Rock art reveals lost wildlife

Abstract

Rock engravings in northwest Saudi Arabia suggest that the region was once home to a host of unexpected animals. Maria Guagnin at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and her colleagues studied rock art at Jubbah and Shuwaymis, a joint UNESCO World Heritage Site. The team examined more than 1400 rock engraving panels, some dating back to 8000 BC. The pictures contain around 6600 depictions of wildlife. The team could identify the exact species shown. Some of the art showed animals that have never been seen in the local archaeological record. For example, antelope called lesser kudu appeared in the engravings, given away by their distinctive spiral horns. Before now, there was little evidence that they ever left Africa. Another depiction resembles an aurochs, the wild progenitor of modern domestic cattle, which are mostly known from Europe and Central Asia. There were also representations of wild camels and African wild asses, neither of which is known to have lived in this part of Arabia.