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African Rock Art of the Southern Zone
Lonyana Rock Elands Bay Cave Driekops Eiland Makgabeng Hills


Southern Zone, African Rock Art

The shaded area, south of the Zambezi River, indicates the southern zone of African rock art, characterized by fine-lined representational imagery.
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This zone stretches from the South African Cape to the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia formed by the Zambezi River. The rock painting of this region is characterized by exquisitely minute detail and complex techniques of shading. Engravings are also found in this zone, generally on boulders and rocks in the interior plateau of southern Africa, while paintings are found in the mountainous regions that fringe the plateau. There are only a few places where paintings and engravings are found in the same shelter. Aboriginal San hunter-gatherers made most of these paintings and engravings.

While the rock art of southern Africa is different from that of the central and northern zones, it is not homogenous. There is, for example, great diversity between the art of the Matopo Hills in Zimbabwe, the Brandberg in Namibia, and the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa. Nevertheless, scholars have suggested that a great deal of San art throughout southern Africa may be explicitly and implicitly linked to San shamanic religion. Principally, a great deal of San art depicts their central most important ritual, the healing or trance dance, the complex somatic experiences of dancers, and various metaphors, such as death, that are intimately related to this dance.

In addition to San rock art, there are also rock paintings and engravings made by closely related Khoi pastoralists. These people acquired domestic stock through close interaction with Bantu-speaking people some 2,000 years or more ago. Although there is some evidence that they also made engravings, Bantu-speakers' rock art is characterized by finger painting in a thick, white pigment. Often found superimposed over San or Khoi paintings, this art is implicated in initiation rituals and in political protest and is not a shamanistic art.


Africa, Southern Africa, Rock Art, Prehistory, Archaeology, Africa (including Egypt)

Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

The Central Zone: African Rock Art, The Northern Zone: African Rock Art, San Ethnography, African Rock Art, African Rock Art: Apollo 11 and Wonderwerk Cave Stones, African Rock Art: Game Pass, African Rock Art: Tassili-n-Ajjer (?8000 B.C.–?) , African Rock Art: The Coldstream Stone, The Monumental Stelae of Aksum (3rd–4th century A.D.), Ife, Ife: Pre-Pavement and Pavement Era, Ife Terracottas, Inland Niger Delta,



Africa, 20,000-8000 B.C., Africa, 8000-2000 B.C., Africa, 2000-1000 B.C., Africa, 1800-1900 A.D.