Rock Art Research

A comprehensive review of the pre-Holocene palaeoart evidence from sub-Saharan Africa is presented. The scant figurative component appears to be entirely confined to the Later Stone Age. Beads and pendants range back further, to the latter half of the Middle Stone Age. The same applies to the notched items that are invariably based on either bone or red ochre. Incised lines have been reported from both of those periods, and extend into the preceding Early Middle Stone Age. Preliminary data would suggest that a comparable timespan is probably covered by cupules and grooves. Pigment manuports, sometimes with use damage, are traceable to late in the Earlier Stone Age. And lastly are occasional exotic manuports, the collection of which could have spanned the entire Stone Age.