British archaeologist finds cave paintings at 100 new African sites

Guardian UK ^ | Sept 17, 2010 | Dalya Alberge

[Islander7]

Striking prehistoric rock art created up to 5,000 years ago has been discovered at almost 100 sites in Somaliland on the Gulf of Aden in eastern Africa.

A local team headed by Dr Sada Mire – of the Institute of Archaeology at University College London (UCL) – made the finds which included a man on horseback, painted around 4,000 years ago – one of the earliest known depictions of a mounted hunter.

[Pontiac]

Well, Somaliland has been closed to outsiders, and still is closed to outsiders.

This has not always been true. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Italy and Britain controlled what is today Somalia.

The point I was making is that this article describes a confluence of ground breaking discoveries that it just too unlikely in their number and importance not to raise suspition in anyone who remembers the story of Piltdown Man

[muawiyah]

Don't know about the colors, but it's common to find images scratched into rock overhangs anywhere humans have lived for any period of time.

Archaeologists will typically color them in with chalk so you can see them better.

Frankly, finding a horse at about 4,000 BC ~ with a man mounted on it ~ makes a lot of sense. Much older than that and I'd expect to see a couple of horses pulling a chariot, or maybe a small horse on a spit being roasted for dinner.

Anyway, the horse, with men, should have been moving South into East Africa about then ~ on a permanent basis.

Earlier you'd had a stray Egyptian exploratory group possibly ~ but that'd been pretty expensive for them.

The man is "the white man" and he is bringing his "burden" on horseback ~ plus, he has a whole load of genes he's going to spread around and screw up all those people looking at y chromosomes. The mtDNA is a local product ~ it'll stay the same!

[gleeaikin]

Oh no, they did have spray paint, just no cans. At least with regard to hand prints, they would fill their mouth with liquid pigment and then blow it out a tube to spray around the hand held on the surface. To bad, no patent office. ;-)

[colorado tanker]

I believe Somaliland is open to tourists and there is a tiny trickle of Westerners who visit.

Somaliland is a former British colony that was merged with a former Italian colony to create Somalia. About 20 years ago it broke away and has become a defacto independent state although it is not recognized by any other nations. It is safer than Somalia to the south, but would fit in the adventure travel category.