A team of archaeologists discovered a Late Stone Age rock gallery in the Doro Navas Mountains in western Namibia containing numerous depictions of human and animal footprints. The drawings are so clear that details of the owners can be determined from them. To work published In the scientific journal PLOS One.
The discovery was made by scientists from the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. Experts were able to identify the type, gender and age of more than 90 percent of the 513 artifacts they analyzed.
German archaeologists enlisted the help of expert scouts from the indigenous peoples of the Kalahari Desert to analyze the drawings. It turned out that the gallery of footprints represented different animals than the rock engravings with images of animals. Archaeologists have also found that Stone Age artists most liked to depict the tracks of adult men.
The new findings have revealed patterns that likely resulted from ancient people’s cultural preferences, but the meaning of these patterns remains unknown. Researchers hope further consultation with Namibia’s indigenous peoples will help better understand the meaning of prehistoric art.
Earlier archaeologists to create A huge cave gallery of Paleolithic rock paintings in the mountains of Spain.