History Re Written The 70 000 Year Old Carved Stone Snake Discovery

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe to the channel for regular content on ancient architecture as well as all the latest news from the world of archaeology. Well this is a bit different, me appearing at the start of a video to introduce the subject but I thought why not. A few years ago a guy called Charles Taylor left a comment on a video telling me about the oldest shamanistic or ritualistic site in the world. It's in Botswana, Africa. It's known as the Mountain of the Gods and apparently 70,000 years ago people worshipped the python here. It's apparently the oldest snake cult ever discovered and there's even a snake carved from the mountain bedrock. When I read the comment I was absolutely fascinated and so I decided to take a closer look. Enjoy. To be completely honest I was sceptical, I often am, but a quick Google search brought forth an article from 2006 that was published by Scientific American titled Offerings to a Stone Snake Provide the Earliest Evidence of Religion. The article starts by saying, The discovery of carvings on a snake-shaped rock, along with 70,000-year-old spearheads nearby, has dramatically pushed back the earliest evidence for ritual behaviour, or what could be called religion. If the Ancient Architects channel had existed in 2006, I would have certainly covered this story on the channel because this is huge and I'm surprised it's not more widely known about. The article and all the others from this time apparently quote archaeologist Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo, who apparently said that inside a cave that's known as Python Cave in Cedillo Hills, there is a six-metre-long quartzite rock that bears a striking resemblance to a snake, with a mouth-like gash at one end. The rock is covered with hundreds of small man-made notches, some widely spaced and some closer together. The article says that entrants to the cave made the markings to enhance the snake illusion by creating the impression of scales. When flickering light hits the rock, it almost looks like the snake is flexing. Of course, a carved rock that looks like a snake doesn't help us get an absolute date of human activity at the site, but the indentations are certainly thought with the work of human hands and they were done a long, long time ago because the rock is apparently well eroded. Experts knew the carvings on the rock were ancient, but how ancient is almost impossible to tell. Or is it? Well, half a metre beneath the soft cave floor, in a one-metre-wide and two-metre-deep trench next to the snake, researchers found a total of 13,000 man-made artefacts, apparently all of which were spearheads, and connected to ritual use. This assemblage included the tools that were used to carve the snake. The stones used to make the spearheads had a variety of different colours and must have been brought from hundreds of kilometres away because they are not native to the region. The spearheads resemble others that are found elsewhere, although better made, and these have been dated to 77,000 years ago. Due to the rare colours of the stone points, 22 of them being made from a red stone, together with the pattern of the fragments, it was clear to Coulson that people came from far and wide to this cave, with their spearheads partially made and they were then finished inside the cave. Some of the spearheads, only the red ones, were also purposefully burnt. Some of them were also smashed and damaged, like some kind of sacrifice, like the ritual destruction of the artefacts. All of the points show cracks and faults, consistent with exposure to heat, and some of them had even burnt white. Other spearheads show chips and marks, like they had been struck head on. It is a unique, intriguing and mind-boggling sight, especially being an estimated 70,000 years old, so I really wanted to learn more. For a start, the method of dating the site doesn't seem to be that scientific. Well, there wasn't much detail in the article, and it seemed to me like a best guess, so I looked to see if any further work had been done in the past 16 years. I next came across an article in a research magazine that was published by the University of Oslo, the establishment of the lead researcher on the Project Sheila Coulson. This was published in the same year, 2006, and does give a little more information. Before the discovery, the region was already a UNESCO World Heritage Site with more than 3,500 cave paintings, some being more than 1,500 years old. The Cedillo Hills are also a sacred place for the San people, who call them the Mountains of the Gods and also the Rock that Whispers. The python is one of the San people's most important animals. Their creation myth says that mankind descended from the python, and the ancient arid streambeds around the hill are said to have been created by the python as it circled the hills, in its endless search for water. The python cave wasn't discovered until the 1990s, although the locals did know about it. According to the magazine article, there was no sign of normal habitation, and there were no ordinary tools at the site. It was a ritual landmark, and the experts believe the cave was in use for almost 100,000 years. There was also a secret chamber that was found behind the python stone, and some areas of the entrance were worn smooth, indicating that many people had passed through it over the years. The shaman, who is still a very important person in San culture, could have kept himself hidden in the secret chamber. He would have had a good view inside the cave and at the same time remain hidden. If and when he spoke, it would have been like the snake itself was talking. The shaman could have also disappeared from the chamber by crawling out onto the hillside through a small shaft. According to Coulson, there are only two small paintings inside the cave, one of a giraffe and the other an elephant, and they were drawn at exactly the place where water runs down the wall. Apparently these specific paintings can be explained in San mythology, which says the python falls into a body of water and can't get out. The snake is pulled from the water by a giraffe. The elephant, with its long trunk, is also often used as a metaphor for the python, and that's simply because of the long trunk. The python, the elephant and the giraffe are the three most important animals to the San people, and are all found depicted within the cave, making it a very special sacred place. But what about the dating of the site? How can the experts be so sure of the age of human activity? Was any radiocarbon dating actually done? It does seem strange it wasn't mentioned. According to Coulson, the stone tools are a signature of the past and can be used to and, from experience, the spear points that were found inside the cave look to date around 70,000 years ago. It still seemed too good to be true. Why isn't this site more widely known about today? A credible archaeologist made the discoveries, a well-known university published the findings, and credible news outlets ran the story. Well, the following year, in 2007, a response paper was written by Lawrence Robbins et al. The authors were highly sceptical of the new claims that were made by Coulson, and that's because they had already documented the site. They had recorded the stratigraphy, paintings, wall depressions, dating and artefacts a decade earlier. They wrote two publications and also presented their findings in New York in 1998. Yes, there are finds inside the cave that date to the Middle Stone Age, which is a period that began around 280,000 years ago and ended around 50 to 25,000 years ago. But it also contains later Stone Age and Iron Age deposits, and dating the activity inside the cave to 70,000 years ago was a major problem for the archaeologists. They simply didn't see any evidence to make such exact claims. The locality also isn't known as the Python Cave, but it's actually called the Rhino Cave, because one of the paintings inside is a rhino. It's not an elephant, as Coulson says. There are also geometric paintings inside the cave, and these went unmentioned by Coulson. Furthermore, cave art experts believe the oldest painting inside the cave, the Giraffe and the Geometric Shapes, are no older than 600 AD. The rhino also partly covers the giraffe, and is therefore even more recent. The giraffe and the rhino are painted with different colours and different styles, and the experts believe they are actually painted by two different cultures. The bedrock that looks to be carved into a snake is also highly subjective. Maybe it is a snake, but maybe it's not. But the evidence that says the carving and decoration on the rock dates to one time period, to 70,000 years ago, simply does not exist according to the paper. As explained by the archaeologists, many of the indentations on the so-called snake are still fresh. But yes, some are older, and they are covered by a heavy patina. Some of them could well be 70,000 years old, but apparently, there really isn't any evidence for such a date. The radiocarbon dates obtained from the cave are only around 15,000 years old, dates that were taken from organic material that was found well within the cave deposits. This does not mean that people were not here 70,000 years ago, it just means there is no supporting evidence from radiocarbon dating. We should also note that many ancient rock shelters in this region contain objects that are made from non-local stone. Different coloured stones from miles around isn't unique to the python or rhino cave or whatever it's called. This is because of what experts believe was a very normal exchange of raw materials between different groups, rather than these sites being ritualistic and places of pilgrimage for people from miles around. It's also not strange to find some artifacts being burnt. People did make fires in caves on a regular basis, and to say there was no sign of normal habitation and no ordinary tools at the site is untrue. The excavations in 1995 and 1996 brought forth many well-made scrapers and not just spearheads. These scrapers were found just 2 metres away from the so-called snake rock. There were also hammerstones and grindstones, many flakes and numerous cores, consistent with normal activity inside a cave, just like with other cave sites in southern Africa. Regarding the secret chamber, the paper says there is no convincing evidence the space behind the rock was used 70,000 years ago, and there is no evidence that Sanshayman's used secret chambers in caves. This just seems to be guesswork. Linking a rock that looks a bit like a snake and its decoration, to the middle stone age tools that were found next to it, to cave paintings that were made by two different cultures in the past 1400 years, to the beliefs of modern San people, does seem to be a sensational stretch. And that's what's needed to call this cave a 70,000 year old ritual site. Yes, there were middle stone age finds inside, but to say it was a ritual site during this time does lack real evidence, and so it does require a few giant leaps. Sheila Coulson responded soon after, and she reveals that the original news stories were not on the back of a paper written by her, and were actually clear examples of misleading journalism. Coulson had spoken at two conferences, where she did professionally mention the archaeology, that the rock could be interpreted as a snake, and she also mentions aspects of San mythology as well as the cave paintings, and that was to give context to the site. For example, she does believe the rhino painting could be interpreted as an elephant, which would make it more important to San mythology. I guess she also could have said in the conference that it is possible the stone points are 70,000 years old, and that comes from a comparative study. But it seems like the media simply took bullet points from her lectures, as well as from an article written by the Norwegian Research Council, and then took her work out of context. Sheila Coulson is a respected archaeologist and was not involved with the writing of the articles in 2006. In 2011, Coulson wrote a full detailed paper on the site, and this and all the papers and articles mentioned are linked below. The new paper is more thorough, is far less sensational and more conservative, and takes into account the previous work, including more analysis of the stone tools that were found in the late 20th century and early 21st. The 70,000 year old claim wasn't mentioned again. There are dozens of middle stone age points inside the cave, but these at present can't be dated specifically. Yes, they could be 70,000 years old, they could be even older, but they could also be far younger. The cave could have been a ritualistic site in the middle stone age, and many experts do agree with Coulson's theory. The hills in which we find the cave are a key focal point in the region, the only outcrops for more than 100 kilometres in any direction. They contain freshwater springs and rock shelters, and are also a source of raw materials like quartz. Spearheads of many colours, dating to the middle stone age are found in abundance, partly manufactured in the cave, and they do look to have been purposefully burnt and damaged. It does look like some kind of sacrifice, and this damage did make them unusable. This must have been for some reason, and if it wasn't a ritual, then how else do we explain the damage? And whether or not this is a snake is merely personal opinion. To me, I can see a snake, and this could be a natural feature of the rock, but maybe that is the reason that attracted people to it, and that's why they added decoration. Maybe a natural rock formation that looked like a snake inside a cave did make people believe this was a sacred place. There is archaeological evidence that this rock was being worked in the middle stone age, and that's from the discovery of quartzite fragments, aka bits of the snake rock, that were found amongst the middle stone age points, and this also continued in the late stone age and beyond. So we're not left with anything conclusive. The cave was occupied in the middle stone age, and they did work on a rock outcrop that you can interpret as a snake, but was it an ancient ritual site? Maybe, but when was it first occupied? We don't know with any certainty, but sometime before 25,000 years ago, and we do know for the many centuries that followed, this cave continued to be a focal point. Thank you very much for watching this episode of Ancient Architects. If you enjoyed the video, please subscribe to the channel, please like the video, and please leave a comment below. Thank you very much.