This article was originally published on June 2, 2022.
The Serranía la Lindosa sits deep in the Colombian jungle in a frontier region that divides the basins of the Orinoco and Amazon rivers. The rocky tabletop outcroppings that characterize it, known as tepuis, sit overtop the Guayabero River, which floods the lowland forests for months out of every year.
But while the surroundings may seem otherworldly, the rocks themselves are covered in Indigenous art depicting humans and wildlife. “It’s an amazing landscape — we like to call it, ‘Rock art with a view,’” says Jose Iriarte, an archaeologist with the University of Exeter in the U.K.