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The original was posted on /r/highstrangeness by /u/Pixelated_ on 2025-02-05 11:43:28+00:00.

Deep in the Colombian Amazon, a team of scholars worked with Indigenous elders to interpret a 12-mile-long stretch of 11,000-year-old rock art.

Researchers now believe that the art tells a spiritual story of an interconnecting human and non-human world.

The animals shown on the rocks weren’t likely a direct interpretation of life, rather a spiritual transformation that a human underwent.

Any time an animal appears in a non-realistic state, such as a panther drawn with two heads, they depict the spiritual world, Tukano-speaking Ismael Sierra said.

A Desana elder told the team spirits themselves drew the art because of how high up in the rocks some of the art was.

In the explanation, elders shared how shamans leave physical identities behind and enter a spiritual world where they can connect to other forms of physicality, such as animals, giving new meaning to the art showing humans intertwining with animal properties.