What does it tell us about ancient peoples?

The Cave of the Hands is located in the country of Argentina which is in the continent of South America. Ancient people painted here as early as 9000 years ago.

THE CAVE OF THE HANDS

Look closely at the following photographs from the Cave of the Hands. What do you notice? What do the pictures tell you about the people who painted these pictures?

You may have noticed that most of the hands are left hands. In fact, of 829 images of hands, only 31 are right hands.

The animals pictured are guanacoes, animals related to llamas. Archaelogists believe that people living in the area specialized in guanaco hunting and therefore painted hunt scenes where they were pursuing these animals.

TASSILI CAVE PAINTINGSPrehistoric people painted in caves in the Tassili region of present-day Algeria in North Africa. These paintings were done up to 8000 years ago.

Look closely at the following photographs from the Tassili caves. What do you notice? What do the pictures tell you about the people who painted these pictures?

The cave paintings show us that these prehistoric people raised cattle. The region is now in the Sahara Desert, but thousands of years ago it was much wetter, and livestock such as cattle could live there.

Prehistoric cave paintings tell us how prehistoric people lived their daily lives.

What did we discover?