A recent discovery from the Karoo region in South Africa is shedding new light on the connection between ancient fossilized creatures and the art created by indigenous San people centuries ago. The cave art, which dates back to the early 1800s, depicts an animal that is strikingly similar to the extinct dicynodont. This plant-eating mammal-like reptile, which roamed the Earth around 250 million years ago, is now recognized in a painting that predates formal paleontology by over a decade. The discovery, published in PLOS One, raises intriguing questions about the early awareness of extinct species among indigenous cultures.
The Fascinating Link Between Fossils and Cave Art
The Karoo region, spanning over 150,000 square miles in South Africa, has long been a site of interest for paleontologists due to its abundant fossils, including those of dicynodonts. These ancient creatures lived during the Permian period, millions of years before dinosaurs, and have left a lasting impression on the region’s landscape. Indigenous San people, who lived in the area long before paleontologists, created art on sandstone walls and in caves, capturing the world around them through paintings that also hold cultural and spiritual significance.
One of the most compelling artworks is known as the Horned Serpent Panel, created sometime between 1821 and 1835. This piece of cave art portrays an animal with a serpent-like body and tusks bending toward the ground—features that seem to match those of the dicynodont, an animal that no longer existed in the region by the time the San people made their paintings. While researchers initially speculated that the figure might represent a rain-making spirit, closer inspection revealed significant similarities between the painted creature and fossilized dicynodont remains, prompting experts to reconsider the meaning of this artwork.
A Pre-Paleontology Discovery
The significance of this discovery goes beyond the art itself. It raises the fascinating possibility that the San people may have been the first to document an extinct animal, doing so long before Western science identified the species. As noted by Julien Benoit, a researcher from the University of the Witwatersrand and the author of the study, “The painting was made in 1835 at the latest, which means this dicynodont was depicted at least ten years before the western scientific discovery and naming of the first dicynodont by Richard Owen in 1845.” This revelation challenges the notion that the San people’s art was solely mythical and instead suggests that they had a keen observational understanding of the fossils in their environment.
Understanding the Significance of Fossil Integration
The integration of fossils into the San’s rock art presents a fascinating window into the cultural and spiritual life of these early hunter-gatherers. The San people were likely familiar with the bones of these ancient creatures, which had been exposed in the arid Karoo landscape. Fossils may have been collected and preserved as part of ritual practices, or simply as objects of curiosity, long before paleontologists began studying them systematically. “This work supports [the fact] that the first inhabitants of southern Africa, the San hunter-gatherers, discovered fossils, interpreted them and integrated them in their rock art and belief system,” Benoit added.
The idea that these ancient peoples observed and documented extinct creatures through their artwork provides a new perspective on their relationship with the natural world. The discovery emphasizes that the understanding of life’s history did not originate in Western scientific discourse alone, but was also embedded within indigenous cultures, which integrated this knowledge into their daily lives and spiritual practices.
