A mysterious animal drawn by the San people of South Africa in the early 19th century may have been inspired by a long-extinct species, research published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE found.
The Mysterious Animal painting is part of a rock wall that includes artworks of animals and other cultural elements painted between 1821 and 1835.
Scientists have long sought to identify the long-bodied animal depicted in rock art with downward-pointing tusks, which does not match any known modern species.
The Karoo Basin in South Africa is known to contain abundant, well-preserved fossils, including tusked animals called dicynodonts, which are often found eroded from the ground.
Now, scientists suspect that the tusked figure in the rock art is comparable to dicynodont fossils.
They say this explanation is supported by San (or Bushmen) legends about large animals that once roamed the area.
If the artwork turns out to be a dicynodont, a species that went extinct before the dinosaurs, the San people’s depiction may predate the first scientific description of the ancient beasts by at least 10 years.
“The painting was painted in 1835 at the latest, which means that this dicynodont was depicted at least ten years before the Western scientific discovery and naming of the first dicynodont by Richard Owen in 1845,” said Julien Benoit, one of the study’s authors.
“This work supports that the first inhabitants of southern Africa, the San hunter-gatherers, discovered, interpreted and incorporated the fossils into their rock art and belief system,” he added.
The findings add to archaeological evidence suggesting that the San people may have collected fossils and incorporated them into their artwork.
Even if the painting of the horned creature turns out to have had only spiritual meaning, scientists say the beast depicted may have been imagined “based on a dicynodont fossil.”
Source: Independent
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2024-09-20 11:11:17
