̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - cave

'Extreme sleepover #17' – going underground in search of zombies

lw355 — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 08:37:51 +0000

Isla de Mona has been many things: a source of melons and cotton hammocks for conquistadors in the 16th century; a pirate haunt in the 17th and 18th centuries; an industrial island fertilising the fields of the Western world with the fossilised guano of giant fish-eating bats in the 19th; a US air base in the 20th; and now, both a nature reserve and a destination for migrants seeking a better life in the USA.

This tiny island, just seven miles by four, with no permanent settlement, lies in the dangerous Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and it is the prehistory that brings us here.

̽��ֱ��plateau of limestone and dolomite is riddled with caves filled with signs of human activity. Much of this is pre-Columbian (i.e. before the Spanish arrived in the late 15th century) and consists of painted images, finger-drawn designs and extensive extractive finger scratches, which are sometimes deep within the ‘dark zones’, where no natural light falls.

I am with archaeologists Dr Alice Samson from Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Dr Jago Cooper from the British Museum for their summer fieldwork. As a conservator with specialism in the materials and techniques of painting, I am here to analyse the pigments used to make pre-Columbian markings and with the team look at the layer structures of engravings and painted images.

I’m using an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to examine the elemental composition of the pictographs, and will later take tiny samples away for further analysis. I want to find out whether the people who made these images used materials that were at hand in the caves, or transported them in from elsewhere.

Mona’s prehistoric peoples appear to have lived on the island from at least 2800 BCE, surviving a century after the arrival of the Spanish at the end of the 15th century. ̽��ֱ��inhabitants at the time of the conquest, commonly referred to as Taínos, brought us the words hurricane, barbeque, hammock, canoe, potato and cannibal.

Caves feature prominently in Taíno mythology and it is likely that many of the anthropogenic images in the caves are zemís (considered by some the origin of the word ‘zombie’). Zemí refers to any object, animal, vegetable or mineral, which was animate and could be called upon to intervene in human affairs. Zemís were found, constructed or painted in 3D and 2D form. Although the presence of human-like figurative designs is common in Caribbean rock-art, Alice and Jago’s work is bringing to light a staggering amount of physical modification to the caves from the pre-Columbian era, particularly the extraction of soft white lime from the walls and ceilings. ̽��ֱ��purpose of this extraction and what the material was used for are not yet known.

Each morning I wake at 5.30am to the sounds of subtropical birds. It’s the only time of day cool enough to go for a run. ̽��ֱ��coastguards and rangers all eat early; for them, life on Mona is a cycle of week-on-week-off at work, with a small aircraft bringing them to and from the Puerto Rican mainland to Mona via a bumpy grass airstrip.

At the camp, there’s a small study centre (happily, with solar-powered Wi-Fi) as well as basic accommodation where the workers live, and where migrants can rest before they are moved from the island. Mona throws together strange combinations of people: border police, rangers, military personnel, scientists, cavers, immigrants and boy scouts.

We set off early in the morning. Some of the caves are nearby, but others involve more effort to carry our equipment, as they are some distance from our camp. Mona’s environment can be inhospitable and it has a fearsome reputation. There is little natural water, except sometimes deep in the caves. It is dry, hot and thorny, and the rocks are sharp. As we walk to the caves, we often disturb one of Mona’s endemic and therefore incredibly rare iguanas. They typically scuttle away from us into a hidden cave mouth.

Our team also includes Masters’ students from the Centro de Estudios Avanzados in Puerto Rico, and we work together analysing, documenting and photographing the evidence in the caves. Colonists, buccaneers, guano-miners and boy scouts have all left their mark, often with dated graffiti. On several days, we join a team of cavers who year on year visit this most cavernous location on earth to map the island’s 200-plus caves. It’s a great opportunity to learn about cave mapping and geology from experts.

If possible, lunch is taken in a cliff-side cave mouth, with a view out over the sea. On occasion, two nosy Red-Footed boobies wheel round and round to get a better look at us. ̽��ֱ��caves themselves are extremely hot, humid and dirty. At the end of the day we walk into the Caribbean sea, fully dressed in our ‘cave clothes’.

Images: Finger drawings and Lucy Wrapson

Credit: Alice Samson/El Corazon del Caribe Research project

Lucy Wrapson reports on her fieldwork analysing the curious cave paintings found on Isla de Mona, in the Caribbean, and their equally enigmatic artists.

Finger-drawn designs and extensive extractive finger scratches are sometimes deep within the ‘dark zones’, where no natural light falls

Lucy Wrapson

Alice Samson/El Corazon del Caribe Research project

Cave painting, Isla de Mona

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Chinese cave ‘graffiti’ tells a 500-year story of climate change and impact on society

sc604 — Thu, 13 Aug 2015 13:00:00 +0000

An international team of researchers, including scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has discovered unique ‘graffiti’ on the walls of a cave in central China, which describes the effects drought had on the local population over the past 500 years.

̽��ֱ��information contained in the inscriptions, combined with detailed chemical analysis of stalagmites in the cave, together paint an intriguing picture of how societies are affected by droughts over time: the first time that it has been possible to conduct an in situ comparison of historical and geological records from the same cave. ̽��ֱ��results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, also point to potentially greatly reduced rainfall in the region in the near future, underlying the importance of implementing strategies to deal with a world where droughts are more common.

̽��ֱ��inscriptions were found on the walls of Dayu Cave in the Qinling Mountains of central China, and describe the impacts of seven drought events between 1520 and 1920. ̽��ֱ��climate in the area around the cave is dominated by the summer monsoon, in which about 70% of the year’s rain falls during a few months, so when the monsoon is late or early, too short or too long, it has a major impact on the region’s ecosystem.

“In addition to the obvious impact of droughts, they have also been linked to the downfall of cultures – when people don’t have enough water, hardship is inevitable and conflict arises,” said Dr Sebastian Breitenbach of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, one of the paper’s co-authors. “In the past decade, records found in caves and lakes have shown a possible link between climate change and the demise of several Chinese dynasties during the last 1800 years, such as the Tang, Yuan and Ming Dynasties.”

According to the inscriptions in Dayu Cave, residents would come to the cave both to get water and to pray for rain in times of drought. An inscription from 1891 reads, “On May 24^th, 17^th year of the Emperor Guangxu period, Qing Dynasty, the local mayor, Huaizong Zhu led more than 200 people into the cave to get water. A fortune-teller named Zhenrong Ran prayed for rain during the ceremony.”

Another inscription from 1528 reads, “Drought occurred in the 7^th year of the Emperor Jiajing period, Ming Dynasty. Gui Jiang and Sishan Jiang came to Da’an town to acknowledge the Dragon Lake inside in Dayu Cave.”

While the inscriptions are business-like in tone, the droughts of the 1890s led to severe starvation and triggered local social instability, which eventually resulted in a fierce conflict between government and civilians in 1900. ̽��ֱ��drought in 1528 also led to widespread starvation, and there were even reports of cannibalism.

“There are examples of things like human remains, tools and pottery being found in caves, but it’s exceptional to find something like these dated inscriptions,” said Dr Liangcheng Tan of the Institute of Earth Environment at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Xi’an, and the paper’s lead author. “Combined with the evidence found in the physical formations in the cave, the inscriptions were a crucial way for us to confirm the link between climate and the geochemical record in the cave, and the effect that drought has on a landscape.”

̽��ֱ��researchers removed sections of cave formations, or speleothems, and analysed the stable isotopes and trace elements contained within. They found that concentrations of certain elements were strongly correlated to periods of drought, which could then be verified by cross-referencing the chemical profile of the cave with the writing on the walls.

When cut open, speleothems such as stalagmites frequently reveal a series of layers that record their annual growth, just like tree rings. Using mass spectrometry, the researchers analysed and dated the ratios of the stable isotopes of oxygen, carbon, as well as concentrations of uranium and other elements. Changes in climate, moisture levels and surrounding vegetation all affect these elements, since the water seeping into the cave is related to the water on the surface. ̽��ֱ��researchers found that higher oxygen and carbon isotope ratios, in particular, corresponded with lower rainfall levels, and vice versa.

̽��ֱ��researchers then used their results to construct a model of future precipitation in the region, starting in 1982. Their model correlated with a drought that occurred in the 1990s and suggests another drought in the late 2030s. ̽��ֱ��observed droughts also correspond with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. Due to the likelihood that climate change caused by humans will make ENSO events more severe, the region may be in for more serious droughts in the future.

“Since the Qinling Mountains are the main recharge area of two larger water transfer projects, and the habitat for many endangered species, including the iconic giant panda, it is imperative to explore how the region can adapt to declining rain levels or drought,” said Breitenbach. “Things in the world are different from when these cave inscriptions are written, but we’re still vulnerable to these events – especially in the developing world.”

Reference:
Tan, L. et al. A Chinese cave links climate change, social impacts, and human adaptation over the last 500 years. Scientific Reports (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep12284.

Unique inscriptions found in a cave in China, combined with chemical analysis of cave formations, show how droughts affected the local population over the past five centuries, and underline the importance of implementing strategies to deal with climate change in the coming years.

When people don’t have enough water, hardship is inevitable and conflict arises

Sebastian Breitenbach

L. Tan

Inscription from 1891 found in Dayu Cave

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Prehistoric pre-school

amb206 — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 06:01:08 +0000

A recent conference on the Archaeology of Childhood at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge revealed the latest research into art made by young children in one of the most famous prehistoric decorated caves in France – the complex of caverns at Rouffignac also known as the Cave of a Hundred Mammoths.

Cambridge archaeologist Jess Cooney explained how meticulous research, using methodology tailor-made for the task, has made it possible to identify both the age and gender of the children who made the simple art form known as finger flutings around 13,000 years ago during the hunter gatherer period.

Her work reveals that some of the flutings studied were made by a three-year-old child with the most prolific young artist being a girl of five. Archaeologists first realised that children had produced some of the finger flutings back in 2006: fieldwork carried out earlier this year by Cooney, a Gates Scholar at Cambridge, and Dr Leslie Van Gelder of Walden ̽��ֱ��, USA, shows just how young they were.

Each year thousands of people visit the caves at Rouffignac in the Dordogne region of France to marvel at the extraordinary rock art: vivid images of animals drawn on the surfaces of the caverns deep inside a hillside.

However, the stunning drawings of mammoths, rhinoceros and horses represent just a small proportion of the art to be found within the 8 km cave system. Also evident are thousands of lines – a simple form of art or decoration known as finger flutings – made by people running their hands down the soft surfaces of the walls and roofs of the many galleries and passages that make up the complex.

Though impossible to date accurately, the images found deep inside the Rouffignac caves – a network created by river systems - are likely to be at least 13,000 years old. ̽��ֱ��caves themselves have been known since the 16^th century; in 1575 François de Belleforest wrote about paintings in his book Cosmographie universelle. For centuries visitors to the caves added their own graffiti creating a frustrating puzzle for archaeologists.

It was not until 1956 that experts realised that some of the most striking art – including the images of animals – was prehistoric. ̽��ֱ��drawings have been the subject of intensive study since. Only recently have archaeologists turned their attention to the less dramatic finger flutings, almost all of which are made without the application of pigment. Clues suggest that they date from the same time period as the painted and engraved animals - an era of hunter-gatherer culture known as the Magdalenian also responsible for the cave art at Lascaux.

At the conference Cooney presented the outcome of field work undertaken earlier this year when she and Van Gelder spent seven days carrying out detailed measurements in the Rouffignac caves. She showed how it is possible to determine not just the age and gender of the children who made the marks but also to identify individual children by their ‘signature’ marks. She also raised broader questions such as what does it mean to be a child in prehistory, and whether age-based identities existed for much of humanity’s social evolution – in other words were children seen as we see them now?

“These are the kind of questions you ask yourself when you are deep underground in a cave looking at marks made many thousands of years ago lit by the beam of a flashlight,” said Cooney.

To carry out her investigations Cooney used a methodology developed by Van Gelder and the late Dr Kevin Sharpe, who together established the finger fluting research in Rouffignac Cave. Their hand research, statistically analysing thousands of hand widths from contemporary people, both children and adults, laid the foundations for the identification of individuals aged seven years or younger based on the width of the middle three fingers.

“By 2006 Sharpe and Van Gelder had developed a way of determining the age and gender of children’s hand impressions, through the flutings. As a methodology it’s amazingly accurate. By measuring the flutings at Rouffignac with callipers and matching them up against the modern data set we can tell the age of the child who made them to up to seven years old - and that is being conservative. Similarly, if we have a clear finger profile, the shape of the top edges of the fingers, we can tell to 80 percent accuracy whether the individual was female or male. This works with both children and adults. Using methodology we can also identify marks made by the same child,” said Cooney.

“Flutings made by children appear in every chamber throughout the caves even those that are a good 45 minutes’ walk from the entrance - so far, we haven’t found anywhere that adults fluted without children. Some of the children’s flutings are high up on the walls and on the ceilings, so they must have been held up to make them or have been sitting on someone’s shoulders. We have found marks by children aged between three- and seven-years-old – and we have been able to identify four individual children by matching up their marks.

“ ̽��ֱ��most prolific of the children who made flutings was aged around five – and we are almost certain the child in question was a girl. Interestingly of the four children we know at least two are girls. One cavern is so rich in flutings made by children that it suggests it was a special space for them, but whether for play or ritual is impossible to tell.”

What is the significance of finger flutings – which also appear in other caves in France, Spain, New Guinea and Australia? “We don’t know why people made them. We can make guesses like they were for initiation rituals, for training of some kind, or simply something to do on a rainy day. In addition to the simple meandering lines, there are flutings of animals and shapes that appear to be very crude outlines of faces, almost cartoon-like in appearance. There are also hut-like shapes called tectiforms, markings thought to have a symbolic meaning which are only found in a very specific area of France. When in 2006 Sharpe and Van Gelder showed that that some of the tectiforms were the work of children, it was the first known instance of prehistoric children engaging in symbolic figure-making,” said Cooney.

Cooney is fascinated by the fact that children as young as three were active in the caves along with adults and that there appear to be few, if any, boundaries between adult activity and child activity. ‘What I wanted to do with my PhD was to allow prehistoric children to have a voice, since children are rarely talked about in academic discourse. What I’ve found in Rouffignac is that they are screaming to be heard - the presence of children is everywhere in the cave, even in the passages furthest from the entrance.”

Jess Cooney was among presenters at the 5^th Annual Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past conference. ̽��ֱ��conference Child Labour in the Past: Children as economic contributors and consumers took place at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge from 30 September to 2 October. https://sscip.org.uk/.

Archaeological research reveals that 13,000 years before CBeebies hunter-gatherer children as young as three were creating art in deep, dark caves alongside their parents.

̽��ֱ��most prolific of the children who made flutings was aged around five – and we are almost certain the child in question was a girl.

Jess Cooney

Prehistoric pre-school

Jess Cooney/ Leslie Van Gelder

Children's finger fluting at Rouffignac

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