More than a century ago, Charles Darwin stood almost alone when he argued that Africa was the most likely place for the origin of humanity. Since this time palaeo-anthropologists have, every year, uncovered more and more evidence to support Darwin's proposition.
A wealth of hominid fossil material has now been found and from many different parts of Africa. Despite extensive research, the challenge from other parts of the world to Africa's claim to be the place of human origin remains weak. In recognition of this, Sterkfontein in South Africa is placed on the UNESCO world heritage list as the 'Cradle of Humankind'.
Anatomically modern humans, people like us, have been living in Africa for nearly 300,000 years. Europe, by contrast has had anatomically modern human occupants for just around 42,000 years. These early Europeans, like the first inhabitants of Asia, Australasia and the Americas were all, ultimately, descended from the same, African, ancestry. Everyone living on earth today shares this ancestry. Africa gave the world humanity, technology and culture.
Where did art begin?
But, where did art begin? This is a difficult question to answer. The oldest dated figurative rock art is in the Lubang Jeriji Saléh cave in Borneo. It dates to some 40,000-50,000 years ago. The oldest dated figurative rock art in Africa comes from Apollo 11, a site near to the Namibia / South Africa border. Here, pieces of painted stone were found buried in ground deposits dating to 27,000 years before present. Although this is younger than the Borneo find many have predicted, on the basis that modern humans evolved in Africa, that evidence of the oldest art would, eventually, be found in Africa.
This prediction has now been borne out. In January 2002, news of a key new discovery on the southern Cape coast was made public. Chris Henshilwood announced the uncovering of a piece of ochre decorated with a delicate geometric pattern. He dated the piece conservatively at 77,000 years old; in fact, it could be as much as 100,000 years old. Certainly, the piece was made before any modern human had walked in Europe. The long argument as to the site of the origin of art seems now to be drawing to a close: Africa is not only the cradle humankind, but seems also to be the place where art and culture as we know it began.
Since 2010, RARI has embarked on an intensive programme of direct rock art dating producing radiocarbon dates from ‘carbon black’ paint in the Maloti-Drakensberg and Botswana. Dates in Botswana reach as far back as c.7000 years ago and so far the earliest dates in the Maloti-Drakensberg reach c. 3000 years.
Read more: Nature ‘Dreams of the Stone Age dated for the first time in southern Africa'