MPUMALANGA PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA—Phys.org reports that stenciled rock art has been identified in South Africa, which is known for rock art painted with brushes and fingers. “I wasn’t entirely sure what I was looking at for a while,” said David Pearce of the University of the Witwatersrand. “Then they popped into focus, a bit like optical illusions do,” he explained. The two human-like figures were discovered in the La Rochelle rock shelter in eastern South Africa, where few paintings have been found on the region’s steep cliffs. Pearce said that brush-painted images of hartebeest, eland, and humanoid beings had previously been identified in the large rock shelter. He now suggests that two of the figures had been made by blowing or spattering paint across a template, perhaps made of beeswax, clay, or wood. But why are stenciled images unusual in southern Africa? “Maybe people stenciled art on bodies, on clothing, or on stone-built structures,” Pearce said. “It might be something that was widely used, but just not on rock faces,” he surmised. “Southern Africa’s already got one of the most detailed and elaborate bodies of rock art anywhere in the world, and this is just adding to that diversity and complexity of the local traditions,” he concluded. To read about stenciled rock art from Indonesia that dates to nearly 70,000 years ago, go to “Mark of the Human.”
