There will be a talk  "South African Rock Art: A brief introduction" by Jeremy Hollmann at the KZN Museum on on Saturday, June 15th at 10:30 am.  

About the talk: A great deal of attention has been paid to the rock art made by the hunter-gatherer ancestors of the San. We appreciate their finely made, life like depictions of animals and people. We also understand something of the worldview of which rock art was part. But there exist two other distinct image-making practices in South Africa. They differ from the hunter-gatherer art in terms of geographic distribution, location of painted images in the landscape, the methods of applying the pigment, and the cultural practices associated with the images. In the dry western parts of South Africa and Namibia are painted and engraved schematic (geometric) motifs. At the same time, in parts of Limpopo Province, there are sites at which bold, white, finger-painted images of people and artefacts in proximity to the location at which initiation performances were held. The presentation will be a virtual tour of South Africa as we visit some of these places. We will see examples of these 'traditions' and touch on their social significance.