Rock art

Long before the European colonialists arrived, the San people were living a fairly hand to mouth existence in SA - and producing some astonishing art. The oldest wall paintings found so far are some 3,600 years old - not as old as European stone age art, but apparently that's because the conditions for preserving the paint - and the rock - are better in Europe. However, the San produced thousands of these paintings - there are hundreds of sites all over SA and undoubtedly there are more to be found. These paintings continued to be produced well into the colonial age - perhaps into the late nineteenth century - in the 1930s elderly San people were able to show researchers some of the painting techniques they'd learnt as children. The paintings are usually found under overhanging rock faces, and analysis of the composition of the paint reveals strange mixtures of minerals, plant juices and blood - suggesting that the paintings played a part in religion and ritual. The mythology, however, is largely lost - the usual fate of a civilisation without writing. It's fascinating to speculate about the meanings of these paintings, beyond the obvious representational significance.

In Welgevonden I saw my first cave painting site, in a beautiful location with a view of a valley. There was a small sign saying that the paintings had been inspected by someone from Wits University and that they were "several hundred years old" - and therefore they shouldn't be touched. I took a couple of photos as above which didn't come out too well - so to give you an idea of how spectacular these paintings can be I've added some others I found on the internet - see if you can tell the difference.

Check out this site if you want to see more.