Tsodilo
Tsodilo | |
---|---|
Ngamiland District, Botswana | |
Coordinates | 18°45′0″S 21°44′0″E / 18.75000°S 21.73333°E |
Official name | Tsodilo |
Type | Cultural |
Criteria | i, iii, iv |
Designated | 2001 (25th session) |
Reference no. | 1021 |
Region | List of World Heritage Sites in Africa |
The Tsodilo Hills (
Geography
Oral Traditions
Many local peoples around the Tsodilo Hills have stories of times past that deal with the many painted caves and rock shelters at the site. Oral traditions often tell of the
One tale claims that hunters would come into the rock shelters to contact ancestors if a hunt was unsuccessful. They would then ask for a good hunt the next time they went out.[9] In thanks, when the hunt was successful, the people would return to the shelter and cook for their ancestors. In some of these alleged campsites, there is little to no evidence of fire remains.[9]
Still, there are areas where rituals, such as rain making prayers, are performed. Older people in the area can still remember using some rock shelters as campsites when they were children. The Whites Paintings rock shelter may have been used as a camp during the rainy season as early as 70 – 80 years ago.[5]
The local San people believe Tsodilo is the birthplace of all life, art there made by the descendants of the first people. Tsodilo's geography, trails and grooves in the earth are known as the trails and footprints of the first animals, making their way to the first watering hole [10]). A natural water spring at Tsodilo, near the Female Hill, is used as both a water collection site and a ritual site. It is seen as sacred, and used by countless peoples to cleanse, heal, and protect.[10]
Claim of earliest known ritual
In 2006 the site known as Rhino Cave became prominent in the media when Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo stated that 70,000-year-old artifacts and a rock resembling a python's head representing the first known human rituals had been discovered. She also backed her interpretation of the site as a place of ritual based on other animals portrayed: "In the cave, we find only the San people's three most important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe.[11] Since then some of the archaeologists involved in the original investigations of the site in 1995 and 1996 have challenged these interpretations. They point out that the indentations (known by archaeologists as cupules) described by Coulson do not necessarily all date to the same period and that "many of the depressions are very fresh while others are covered by a heavy patina." Other sites nearby (over 20) also have depressions and do not represent animals. The Middle Stone Age radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating for this site does not support the 70,000 year figure, suggesting much more recent dates.
Discussing the painting, the archaeologists say that the painting described as an elephant is actually a rhino, that the red painting of a giraffe is no older than 400 AD and that the white painting of the rhino is more recent, and that experts in rock art believe the red and white paintings are by different groups. They refer to Coulson's interpretation as a projection of modern beliefs on to the past and call Coulson's interpretation a composite story that is "flatout misleading". They respond to Coulson's statement that these are the only paintings in the cave by saying that she has ignored red geometric paintings found on the cave wall.
They also discuss the burned Middle Stone Age points, saying that there is nothing unusual in using nonlocal materials. They dismiss the claim that no ordinary tools were found at the site, noting that the many scrapers that are found are ordinary tools and that there is evidence of tool making at the site. Discussing the 'secret chamber', they point to the lack of evidence for San shamans using chambers in caves or for this one to have been used in such a way.[12]
Notes
- ^ Thebe, Phenyo. "Intangible Heritage at Tsodilo Hills".
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(help) - ^ a b Staurset, Sigrid. "Ritualized Behavior in the Middle Stone Age: Evidence from Rhino Cave, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana".
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(help) - ^ JSTOR 40980131.
- ^ C.Michael Hogan. 2008
- ^ .
- ^ a b c d Robbins, L.H.; Campbell, A.C. (1989). "The Depression Rock Shelter Site, Tsodilo Hills". Botswana Notes and Records: 1–3.
- ^ .
- S2CID 144203689.
- ^ JSTOR 40959180.
- ^ S2CID 54755278.
- ^ "World's Oldest Ritual Discovered -- Worshipped The Python 70,000 Years Ago". ScienceDaily.com.
- ^ Robbins, Lawrence H.; AlecC. Campbell; George A. Brook; Michael L. Murphy (June 2007). "World's Oldest Ritual Site? The "Python Cave" at Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Site, Botswana" (PDF). NYAME AKUMA, the Bulletin of the Society of Africanist Archaeologists (67). Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2011. Retrieved 1 December 2010.
References
- Ursula Erasmus (1992) Bushman Culture, published by Excalibur, 315 pp ISBN 1-85634-191-7
- C. Michael Hogan (2008) Makgadikgadi, The Megalithic Portal, ed. A. Burnham
- Luis Pancorbo (2000) "Al fin las colinas de Tsodilo" en "Tiempo de África". pp. 280–286. Laertes, Barcelona. ISBN 84-7584-438-3
- Sheila Coulson, Sigrid Staurset, and Nick Walker (2011) "Ritualized Behavior in the Middle Stone Age: Evidence from Rhino Cave, Tsodilo Hills, Botswana" PaleoAnthropology 2011:18-61