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Tsodilo
The Tsodilo Hills (Tswana: Lefelo la Tsodilo) are a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS), consisting of rock art, rock shelters, depressions, and caves in Botswana, Southern Africa.
It gained its WHS listing in 2001 because of its unique religious and spiritual significance to local peoples, as well as its unique record of human settlement over many millennia. UNESCO estimates there are over 4500 rock paintings at the site. The site consists of a few main hills known as the Child Hill, Female Hill, and Male Hill.
There are four chief hills. The highest is 1,400 metres AMSL, one of the highest points in Botswana. The four hills are commonly described as the "Male" (the highest), "Female", "Child", plus an unnamed knoll. They are about 40 km from Shakawe and can be reached via a good graded dirt road.
There is a managed campsite between the two largest hills, with showers and toilets. It is near the most famous of the San paintings at the site, the Laurens van der Post panel[clarification needed], after the South African writer who first described the paintings in his 1958 book The Lost World of the Kalahari. There is a small museum and an airstrip near the campsite.
People have used the Tsodilo Hills for painting and ritual for thousands of years. UNESCO estimates that the hills contain 500 individual sites representing thousands of years of human habitation. The hills' rock art has been linked to the local hunter gatherers. It is believed that ancestors of the San created some of the paintings at Tsodilo, and were also the ones to inhabit the caves and rock shelters. There is evidence that Bantu peoples were responsible for some of the artworks at the hills. Some of the paintings have been dated to be as early as 24,000 years before present.
Rhino Cave is located at the North end of the Female Hill and has two main walls where paintings are located. The White Rhino painting (for which the cave is named) is located on the north wall, and is split by another painting of a Giraffe. Excavations of the cave floor turned up many lithic materials. This cave lacks ostrich egg shell, bone artifacts, pottery or iron, but there were a few mongongo shell fragments found in Later Stone Age layers.
Charcoal found during excavations has been dated to the African Iron Age, the Later Stone Age (LSA), and the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Mostly stone artifacts from the LSA were made from local materials such as quartz and jasper. MSA artifacts from the cave are mostly prepared projectile points. The points are typically found in various stages of production, some abandoned and some finished.
The paintings of Rhino Cave are mostly located on the North wall, and have been painted in red or red-orange pigment, excepting the rhino which was painted in white. Around the rhino and the giraffe are various paintings, mostly in red, of geometrics. On the opposite wall, the cave is host to grooves and depressions that have been ground into the rock. They may have been created using hammer stones or grindstones from the LSA period, which have been found at Tsodilo.
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Tsodilo
The Tsodilo Hills (Tswana: Lefelo la Tsodilo) are a UNESCO World Heritage Site (WHS), consisting of rock art, rock shelters, depressions, and caves in Botswana, Southern Africa.
It gained its WHS listing in 2001 because of its unique religious and spiritual significance to local peoples, as well as its unique record of human settlement over many millennia. UNESCO estimates there are over 4500 rock paintings at the site. The site consists of a few main hills known as the Child Hill, Female Hill, and Male Hill.
There are four chief hills. The highest is 1,400 metres AMSL, one of the highest points in Botswana. The four hills are commonly described as the "Male" (the highest), "Female", "Child", plus an unnamed knoll. They are about 40 km from Shakawe and can be reached via a good graded dirt road.
There is a managed campsite between the two largest hills, with showers and toilets. It is near the most famous of the San paintings at the site, the Laurens van der Post panel[clarification needed], after the South African writer who first described the paintings in his 1958 book The Lost World of the Kalahari. There is a small museum and an airstrip near the campsite.
People have used the Tsodilo Hills for painting and ritual for thousands of years. UNESCO estimates that the hills contain 500 individual sites representing thousands of years of human habitation. The hills' rock art has been linked to the local hunter gatherers. It is believed that ancestors of the San created some of the paintings at Tsodilo, and were also the ones to inhabit the caves and rock shelters. There is evidence that Bantu peoples were responsible for some of the artworks at the hills. Some of the paintings have been dated to be as early as 24,000 years before present.
Rhino Cave is located at the North end of the Female Hill and has two main walls where paintings are located. The White Rhino painting (for which the cave is named) is located on the north wall, and is split by another painting of a Giraffe. Excavations of the cave floor turned up many lithic materials. This cave lacks ostrich egg shell, bone artifacts, pottery or iron, but there were a few mongongo shell fragments found in Later Stone Age layers.
Charcoal found during excavations has been dated to the African Iron Age, the Later Stone Age (LSA), and the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Mostly stone artifacts from the LSA were made from local materials such as quartz and jasper. MSA artifacts from the cave are mostly prepared projectile points. The points are typically found in various stages of production, some abandoned and some finished.
The paintings of Rhino Cave are mostly located on the North wall, and have been painted in red or red-orange pigment, excepting the rhino which was painted in white. Around the rhino and the giraffe are various paintings, mostly in red, of geometrics. On the opposite wall, the cave is host to grooves and depressions that have been ground into the rock. They may have been created using hammer stones or grindstones from the LSA period, which have been found at Tsodilo.
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