Storm Shelter: a rock art discovery in South Africa

Abstract

Two circumstances of southern African San rock art research combine to deepen our understanding of what the images meant to the original makers and viewers — even though the last rock painters died a century or more ago. The two circumstances that mitigate pessimism are: first, notwithstanding the vast amount of energy that has been expended on searching the mountains and plains, new sites are still being found; and, second, rereadings of the nineteenth-century Bleek and Lloyd Collection of San folklore, together with insights deriving from the San who still live in the Kalahari Desert, point to easily missed connections between San beliefs and art. Here, we are principally concerned with the first of these two circumstances — finding ‘new’ sites — although discovery and understanding are inseparable: researchers can assess the significance of new discoveries only if they have a conceptual framework into which to fit them. To be sure, the discovery of a hitherto unknown southern African rock art site is not an unusual event. After all, some 15 000 sites are now on record (though by no means fully recorded and studied) and, possibly, another 15 000 await discovery. Despite such an embarrassment of riches, some researchers believe that all the really large and important sites have been found; in their view, it is only smaller, though none the less valuable, ones that still come to light.

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