Evidence of Human Migrations from the Rock art of Southern Rhodesia

Abstract

IntroductionThis paper is the result of a study of all the known rock painting copies and photographs, undertaken during 1963 and early 1964—in the first instance to plot the occurrence of patterned giraffe paintings against those only in silhouette. The list has grown, however, and all animals and humans have been indexed and plotted on distribution maps, all information being finally synthesized. An analysis is presented of the human types and domesticated animals recorded in the art of Southern Africa. These items have been plotted on distribution maps, the significance of which is discussed in the following sections. The importance of the Mopani belt and of linguistics are also examined and a possible way from the east of Southern Rhodesia to the Cape of Good Hope indicated. The distribution of animal types is the subject of another paper (Cooke, 1964).