PLEISTOCENE FIGURATIVE ART MOBILIER FROM APOLLO 11 CAVE, KARAS REGION, SOUTHERN NAMIBIA

摘要

Southern Africa has provided much information concerning the cultural, technological and cognitive evolution o/Homo sapiens. As indications of cognitive complexity that become prevalent during the Middle Stone Age, abstract and figurative art present explicit evidence for modern and symbolic human behavioural capacity. The only examples of African figurative art securely dated to the Late Pleistocene comprise seven stone plaques from Apollo 11 Cave in the Huns Mountains, Karas region, Namibia. These were recovered by Wendt in 1969 and 1972 from levels dated to c. 30 000 years ago. Given the cultural and evolutionary significance of these artefacts, the objective of this report is to make available high resolution actual-size colour and digitally enhanced photographs of these unique examples of early art mobilier. Chemical analysis of the plaques and the pigments that compose the imagery is ongoing and will be presented in a forthcoming publication.