Southern African rock art needs more resources, says Namibian Archaeologist
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The lack of funding for researching and preserving Southern Africa’s rich treasure trove of rock art came under the spotlight during Dr Alma Nankela’s public lecture at the Origins Centre on 25 October 2018.
Dr Nankela, the Chief Archaeologist at Namibia’s National Heritage Council, was at Wits to present an insightful talk titled Rock Art Research in Namibia. Her trip was made possible thanks to the support of the French Institute of South Africa.
Africa is home to some 70 000 known rock art sites (the largest concentration in the world). About 50 000 of these sites, sporting more than two million figures, are located in Southern Africa. To date, Namibia’s current heritage database has documented about 65 000 figures from 12 000 known sites.
But, said Dr Nankela during her talk, despite Namibia’s rich repository of rock art dating back thousands of years (including the Apollo 11 cave near Keetmanshoop, which shelters Africa’s oldest known paintings dating back 32 000 years), she is the only Archaeologist employed by the state in that country.
The country’s “acute shortage of Archaeologists” severely inhibits the amount of research that can be undertaken, she pointed out, as she often has to devote her time to mining- or infrastructure-related issues instead of focusing on rock art.
Stumbling blocks
Inadequate research capacity and funding is just one of the challenges frustrating the preservation and conservation of Namibia’s precious rock art heritage, which encompasses paintings and engravings by Stone Age San hunter-gatherers and herders, as well as by the more recent Iron Age pastoralists and agriculturalists.
The fact that most academic research harks back to the colonial era and was conducted in languages such as German is another factor hampering Namibian academics in their progress, she said, as is a perceived lack of urgency around preserving rock art. Compounding this is the fact that it is difficult to access some remote sites and others are restricted, including those in the Sperrgebiet (the “forbidden area”) where diamond mining is underway.
“Sites with historical ties enjoy more protection and conservation than archaeological sites do,” she said, adding that unchecked tourism was contributing to the problem, with vandalism and graffiti common at sites such as Spitzkoppe.
Dr Nankela called for an official fund for protecting rock art. She said it was vital to mobilise funding for research and conservation, while doing more to empower indigenous communities such as the Ju/’Hoansi to play a role in preserving their own heritage.
Dr Sam Challis of the Rock Art Research Institute at Wits said that the situation was similar in South Africa, where funding for rock art was largely dependent on National Research Foundation grants.
UNESCO status still pending
Dr Nankela said it was particularly frustrating that the Brandberg mountain in Damaraland (located in the north-western Namib Desert), siteof the world-famous White Lady rock painting, had been awaiting confirmation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since it was first nominated in 2002.
She described how, in the decades since the White Lady was brought to the public’s attention, “it suffered massively as a result of tourism … tourists used to pour liquids on it to enhance its quality, eventually damaging the figure. Today it appears far more faded than others around it, prompting the authorities at the time to proclaim it a national monument in 1951.”
Various conservation projects have been introduced since then, yet the site does still not enjoy United Nations protection. This is despite the Brandberg area having the highest concentration of rock art in the country – some 45 000 of the 65 000 documented figures in the country’s rock art database.
Twyfelfontein in the Kunene region, home to about 2 500 rock engravings as well as a number of rock paintings, is currently the country’s only World Heritage Site.
During her lecture, Dr Nankela sketched a history of her country’s most significant rock art discoveries and how rock art had developed into a scientific discipline during the 20th century. She also outlined how the scientific recording of rock art had evolved from direct tracing to the use of DStretch digital image enhancement technology, which is used to decipher different layers – such as on the basalt rocks in the Brandberg area, where paintings were superimposed over engravings.
Despite progress having been made in research and conservation, including by Dr Nankela herself, she lamented how only eight rock art sites in Namibia had been proclaimed as national heritage sites – the last of which was in 1967, and none since the country attained independence in 1990.
“But,” she noted, “I’m proud to say that after completing my research at Omandumba farms in Erongo, this site is due to be the first one, 28 years after independence, to be proclaimed as a national heritage site.”