There are more rock art traditions belonging to Africa's herding and farming groups than to hunter-gatherer groups, but each occurs at fewer sites and each is more localised.
Typically each tradition is found at a few hundred sites rather than at many thousands as is the case for the hunter-gatherer traditions. Herder traditions tend to use white as their primary colour and most often the pigment is applied by finger rather than using a brush. These groups also created engravings on boulders and on the rocks along river edges. Many herder groups did not make rock art. They choose instead to make their ritual art in a medium that could be more easily hidden, such as wooden and clay figurines and hut paintings.
Nilotic-speakers in Ethiopia, Kenya and northern Tanzania painted stylised representations of long-horned and short-horned cattle. Alongside the cattle are a few depictions of shields and cattle brands. The images are all painted in red and/or white.
Pastoralism arrived in southern Africa around 2000 years ago. Whether this was owing to a distinct group of people, typically recognised as the ancestors of the Khoekhoen (formerly Khoikhoi), bringing domestic animals or by diffusion of domesticates through the hands of hunter-gatherers is much in debate. It was once thought that rock art could contribute to the migration hypothesis as ‘geometric’-looking images similar to those of the Angolan Twa tradition were found along waterways throughout the southern continent. It was thought that the art occurred along rivers as the herders would have required constant access to water to support their livestock.