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The 12-13 Pleistocene art sites known for sub-Saharan Africa are certainly a meagre tally, relative to the numbers that have been documented in smaller Europe or Australia, but they do, nevertheless, provide a record of regular palaeoart production that extends back to about 100 ka. Less continuity is presently evidenced by earlier finds; namely the Sangoan cupules at Sai Island and the 276 ka Fauresmith occurrence at Wonderwerk Cave. We here provide a microscopic analysis of two items from ...

Une analyse de la documentation montre que l’Afrique au sud du Sahara n’a livré jusqu’à présent qu’une douzaine de sites d’art pléistocène, dont les sept suivants révèlent de nombreux éléments : Chifubawa Stream Shelter au nord de la Zambie. Les fouilles en 1951 ont permis d’établir une séquence comprenant une couche de terre végétale contenant quelques tessons de l’Âge du Fer, 2 m de sable stérile, puis jusqu’à 0,7 m de sédiment rouge sus-jacent au bedrock ayant livré un assemblage du Later ...

The finding in Excavation 6 material from Wonderwerk Cave of a few mobiliary slabs in a Late Fauresmith context dated to 270 000 years ago raised the question of for how long back subcontinental petroglyphs could have survived at open sites, where less restrictive rock surfaces may have permitted a fuller manifestation of the rock art repertoire being produced at any given time. To investigate that matter, a study centred on the south-eastern kalahari was launched in 2000 for three reasons, o...

La découverte de quelques blocs gravés dans un contexte du Late Fauresmith daté de 270 000 ans, provenant du secteur de fouille 6 de la grotte de Wonderwerk, soulève la question de l’ancienneté des pétroglyphes sous-continentaux sur les sites de plein air. Ces gisements présentent des supports rocheux moins réduits qui pourraient avoir permis une manifestation plus importante du répertoire rupestre, quelle que soit la période. Pour mener l’enquête, une étude centrée sur le sud-est du Kalahari...

A literature survey shows that Africa south of the Sahara has as yet produced only a dozen palaeoart sites of Pleistocene age, of which the following seven have yielded multiple finds: Chifubwa Stream Shelter in northern Zambia. Excavations there in 1951 revealed a sequence comprising surface soil with a few Iron Age sherds, 2 m of sterile sand, and then up to 0.7 m of red earth on bedrock with a Later Stone Age assemblage belonging to the Nachikufan 1 industry. The shelter wall, from well ab...