Tsodilo

A cluster of four hills rises abruptly out of the flat sands of the Kalahari in northwestern Botswana, and on their rock faces and in their shelters people have painted for thousands of years. Tsodilo holds more than 4,500 rock paintings across some 500 individual sites. They were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, both for their long record of human settlement and for their deep spiritual meaning to the peoples who live around them. Local names describe the hills as a family: the Male Hill, highest of the group at about 1,400 metres above sea level and among the highest ground in Botswana, the Female Hill, the Child Hill and a smaller unnamed knoll.

The paintings fall broadly into two traditions. The red images, which are found everywhere on the hills and include animals and geometric designs, are attributed to the ancestors of the San. The white paintings, gathered especially in the White Paintings Rock Shelter on the Male Hill, are associated with Bantu-speaking farmers; some show people on horseback and so cannot be older than the mid-19th century, when horses arrived in the region. In Rhino Cave, on the Female Hill, a white rhinoceros is painted across a red giraffe, among red geometric motifs. Excavation shows how deep the human story goes: the Depression Rock Shelter was first occupied at least 30,000 years ago, and its layers yielded the oldest mongongo nut shells known from any archaeological site. At Divuyu and Nqoma, iron and copper ornaments, tools and smelting debris make Tsodilo one of the few Early Iron Age sites in southern Africa with evidence of metalworking.

For the San the hills remain sacred. Local tradition holds that Tsodilo is where life began, that grooves and trails in the rock are the footprints of the first animals heading to the first waterhole, and that the spirits of the dead rest here and punish anyone who kills near the hills. A spring by the Female Hill is used both for water and for ritual. The best-known panel was first described for the outside world by the writer Laurens van der Post in his 1958 book The Lost World of the Kalahari and now carries his name.

Getting there

The hills lie about 40 km from the village of Shakawe and are reached by a graded dirt road; there is a small museum and an airstrip near the campsite between the two largest hills. The nearest larger town in Botswana is Maun, about 220 km away, and the nearest airport is Maun International Airport (MUB), about 221 km away.