Raging Fires in the Amazon Have Destroyed Rare Prehistoric Works of Bolivian Rock Art

It’s not just Brazil’s Amazon that’s
on fire. Eastern Bolivia is also being ravaged by wildfire, which
has raged over forests, grassland, and, archaeologists have just
announced, rare ancient rock art sites in Santa Cruz, which have
been destroyed in the weeks-long blaze.

“We believe that the damage is big and wide in terms of our
heritage of rock art,” Danilo Drakic, the region’s chief
archeologist, told Agence France Presse.
In the eastern town of Robore, “a dark layer of soot has covered
all the paintings,” and the heat of the flames “has caused stones
to break, even to collapse.”

Santa Cruz boasts numerous examples of ancient rock art, with
paintings and engravings that date back thousands of years. In May
2017, government officials declared Robore, home to engravings
created around 1,500 BC, the “departmental capital of rock
art.”

The Sociedad de Investigacion del Arte Rupestre
de Bolivia, founded in 1987 to investigate and document the
country’s many petroglyphs and rock paintings, has voiced concern
about Robore’s rock art, asking on Facebook for a status
update on the effects of the fires on the ancient art.

At least some archaeological sites have escaped unscathed thus
far, with a CNN Español report
showing undamaged rock paintings in El Parque el Manantial.
Nevertheless, archaeologists won’t know know the full extent of the
damage until the fires have been extinguished.

The country’s 2019 wildfires first began in May and saw a sharp
increase in August. Conservative estimates say fires have
destroyed 3.2 million acres of Bolivian forests and grasslands
so far, and the risk to Bolivian cultural heritage continues to
grow.

According to Bolivia’s culture ministry, the fires also pose a
significant risk to the UNESCO World Heritage site at
the Jesuit Missions of the Chiquitos,
religious settlements built by the order in the 17th and 18th
centuries.

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