that was previously unknown," team leader José Miguel Pérez-Gómez, of Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, told Live Science.

Some of these designs, which scientists call "pictograms," include red drawings depicting geometric patterns, simple depictions of leaves, stick-figure drawings of people, as well as star-shaped patterns and other geometric designs.

In addition, some images, called "petroglyphs", were carved into the rock and also show a variety of geometric motifs.

Pérez Gomez admitted that it is not clear why people created this art, saying: “It is almost impossible to reach the minds of people who lived here thousands of years ago,” but it is certain that these drawings had a ritual meaning. For example, the different images may be related to birth, diseases, the renewal of nature or a prosperous hunt.

The places where the rock art was created "probably had meaning and significance within the landscape, just as churches have meaning for people today," Perez Gomez continued.

So far, scientists have been unable to pinpoint the exact age of the ancient drawings. However, similar rock art found in Brazil dates back about 4,000 years. However, Perez Gomes believes the examples in Venezuela may be even older.

Canaima National Park is a huge park roughly the size of Belgium, with forests and mountainous terrain, and according to scientists it may have been the "ground zero" where this mysterious culture first developed, according to Perez Gomez.

The team hypothesizes that the people of this mysterious culture may have later moved as far away as the Amazon, Guyana and even southern Colombia, all of which contain ancient artwork similar to that recently found in Venezuela.