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Botswana: Tsodilo Hill Discovers Links Man to Africa Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone) August 11, 2006
by Monkagedi Gaotlhobogwe Correspondent
Archaeological excavation at Rhino cave, one of the caves at the famous Tsodilo hills, has yielded interesting preliminary discovery that could make the already popular caves, one of the world's greatest heritage site.
Some cultural artefacts, dating back to approximately 90,000 years ago were discovered there, two weeks ago raising excitement that contrary to current knowledge, the development of modern people had already began in Africa 90,000 years ago.
Until the latest discovery by the University of Botswana archaeology team led by professor Sheila Coulson, there has been no archaeological evidence to suggest that modern people developed in Africa, as evidence of art were found in far away places such as France, and Israel.
The San rock paintings, considered to be the oldest evidence of modern art in Africa, dates only to 2000 years ago. Coulson says while archaeologists acknowledge that the earliest human developed in Africa there has not been any evidence to link the development of modern man to Africa, and as such it is generally believed that people developed modern civilisation after they spread to Europe.
"For the last ten years, there has been an on going debate among archaeologists as to when people became modern, when they started using art, and language.
"In the past, South Africa has provided a lot of evidence concerning the development of human race, but the latest evidence from Botswana, found on a rock dating back to the middle stone age era, has never been discovered before", she said.
According to the archaeologist who is here because of the UB and Tromso research programme, the Rhino cave site revealed some sophisticated use of technology in the cave, suggesting those religious rituals, and art took place inside the cave.
Coulson said in the cave, they found some extra-ordinary artefacts. She said after digging 150m deep, they found colourful, fancy material that were used inside the cave, possibly for ritual purposes. She said the site was the first of its kind to be found with exotic material. She said the evidence indicate that the colorful tools were burnt in the cave and offered to a huge shinny sculpture of a serpent which was worshipped as a god.
She said the choice of colour that was given the sculpture made the snake look real, as if it is moving, when the light shines through. She likened the sophistication of the art to modern day technology that is used to produce movies.
Coulson also said the people who used the cave also appeared to believe that the Tsodilo hills were protected by a snake god that moved from one hill to another. She said that thinking or myth is still rife in modern societies all over the world, suggesting that the society that lived in the cave 90,000 years ago were modern.
Coulson also said they discovered that a pointed pot was also brought to the cave as part of the rituals to worship or appease the snake god. She said they discovered that the pot was broken, and one of the pieces of the broken pot was found stacked to the sculpture, suggesting rituals. Coulson said they have not dated their discoveries yet but since they have found many artefacts from the site, very soon they will know how old that civilisation is.
If found to be true, Coulson's findings could go on to re-write the history of the human race, as well as rebutting already held beliefs that pottery making was brought to southern Africa during the 18th century. Coulson began her research around Tsodilo in 1999 but it is her findings of two weeks ago that has caused a lot of excitement in the archaeological field.
Thanks for the link, but this MYTH of modern man NOT developing in Africa has LONG BEEN PUT TO REST. This article you posted is REALLY A BUNCH OF NONSENSE. When the WHITE CONTROLLED Afrcian archaeology departments START SHOWING WHAT THEY HAVE FOUND over the years since COLONIAL TIMES, you will SEE THAT THIS IS NONSENSE. It is FUNNY how archaeologists GET AMNESIA about the RACE SCIENCE that was ANTHROPOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY in Africa during the colonial period, which either destroyed or DOWNPLAYED any EVIDENCE of modern man's development in Africa. It is ALSO FUNNY how they choose to act as if they dont remember the civilizations and cultures that were DESTROYED by white colonialists, thereby REMOVING EVIDENCE that would help FILL IN OUR KNOWLEDGE, especially from PRE COLONIAL times. They CHOOSE TO FORGET that Africa was NEVER SERIOUSLY STUDIED to find traces of MODERN MAN'S development, since RACISTS ASSUMED THERE WAS NONE. Therefore, any statements about "it has long been held that modern man developed in Europe" are basically treating as FACT the ideas expoused by the proponents of RACE SCIENCE that put AFRICANS at the BOTTOM of the EVOLUTIONARY LADDER. I am sure there are OLDER ROCK PAINTINGS in Africa than Europe. The issue is WHETHER the RACIST ARCHAEOLOGISTS will LET THE FACTS OUT, and START REVISING and REMOVING the traces of OLD RACIST STEREOTYPES about Africa FROM ARCHAEOLOGY. After all the years of RACIST persecution and lies told by white Archaeologists and Anthropologists, I dont see WHY we expect them to tell the truth now. I also dont see WHY we would even LISTEN to them, after their HISTORY of lies and deception is exposed. The FACT that WHITES are still the predominant archaeologists and anthropologists in Africa SHOULD BE A CLUE that things are not going to get better anytime soon. The MAIN REASON being that modern Anthropologists and archaeologists want to PRETEND that they are part of a legacy of POSTIVE and PROGRESSIVE scientific analysis and education, spreading facts about man and his history, but the TRUTH is JUST THE OPPOSITE. Therefore, they would rather speak with COLLECTIVE AMNESIA about the ACTIONS OF THEIR PREDECESSORS and AVOID CONTROVERSY by being BLIND to the past and pushing out NONSENSE articles like this one. How can you say CIVILIZATION did not start in Africa when EGYPT IS IN AFRICA? The people who DEVELOPED EGYPT CAME FROM AFRICA and therefore Africa had CIVILIZATION LONG BEFORE ANYONE ELSE. What do you expect from people who would hold up Henry Stanley and David Livingston as GREAT? I mean Europeans are among the LAST to develop civilization, but yet they TALK SO MUCH TRASH it is ridiculous. HOw is it that West Africa had Universities prior to WESTERN EUROPE? HOw is it that the some of the OLDEST POTTERY is found in Africa, yet SHE DOESNT SPEAK OF IT? How is it that many NEW DISCOVERIES are made EVERY DAY in Africa, but scientists ALWAYS TRY AND FIND SOMETHING OLDER IN EUROPE before ANNOUNCING THE FINDINGS? For example, they found the earliest necklace in South Africa, then they tried to say that there was an OLDER one in Europe, even though it was of QUESTIONABLE authenticity. I dont even know why this garbage was posted here.
In fact, that begs the question, where IS the oldest pottery found in the world? Where is the OLDEST rock art? Where is the oldest evidence of "modern" human activity?
I would rather see the FACTS before listening to a bunch of anthropologists and archaeologists spout a bunch of NONSENSE.
OLDEST MINES FOUND IN AFRICA:
quote: According to modern anthropology, Africa is the birthplace of mankind, but it is also the birthplace of mining activity. The oldest mine ever discovered is located in Africa, on a Swaziland iron site and was operated as long ago as 45,000 years! Nine thousand years before the Christian era copper metallurgy was developed in Mesopotamia, and around 1500 BC iron was produced in Asia Minor. The use of gold as a currency or in traditional handicraft was known elsewhere long before it extended to Africa. Yet, like copper or gold, iron was used by Africans from time immemorial. For example, both red haematite or black iron oxide were used as cosmetics or in funeral ceremonies. In many places gold was traditionally used in making masks and other ornaments, especially at the time of the great empires of Mali, Ghana or Songhai; and Ancient Egypt, of course, represents the golden age of copper civilization.
quote: The oldest arrow heads were discovered in Africa and were dated to be from before 25,000 BC. Scientists have theorized that the bow was created as an off-shoot of the spear-thrower. Somewhere around 25,000-18,000 BC, man began to use fire to further harden his stone arrowheads and added feathers to his arrows in order to improve accuracy.
Just from these 3 links you have the oldest evidence of hunter/gathering societies, the oldest evidence of iron making and some evidence of very old pottery, yet people want to say that there is NO EVIDENCE of "modern" human traits in Africa prior to Europe? This is without even GOING to the cave art of the Sahara or the cultures of Egypt and the Sudan or Ethiopia.
I wont listen to the GARBAGE spouted by Anthropologists and Archaeologists until they do MORE research in Kenya and Ethiopia, the "birthplace" of mankind, since there is BOUND to be OLDER evidence there as well as ELSEWHERE in Africa.
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Until the latest discovery by the University of Botswana archaeology team led by professor Sheila Coulson, there has been no archaeological evidence to suggest that modern people developed in Africa, as evidence of art were found in far away places such as France, and Israel.
Indeed, the situation is quite sad and pathetic.--- That virtually all anthropologists now agree humans originated in Africa, but some (not all) still hold the development of MODERN human behavior as taking place outside of Africa first.
Why?? Because of the world famous examples of the cave paintings in France and those in Israel. Yet Europe and the Near-East has always been the focus of archaeologists and anthropologist when it comes to human prehistory. As Doug points out, they hardly look for such clues of 'modern' behavior anywhere else in Asia let alone Africa. In Africa, most anthropologists simply focus on finding remains of early humans but hardly ever consider the 'modern' human aspects of culture.
It is a fact of science that the human species not only originated in Africa, but that they also spent most of their development and overall evolution in Africa. Many anthropologists and scholars always talk about the Out-of-Africa expansions, but conveniently forget to mention that before any populations left Africa, it was there that they spent most of their existence. Thus, is it any surprising that modern behavior such as abstract thoughts, complicated behavior and overall culture existed on the African continent before anywhere else??!
There are in fact many anthropologists who acknowledge the above, so why does this Coulson seem not to and is surprised by this evidence of 'modern' behavior in Africa at such an early time??
Perhaps this Coulson is of the old-school thinking-- as in the Afrikaaner-Boer thought. LOLPosts: 26302 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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There is already evidence that the iron age began in Africa THOUSANDS of years before it began in Europe, yet this small tidbit is LOST as a result of colonial "exploration" and exploitation. Indeed this info is lost PRECISELY due to Boer and British colonial activities and resource discoveries. Like I said there is a LOT of information LURKING around in the South African archaeology departments that is PURPOSELY not being reported because of the OBVIOUS implications.
quote: The high points of the ridge were points named Lion and Castle. Below Castle Beacon, Boshier found an adit 42 feet into the mountain and 25 feet at its widest point narrowing vertically to a point. The question was why would people interested in haematite go to all the trouble to mine a material that could easily be got by opencast. Specularite (a different ore) was the answer. Specularite is considered to have great power by traditional Swazis and only chiefs and the most qualified priest diviners are permitted to wear it, smearing the whole body and hair with it. In one of the adits they even found a mortar and pestle to grind the specularite. In fact, these ancient mines were cosmetic mines producing cosmetics for ceremonial occasions.
The next question was how old were these mines? The archaeologist, Peter Beaumont, produced evidence of mining in the middle stone age, later stone age and iron age. At Ngwenya, Middle Stone Age man tunnelled adits into the precipitous western face in search of iron pigments, the weathered ochreous forms of haematite (libomvu) near the surface, and the harder black glistening form of the ore called specularite (ludumare). In 1967 charcoal nodules from some of the more ancient adits were sent to both Yale and Groningen radiocarbon laboritories where Carbon 14 testing was carried out on it. A date of about 43 000 BC or 41 000 BC was obtained, making this the oldest known mining operation in the world. It is thought these ores were mined until at least 23 000 BC. At Lion Cavern it is estimated that at least 1 200 tons of soft haematite ore, rich in specularite, had been removed in ancient times.
Despite the enormous amounts of ore which must have been removed, no traces of iron smelting have been located in the Ngwenya area, although it is possible that more intense investigation would reveal some.
The finds have also synthesised our understanding of the origins of ceremony and symbology, for in the Swaziland mine the excavators found the skeleton of a child buried at least 50 000 years ago, together with a perforated sea shell pendant, the first recorded evidence of personal adornment suggesting aesthetic appreciation for Homo sapiens.
Unfortunately all these ancient relics can no longer be found in Swaziland as excavation took place before Swaziland's independance, and most ended up in South Africa.
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