San rock art: a sparkle for innovation

Figure 1 - Human evolution. About six million year ago
in Africa, the chimpanzee lineage and our own split

The first Hominids have most probably seen the day in Africa. Or at least it is what seem to conclude the numerous paleontology research expeditions throughout the past decades, including the notable discovery of Lucy in 1974 and, in 2001 of the Sahelanthropus tchadensis Tumai, in the Chadian desert. "Modern" human beings have 99.9% of their genetic heritage in common. This established fact sustains by itself that the notion of race amongst human beings is absurd. The fossils have made a great contribution to the understanding of the development of humankind.

In search of the art and culture that has inspired human innovation, nowadays we are able to retrace the creative visions of some of South Africa's foremost artists, such as the ancient San, on an 80,000-year path. Their fascinating beliefs together with their experiencing of rituals such as hunting and the trance dance have made the San rock art perhaps the best known of all of Africa's rock arts. It is also now amongst the best understood. For decades, researchers believed that the art was simply a record of daily life or a primitive form of hunting magic. Those were the days of gaze and guess, when it seemed that the longer one gazed at the art, the better one's guess would be as to its meaning. Thankfully, those days are gone and by linking specific San beliefs to recurrent features in the art, researchers have been able to crack the code of San rock art.

Figure 2 - The San People have been found to be the
most ancient people in the world with a genetic DNA
more diverse than any other

One of the most complex and sophisticated symbolic arts is revealed. Beyond a depiction of life, the art focuses on a particular area of San experience: the spirit world journeys of San shamans.

Figure 3 - San shamanic dance. A lengthy festive
gathering around the campfire for access to the outer world 

Many features from the important trance dance may be acknowledged like the manner in which the shamans gained access to the spirit world. The rock art is full of dancers with antelope hooves, indicating that they have taken on antelope power, just as San shamans in the Kalahari describe today. Shamans can be depicted climbing up the so-called "threads of light" that connect the sky-world and some sort of trance flight is described.

To illustrate experiences, artists used metaphors such as showing shamans to be underwater or dead. These translate passages of the rough and long trance journeys. The artists also drew shamans' actions in the spirit world, such as their capturing of the rain animal, and their activation of traditional pharmacology for use in healing or in fighting off enemies and dangerous forces.

The art is however far from just a record of spirit journeys. Powerful substances such as eland blood were put into the paints so as to make each image a reservoir of possibles. Each generation of artists painted or engraved layer upon layer of art on the rock surfaces and created potentially spiritual places.

Figure 4 - San rock art in one of the Kalahari's
hundreds of caves

On the South African eastern seaboard, the impacts of traders, slavers and explorers from Africa and countries around the Indian Ocean goes back to tens of thousands of years ago.
Traces of these pasts are still being discovered, or re-discovered and re-interpreted as our interests and approaches evolve. New archaeological sites are excavated, forgotten documents resurface, and new questions are asked of known sources.
With the huge developments in computer-aided research and digital equipment, and increasing affordability of high-tech processes, there are fresh opportunities for researchers to get access to information and give our contemporary world the opportunity to benefit from the rediscovery of these ancient masterworks.