ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: Is the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina faux?

QUESTION: Is the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina fake?

Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands) is an archaeological site comprising some of the world’s most remarkable and well-preserved prehistoric rock art. 

It features more than 2,000 white, red, black, purple and yellow stencilled handprints dating back 9,000 years. 

The stunning vibrant colours on show have led to suggestions that they are fake but this is not the case.

Within the cave, there are also images of hunting parties, animals including rheas (flightless birds), guanacos (llama-like animals) and cats, as well as geometric shapes and representations of the sun.

In 1964, Argentine archaeologist Carlos Gradin began the most substantial research on the site which lasted for three decades. 

Gradin’s team identified five separate stylistic sequences in the cave.

The research has been verified by carbon dating. The pigments, made primarily from natural minerals — iron oxides (red and purple), natrojarosite (yellow), kaolin (white) and manganese oxide (black) — further support the site’s dating to around 7,000 BC.

Keith Jones, Gaddesby, Leics

 Question Which is the world’s largest oilfield? How did it form?

The Ghawar oilfield, stretching 174 miles in length and 25 miles across, to encompass 1.3 million acres, is by far the world’s largest oil reservoir.

 It is situated along the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia.

Discovered in 1948 and brought into production in 1951, it originally held around 170 billion barrels of oil.

The field currently produces about 2.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 3.8 million barrels of oil a day and is estimated to account for about six per cent of the world’s total daily crude oil output.

The formation of Ghawar, like other conventional oilfields, can be traced to the mid-Jurassic era, 175 million to 160 million years ago, when the region was near the equator and covered by shallow seas.

Organic matter accumulated on the seabed and over time was buried under sediments, subjected to heat and pressure, and transformed into hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons became trapped beneath impermeable rock layers, creating a massive reservoir.

Ghawar’s unique geological conditions, such as its large anticline (where layers of rock have folded into an arch-like shape, trapping the oil) contributed to its enormous size and productivity, making it a cornerstone of global oil production for decades.

The Burgan field in Kuwait is the second largest oilfield in the world. 

Dr Ken Warren, Glasgow

QUESTION: What is the story of the Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service, which operated in the First World War?

The Scottish Women’s Hospitals for Foreign Service (SWH) was founded in 1914 by women’s suffrage activist and surgeon Dr Elsie Inglis (1864-1917). 

A well-supported fundraising campaign, in partnership with the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, allowed women to go to treat soldiers fighting the war, which they could not do with the Royal Army Medical Corps, which was a male preserve.

Dr Inglis offered the services of the SWH to the War Office but was rebuffed. ‘My good lady, go home and sit still,’ she was told.

Working closely with the French Red Cross, the SWH established its first 200-bed hospital at Royaumont Abbey, 25 miles north of Paris.

The SWH went on to operate 14 medical facilities across France, Corsica, Malta, Romania, Russia, Salonika and Serbia.

In keeping with the aims of women’s suffrage, the majority of staff and volunteers were women. 

They were recruited not only as doctors and nurses but also as orderlies, drivers, cooks and administrators. By the end of 1918, around 1,500 women had served with the SWH.

It is not known how many military personnel and civilians were treated by the hospitals, but the estimate is in the hundreds of thousands.

While many volunteers went home at the end of the war, some, such as Dr Katherine Stewart MacPhail (1888-1974), stayed behind to continue to provide medical services.

 She opened the first children’s hospital in Serbia and worked in the country until she retired to Scotland.

Isabel Emslie Hutton (1887-1960) went to Crimea to care for refugees from the Russian Civil War — she housed almost 140,000 refugees and orphaned children, evacuating many to Constantinople (Istanbul).

After working extensively on the Serbian front, Dr Inglis died of cancer in November 1917. She was not to see out the end of the war.

Bob Cubitt, Northampton