Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin

World’s oldest 3D map discovered

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2025-01-18 14:30:07

Researchers have discovered what may be the world’s oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris Basin.

The Ségognole 3 rock shelter, known since the 1980s for its artistic engravings of two horses in a Late Palaeolithic style on either side of a female pubic figuration, has now been revealed to contain a miniature representation of the surrounding landscape.

Dr Anthony Milnes from the University of Adelaide’s School of Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, participated in the research led by Dr Médard Thiry from the Mines Paris – PSL Centre of Geosciences.

Dr Thiry’s earlier research, following his first visit to the site in 2017, established that Palaeolithic people had “worked” the sandstone in a way that mirrored the female form, and opened fractures for infiltrating water into the sandstone that nourished an outflow at the base of the pelvic triangle.

New research suggests that part of the floor of the sandstone shelter which was shaped and adapted by Palaeolithic people around 13,000 years ago was modelled to reflect the region’s natural water flows and geomorphological features.