What a great discovery - a shaman's cave with spearheads, python & wall art.
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http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=5bd5b048-3376-4f9a-acff-9b4fd1f4bea9&k=98048
Canadian finds oldest religious artifact
Six-metre-long stone carving of python was made 70,000 years ago in Kalahari desert
Randy Boswell, CanWest News Service
A Canadian archeologist has discovered what's being hailed as the world's oldest known religious artifact: a six-metre-long, serpentine rock carving made 70,000 years ago by a prehistoric, python-worshipping people in what is now the African nation of Botswana.
. . . inside a cave in remote hills in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana, archeologists found the stone snake that was carved long ago. It is as tall as a man and 20 feet long.
You could see the mouth and eyes of the snake. It looked like a real python," said Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo. "The play of sunlight over the indentations gave them the appearance of snake skin. At night, the firelight gave one the feeling that the snake was actually moving."
"Stone Age people took these colorful spearheads, brought them to the cave, and finished carving them there," Coulson said today. "Only the red spearheads were burned. It was a ritual destruction of artifacts. There was no sign of normal habitation. No ordinary tools were found at the site."
The scientists found a secret chamber behind the python carving. Worn areas indicate it's been used over the years.
"The shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in that secret chamber," Coulson explained. "He would have had a good view of the inside of the cave while remaining hidden himself. When he spoke from his hiding place, it could have seemed as if the voice came from the snake itself. The shaman would have been able to control everything. It was perfect.?
The shaman could also have made himself disappear from the chamber by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft, the scientists found.
Paintings in the cave appear to support part of modern San mythology.
While cave paintings are common in the Tsodilo Hills, inside the python cave there are just two small paintings, of an elephant and a giraffe. The images were painted at the exact spot where water runs down the wall.
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