Tsodilo – Botswana

Tsodilo – Botswana 

Short Report

With one of the highest concentrations of rock art in the world, Tsodilo is the so-called 'Louvre of the desert'.  More than 4,500 paintings are kept in an area of only 10 km2 of the Kalahari Desert. The archaeological department of the area indicates a chronology of human activities and environmental changes on at least 100,000 years. Local communities in this respect Tsodilo hostile environment as a place of worship that was sacrificed.

Wonderful Universal Importance

In northwest-Botswana near the Namibian Border in Okavango Sub-District , the Tsodilo Hills is a small area of massive quartzite rock formations from old dunes to the east and a dry fossil lake bed to the west in the Kalahari Desert. The hills are provided shelter and other resources to people for more than 100,000 years. Now there is a remarkable record, in the archeology, rock art, and its continuing traditions, not only of the use, but also for the development of human culture and of a symbiotic nature/human relationship for many thousands of years. The archaeological department of the site offers a chronology of human activities and changes in the environment for at least 100,000 years, but not constantly.

Often large and impressive rock carvings in the shelters and caves, and although not accurately dated seem to span from the Stone Age to the 19th century. In addition within the site sediments, there is a considerable amount of information relating to the paleo-environment. This combination provides an insight into early forms of human life and how people with their environment both by time and space.

The local communities revere Tsodilo as the place of worship and as being sacrificed. The holes and hills are revered as a sacred cultural landscape, by the Hambukushu and San communities.

Wide Report

For many thousands of years the rocky foothills of Tsodilo in the harsh landscape of the Kalahari Desert is visited and controlled by people, which rich traces of their presence in the form of excellent rock art. The outcrops have enormous symbolic and religious significance for the human communities who continued to survive in this hostile environment.

Tsodilo is located in the north-west corner of Botswana near the Namibian Border. Its enormous quartzite rock formations arise from old dunes to the east and a dry fossil lake bed on the west coast. They are prominent isolated remaining small mountains surrounded by a vast lowlands erosion surface in a hot dry regions, known as inselbergs. Their height, shape and spatial relationships have given rise to a distinctive name for: husband, wife, Child, grandchild.

Caves and shelters are one of the main sources of the rock in human terms. Where excavated, they provide a long sequence of appeal beginning in some cases already 100,000 years ago. They indicate repeated use then the artifact densities prevents visit to reflect, perhaps seasonal, by small mobile group of people. Divuyu and Nqoma are two excavated settlements of particular importance in the 1st millennium AD. Divuyu is located in a saddle at the top of the female; Nqoma is on shelves. A general pattern of public housing and living space, flanked by common centers and perhaps buried, seemed the plan proposed similarities with the spatial pattern of villages in central Africa.

The rock-art paintings are performed in red ochre derived from hematite pig-iron in the local rock. Many of the red art is naturalistic in subject and schedule in style, which is characterized by a variety of geometric symbols, distinctive treatment of the human figure, and excessive body proportions of many animals. In terms of style and content the art has much in common with paintings of similar antiquity in Zambia and Angola than neighboring Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa . A striking series of white paintings is just twelve sites: animals in white are rarer and more domestic species than the red. Human figures are common, geometric design.

The art is not dated, although some could be more than 2,000 years old. Photos with animals be considered as 600-1200, after the introduction of cattle to Tsodilo after the 6th century AD, geometric art generally considered to be about 1000 years old. The latest paintings dating back to the 19th century on oral information. Some white paintings seem riders on horses, unknown until the 1850s.

Cup and canoe-shaped cavities in rock, a well-known phenomenon in the continent, are particularly numerous in Tsodilo. A group, understood as a trail of animal footprints, spread over a few hundred meters and is one of the biggest rock photos in the world. These pits are installed in the late Stone Age, about 2000 years ago. The extent and intensity of mining in the mountains to restore ochre, specularite and green stone, used for decorative purposes, is impressive. The mines are clearly pre-colonial.

Historical Data

Current evidence indicates that the earliest residents in Tsodilo probably in the Middle Stone Age, perhaps around 100,000 years ago or earlier. A Late Stone Age cultural presence date from around 70,000 years ago. In general, repeated use over a long period of time seems to think small mobile groups campsite short, perhaps on seasonal visits, for example when the fruit of the mongongo tree, Ricinodendron rautanenii, matures. Local quartz as well as exotic stone were used for tool in both the middle and Late Stone ages. The use of non-local raw material suggests that contact and a certain form of exchange existed at Tsodilo for tens of thousands of years. The Middle Stone Age is characterized by the appearance of large stone blades. Tsodilo is unique in which a comprehensive recording of freshwater fish exploitation in a now arid landscape where rivers previously flowed. Barbed wire leg points were probably used to tip fish-spears; bone toolmaking sure that at Tsodilo may also back 40,000 years.

Fishbone and stone reducing artifacts in the Late Stone Age (c 30,000 BP).  The appearance of ostrich eggs in archaeological deposits around that time indicates the development of a new strategy for the acquisition of a new source of food and artifacts. In particular, a tradition of making beads ostrich egg-shell started when and continues today. Up To as recently as c AD 600, the population of Tsodilo fully lived by hunting, fishing and foraging wild food.

By the 7th century AD, but the pace of change in technology, subsistence, and disputes organization increased such as iron and copper metallurgy were introduced. This phase is also characterized by the introduction of cattle. Interaction between the Late Stone Age forage harvesters and early iron age agro-farmers has occurred. Arrangement in the form of apparently unique social structures. Divuyu itself is the richest site have not yet been discovered in South Africa for the period. Copper and steel beads, bracelets and other jewelry was generally. All metal was introduced - the buyer probably from south Zaire or north-eastern South Africa, the iron perhaps only 40km far - and local work. Nqoma at the end of the 1st millennium is the richest variety of metal jewelry of famous contemporary site in southern Africa.

The same two locations with particular Divuyu and Nqoma have indicated domestic simply and a regular life as soon as the 7TH, 8th centuries AD from proof of centers and house foundations. Crops such as sorghum and millet were added to the diet. Sheep and goats augmented some domestic cattle held by previous foraging communities. Pottery was produced for a number of household and personal adornment was general and often work. Mining specularite rich was in 800-1000, and was in the 19th century. The output was huge, undoubtedly contribute to the amount of the jewelry and cattle ownership of Nqoma people. The rich elements of Tsodilo Iron Age culture continued in the 13th century when Nqoma decreased, possibly as a result of drought or war. No further sustainable exotic objects seem to have entered the Tsodilo region to the effects of the European Atlantic trade began to feel in the 18th century. Tsodilo has become part of the Portuguese Congo-Angola trade axis.

Historically, the Tsodilo area occupied by the N/hae industry, which in the middle of the 19th century. Its first appearance on a card was in 1857, as a result of information collected by Livingstone during his explorations in 1849-56. In the 1850the earliest known riders, Griqua ivory hunters, through the region. The !Kung arrived in the area and at least a few of the paintings, perhaps a few of those pictures that riders. The rock art was first signed and Western attention in 1907 by Siegfried Passarge, a German geologist.

The two current local communities, Hambukushu and !Kung, arrived as recently as c 1860. However, they both have creation myths linked to Tsodilo. Both have strong traditional beliefs which respect for Tsodilo as a place of worship and sacrificed. The spirituality of the place has become the most well known non-local population through the writings of Laurens van der Post, in particular the Lost World of the Kalahari (1958).  Today, local churches, and traditional doctors to Tsodilo for prayer, meditation, and medication. Most of the visitors come for religious reasons.

Source:whc/unesco