Naomi
04-10-2008, 11:50 AM
This is amazing, this woman discovered a giant stone python head outside of a cave that was used 70,000 years ago. The San people sacrificed arrowheads to it and still hold the mountains sacred to this day. OH, the area of northwestern Botswana where this was found is called Ngamiland.
Full Article (written 2006):
http://www.apollon.uio.no/vis/art/2006_4/Artikler/python_english
A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago — 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe. This sensational discovery strengthens Africa’s position as the cradle of modern man.
Tekst: Yngve Vogt. Translated by Alan Louis Belardinelli
A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that man’s first rituals were carried out over 40, 000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.
Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankind’s oldest known ritual.
The archaeologist from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and Historical Studies, made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople in cooperation with the University of Tromsø, Norway, and the University of Botswana. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.
Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world. The more than 3,500 paintings, some more than 1,500 years old, constitute an important piece of our cultural heritage and are the reason that Tsodilo is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Sheila Coulson’s discovery is going to garner attention the world over. This is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left Africa”, Ørmen points out. He explains that the San, who are also referred to as Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans. The San, together with the Khoi (or Khoikhoi), separated from the rest of the worlds people about 70,000 years ago. Today they are commonly refered to as the Khoi-San people. The Khoi and the San are quite similar and were displaced by both the Europeans and the Bantu before and during colonization.
Full Article (written 2006):
http://www.apollon.uio.no/vis/art/2006_4/Artikler/python_english
A new archaeological find in Botswana shows that our ancestors in Africa engaged in ritual practice 70,000 years ago — 30,000 years earlier than the oldest finds in Europe. This sensational discovery strengthens Africa’s position as the cradle of modern man.
Tekst: Yngve Vogt. Translated by Alan Louis Belardinelli
A startling archaeological discovery this summer changes our understanding of human history. While, up until now, scholars have largely held that man’s first rituals were carried out over 40, 000 years ago in Europe, it now appears that they were wrong about both the time and place.
Associate Professor Sheila Coulson, from the University of Oslo, can now show that modern humans, Homo sapiens, have performed advanced rituals in Africa for 70,000 years. She has, in other words, discovered mankind’s oldest known ritual.
The archaeologist from the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and Historical Studies, made the surprising discovery while she was studying the origin of the Sanpeople in cooperation with the University of Tromsø, Norway, and the University of Botswana. A group of the San live in the sparsely inhabited area of north-western Botswana known as Ngamiland.
Coulson made the discovery while searching for artifacts from the Middle Stone Age in the only hills present for hundreds of kilometers in any direction. This group of small peaks within the Kalahari Desert is known as the Tsodilo Hills and is famous for having the largest concentration of rock paintings in the world. The more than 3,500 paintings, some more than 1,500 years old, constitute an important piece of our cultural heritage and are the reason that Tsodilo is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
“Sheila Coulson’s discovery is going to garner attention the world over. This is the oldest ritual site that we know of and it was in use before physically modern man left Africa”, Ørmen points out. He explains that the San, who are also referred to as Bushmen, belong to the most ancient race of humans. The San, together with the Khoi (or Khoikhoi), separated from the rest of the worlds people about 70,000 years ago. Today they are commonly refered to as the Khoi-San people. The Khoi and the San are quite similar and were displaced by both the Europeans and the Bantu before and during colonization.