All you need to know about African rock paintings
The apparent universality of these images is deceptive; content and style range widely over the African continent.
Rock art was a common form of expression among ancient peoples. It has been found on every continent except Antarctica.
Africa has more rock art sites than any other continent and these sites are widely distributed across the continent. Rock art has been in numerous sites in the Sahara and in southern Africa in the Kalahari and Drakenburg mountains of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
There are thousands — probably tens of thousand and perhaps hundreds of thousands — of rock art sites. Many lie undiscovered because they are situated in remote areas of the Sahara or in other places rarely visited or not visited at all by humans.
The oldest known — in Namibia in southern Africa — are estimated to be around 27,000 years old but may be as old as 40,000 years old. By contrast the oldest rock art in Europe is about 30,000 years old. In Australia some works may be 75,000 years old.
According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Rock paintings and engravings are Africa’s oldest continuously practiced art form.
Depictions of elegant human figures, richly hued animals, and figures combining human and animal features — called therianthropes and associated with shamanism — continue to inspire admiration for their sophistication, energy, and direct, powerful forms.
The apparent universality of these images is deceptive; content and style range widely over the African continent.
African rock art can be divided into three geographical zones — southern, central, and northern. The art of each of these zones is distinctive and easily recognisable.
Not all rock art in these three zones is prehistoric; in some areas these arts flourished into the late 19th century, while in other areas rock art continues to be made today.
In the Drakensberg Mountains of South Africa, a number of rock paintings depict clashes between San (Bushmen) people and European colonists mounted on horses and armed with rifles. Many of the Drakensberg works use subtle polychrome shading that gives their subjects a hint of three dimensional presence.
