During the Later Stone Age in what is now Namibia, rock artists imbued so much detail into their engravings of human and animal prints that current-day Indigenous trackers could identify which animals' prints they were depicting, as well as the animals' general age and sex. Andreas Pastoors of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published September 13 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Detail of Stone Age depictions of human footprints and animal tracks in Doro Nawas Mountains, Namibia. Credit: Andreas Pastoors, CC-BY 4.0
In the new study, researchers enlisted the help of Indigenous tracking experts from the Kalahari desert to analyze animal and human footprints in rock art in the Doro Nawas Mountains in central Western Namibia. The experts were able to define the species, sex, age group and even the exact leg of the animal or human print in more than 90% of the 513 engravings they analyzed.
The new findings reveal patterns that likely arise from culturally determined preferences, but the meaning of these patterns is still unknown. The researchers propose that consulting with present-day Indigenous experts may shed some light in this area. They point out that while Indigenous knowledge has tremendous capacity to advanceStone Age animal and human depictions in Doro Nawas Mountains, Namibia. Credit: Andreas Pastoors, CC-BY 4.
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