uKhahlamba-Drakensberg, South Africa; Tsodilo Hills, Botswana; Brandberg, Namibia; Cederberg, South Africa; broader southern African region, South Africa
The San people of southern Africa produced the most extensive, densely concentrated, and spiritually sophisticated rock art tradition on earth across a period of at least 27,500 years and potentially much longer. The uKhahlamba-Drakensberg mountain range in South Africa contains over 40,000 individual rock art images in more than 600 sites. The Tsodilo Hills of Botswana contain approximately 4,500 paintings, which UNESCO has called the 'Louvre of the Desert.' The Brandberg massif of Namibia contains the White Lady, one of the most debated and most significant individual paintings in African prehistory. These are not decorative images. San rock art is a spiritual technology, a visual encoding of the altered states of consciousness experienced in shamanic trance, painted by shamans to capture and transmit the power accessed during those states.
Earliest dated San rock paintings approximately 27,500 years BP; continuous tradition through the 19th century CE; San communities decimated and dispersed by colonial violence from the 17th century onwards; major sites UNESCO inscribed 2000 (Drakensberg) and 2001 (Tsodilo)
