South African rock art possibly inspired by long-extinct species, suggests research

[Pelican Press 0]

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

South ******** rock art possibly inspired by long-extinct species, suggests research

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

Painting of the dicynodont made by the San in the early 1800s. Credit: Julien Benoit, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A mysterious tusked animal depicted in South ******** rock art might portray an ancient species preserved as fossils in the same region, according to a study published September 18, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Julien Benoit of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South *******.

The Horned Serpent panel is a section of rock wall featuring artwork of animals and other cultural elements associated with the San people of South *******, originally painted between 1821 and 1835. Among the painted figures is a long-bodied animal with downward-turned tusks which doesn’t match any known modern species in the area.

As the San people are known to have included various aspects of their surroundings into art, including fossils, Benoit suggests the tusked creature might have been inspired by an extinct species.

The Karoo Basin of South ******* is famous for abundant well-preserved fossils, including tusked animals called dicynodonts, which are often found eroding out of the ground. Benoit revisited the Horned Serpent panel and found the tusked figure comparable with dicynodont fossils, an interpretation that is also supported by San myths of large animals that once roamed the region but are now extinct.

If the tusked figure is in fact an artistic interpretation of a dicynodont, a species which went extinct before dinosaurs appeared and were long extinct when humans appeared in *******, it would predate the first scientific description of these ancient animals by at least 10 years.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==

The Horned Serpent panel. A, general view of the Horned Serpent panel photographed in 2024 by the author. B, close up of the section figured in Stow and Bleek’s plate 39. C, close up of the tusked animal. D, close up of the warriors painted below the Horned Serpent panel. E, close up of the warriors painted to the right of the panel. Credit: Julien Benoit, 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

There is archaeological evidence that the San people might have collected fossils and incorporated them into their artwork, but the extent of Indigenous knowledge of paleontology is poorly understood across *******.

Further research into Indigenous cultures might shed more light on how humans around the world have incorporated fossils into their culture.

Julien Benoit adds, “The painting was made in 1835 at the latest, which means this dicynodont was depicted at least ten years before the western scientific discovery and naming of the first dicynodont by Richard Owen in 1845. This work supports [the fact] that the first inhabitants of southern *******, the San hunter-gatherers, discovered fossils, interpreted them and integrated them in their rock art and belief system.”

More information:
A possible later stone age painting of a dicynodont (Synapsida) from the South ******** Karoo, PLoS ONE (2024).

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

Provided by
Public Library of Science

Citation:
South ******** rock art possibly inspired by long-extinct species, suggests research (2024, September 18)
retrieved 18 September 2024
from

This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no
part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

#South #******** #rock #art #possibly #inspired #longextinct #species #suggests #research

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up

This is the hidden content, please

• Sign In
• or
• Sign Up