Historical Tours - South Africa 

San Rock Art - Bushman cave paintings and heritage 
Specialist and general San Rock Art Tours - southern Africa
Strandlooper sites 
Eastern Cape coast, fish traps of the Khoekhoen
Zimbabwe - "Houses of stone"
Tulamela site inside the Kruger Park, excavated village
Komati lagacy in the Barberton Machadodorp area - unknown origin of substantial stone constructions

San Rock Art Tours

Specialist Bushman cave painting Tours
General  Rock Art Tours

Specialist Guide; Frans Prins
Frans Prins is an anthropologist and archaeologist and is one of the world's leading authorities on rock art. He was educated at Stellenbosch University where he completed his Masters degree in Archaeology and is now working towards his PhD. in Anthropology. The topic of his thesis is rock art and Bushman descendents. His field of expertise is rock art, shamanism, African systems of belief, and ritual. He is responsible for uncovering the existence of descendants of the Southern Bushman in Transkei, KZN and Mpumalanaga. He has a wide publication record behind him. Frans Prins is also an accredited SATour Guide.

San Rock Art - uKhahlamba Drakensberg  - 5 day tour
Day 1: Kamberg Nature Reserve
Visit to Game Pass Shelter (1.5 hours walk either way). This is a world famous shelter with spectacular shaded polychrome eland and clocked therianthropes (very photogenic !). It also contains the so-called Rosetta Panel - according to some schools of thought it holds the key for understanding all the rock art of southern Africa.

Visit to Wilhelm shelter (another 1 hour walk from Game Pass Shelter). Small shelter with very interesting depictions of wild animals and transformed therianthropes. Overnight : Cleopatra's Country Lodge

Day 2: Giants Castle Game Reserve
Main Caves (35 min walk either way). This large site is very touristy, however, it contains interesting paintings of 4 different periods/styles - including contact period (colonial) art and earlier classic period art. It has been researched by various scholars and must be the best studied rock shelter in southern Africa. A lot is known about the content of this shelter.

Barnes shelter (20 min walk either way). Smaller shelter with a clear depic tion of a healing/trance dance. Also an interesting depiction of a fantastic elphant-like creature most probably a rain-animal.

Camp shelter (10 min walk either way). A small shelter situated adjacent to a small river. This site was clearly used for rainmaking rituals. Two rain animals and one rain serpent decorate its walls. There are also some examples of "flying buck" - interpreted by scholars as either transformed shamans or spirits of the dead. Overnight at Cleopatra's Country Lodge

Day 3 : Didima Gorge
About a 3 hour drive from the central Drakensberg, We will not have much time left for the remainder of the day. Lower Mushroom rock (about 40 min walk either way). A small shelter with beautifully executed therianthropes (rhebuck head shamans ?) and interesting eland. Also some interesting humans walking on what appears to be a ladder.
or
Botha's shelter (about 20 min walk - from top of Mikes Pass, need a 4x4 vehicle to get to the top). Large shelter with interesting depictions of eland, therianthropes, beehives, humans. Although it contains many figures most of the paintings unfortunately have faded. Overnight : Didima Lodge

Day 4 : Didima Gorge
Eland Cave (3 hour walk either way). A truly spectacular large shelter with many and varied depictions of eland, therianthriopes, humans, a feline, beehives, and "flying buck". Also different styles of rock art. In 1926 a farmer found a perfectly well preserved Bushman bow and arrow set hidden on a ledge in this shelter. if time allows Junction shelter (45 mins away from Eland Cave). Contains depictions of eland and some good examples of "flying buck". Overnight : Didima Lodge

Day 5 : Injesuti
Battlecave (2.5 hour walk either way). Large cave with many depictions of humans, felines, eland - especially interesting is a depiction of a battle scene between two groups of Bushmen. Some scholars refer to this depiction as a conflict in the "spirit world" but other are more pragmatic in their interpretation. Return to camp via Fergies cave. Contains monocrome depictions of humans and strange hallucinatory depictions.

San Rock Art and Diviner Tour, Central uKhahlamba Drakensberg - easy hiking 2 day
This tour is specifically designed for those who would prefer and easy walk, or those who have diffculty climbing. While situated within easy access of main roads these sites offer interesting and quality Bushman paintings.

Day : 1
Drive through Hlatikulu and Hlubi tribal ward. These areas are inhabited by rural Zulu-speaking people. Your specialist guide will give you a short historical synopsis regarding African settlement and culture in these areas and point out interesting features en route.

The area was significant during the Langilabalele campaign of the 1870’s. This independent Hlubi chief resisted the colonial authorities and there were several skirmishes in the incident. He abducted the contingent sent to punish him for refusing the hut and poll tax, and for harbouring guns obtained through trade with other African groups on the mines. This was seen as one of the first black risings against white rule.

Arrive at Giant’s Castle Nature Reserve. where we take an easy 20 min hike to Shelter 1.  An interesting Shelter Containing contact period rock art showing the conflict between White colonists and the Drakensberg San. Also famous for a classical San trance-dance depiction.

An easy 12 min hike brings us to Shelter 2.  This is a small shelter next to a river with interesting depictions of the San rain animal. These include the rain eland, water-serpent, and the rain-bull, as well as the so-called “flying buck”. Even today, among Bantu-speaking groups of the region, the legend of the rain-animal instills fear and reverence, a notion that was clearly adopted from the Stone Age San inhabitants of the Berg.

Depart for Highmoor Nature Reserve where an easy 5 min walk brings us to Boulder Rock.

Day : 2
Depart  for Thendela. Spend the morning at the homestead of traditional healer and sangoma Elliot Ndlovu. This visit will include a divination session, a tour through a medicinal herb garden, student sangoma’s dance, and savouring traditional Zulu beer.

Visit to sacred pool, Kamberg Interpretive Rock Art, Zulu Living Landscape Centre and an early Zulu (Late Iron Age) archaeological site. Apparently settled by Mfecane refugees during the Zulu uprising and expansion across the southern continent. Grey, lichen-encrusted rocks lie as walls in their original formations, outlining the huts and living areas of the once busy settlement. A large cattle-byre still stands, almost intact while to the front of the ruin a deep gorge, cushioned by indigenous trees gashes the steep land to a tumbling stream below. The backdrop is of formidable mountains and cliffs which rise menacingly but spectacularly, once having afforded protection to this settlment and its frightened inhabitants against the marauding Zulu hordes.

San Rock Art Tour - Southern Drakensbergerg - 2 day
The San Rock Art of the Drakensberg can be grouped into two main distinct types -- those of the southern Drakensberg and those of the northern Drakensberg. The art of the central Berg can be regarded as a transition between these two regions. The art of the northern Berg appears to have more shamanistic images with trance and hallucinogenic imagery, such as thin red lines, therianthropes (half human/half animal figures, and mythical and flying animals). These images captures a sense of the other-worldy, a place in space and time in which real-world, real-time is suspended and n whcih the San believed they could perform their healing dances, commune with the mystical rain-creature, and influence the weather.

The art of the southern Berg also contains shamanistic elements but appears to depict more ritual scenes with less of an emphasis on trance imagery. The San Bushmen were the great rainmakers of southern Africa, seemingly controlling the great thunderheads, searing bolts of light and the mystical inkanyamba rain creature, a giant kaleidoscopic snake, ally to the Bushmen, but foe of their enemies. These were the masters of nature and weather, these magical, mystical first people. Reflecting this, rainmaking scenes are very typical of the southern Drakensberg, as is contact period rock art which records the time of the arrival of white settlers onto the mainland of southern Africa. In this art you will see exquisite images of horses and cattle; you will sense the urgency caught-up in the scenes of conflict between various groups such as the San and colonial forces.

However, in all of these regions the rock art contains finely executed shaded polychrome eland and other wildlife depictions, based upon wildlife found both locally and, in some cases, distant regions. Many of these animals are still present today in the areas in which the rock art is located and visitors could be treated by the appearance of baboon, monkeys, jackal, caracal, and antelope, including the eland, mystical and sacred animal of the San. Leopard too, inhabit these rocky heights, although they are very shy and a glimpse is rarely caught.

Day : 1
Visit a shelter at the back of the Mahaqwa Mountain. Easy walk to the shelter on a natural heritage site (more or less 15 minutes). The walk winds along a picturesque river that plunges deeper and deeper into the tangled gorge below. The site itself is beautifully positioned alongside a small, clear stream that is fed by a sheer waterfall behind which runs a rocky ledge. Below is a shallow pool. Both are likely to have had religious significance for the San who lived here.

Although a number of the paintings have been defaced, by both hikers and traditional healers who use the paint in their medicines, there are still some excellent examples of eland, rain animals and humans armed with bows and arrows. Zulu healers still use the site for rainmaking ceremonies and there are also some Bantu-speaker’s paintings in one corner of the shelter. Depart  for Sani Pass area. This is a small shelter which has many clear paintings, including a group of about 90 San figures, which are either naked or karrossed in skins. They carry bows, quivers, sticks and bags, clearly out on a hunting and food gathering expedition in the mountains. Most seem to be male, except for one fugure which appears to be female. This is an easy walk of about 1 hour long. 

Day : 2
1. Ethnographic San Bushman experience in the same area. Smidsdrift Bushmen, other Bushmen.
Or
2. Drive up Sani Pass, an ethnographic tour among the Sotho of the heights and a drink in the Sani pub.

Game Pass Shelter - Southern Drakensberg - day tour
The KwaZulu-Natal Drakensberg is regarded as one of the world’s most precious natural and cultural treasures. In 2000, it was declared a World Heritage site incorporating both natural beauty, wildlife and the largest outdoor gallery of prehistoric rock art in the world. Here you will discover the ancient soul of the tiny southern (Bushman) hunter-gatherers who inhabited the many caves and shelters which break up this rugged landscape, and who used the majestic mountains as their very last stronghold before their groups were split and fragmented by later immigrants to the area.

This tour will take the visitor to secret sacred pools, to meet an authentic and practicing traditional Zulu healer, to pass through a sacred cave and finally to view some of the very finest rock at in the world.

Sacred Mpofu (Eland) Pool. This pool is regarded by local ritual experts as sacred and a portal into the land of spirits. Here they may enter the clear waters of the rocky river and disappear for weeks while they claim to live in the land of spirits and to be taught the ancient ways of the traditional healer. These beliefs are greatly influenced by ancient San (Bushman) practices which also regard water and water animals as symbols of the spirit world. Some of these beliefs can be seen depcited in the San paintings. From the camp site the visitor will embark upon a journey into the ancient mind of man. Along the ascending paths are views of basaltic and sandstone cliffs, deep valleys along which slide the crystal pure waters of the heights. Here below are pools believed to be inhabited by mythical animals. And along the way our Zulu healer will point out medicinal plants useful in his medicinal concoctions.

About half the way along our journey into this mythical landscape we will pass through the sacred Waterfall Cave. Previously inhabited by the prehistoric San hunter-gatherers, evidience of their habitation may still be seen on the walls and floors of this cave. Enigmatic and faded paintings continue to cling to the livid rock face, one of which depicts a mystical trance dance, the most important ritual in Bushman San religion. On the floor lies a thin deposit left behind by ancient man. Let our specialist guide point out these finer details, so obvious to the archaeologist but most often often hidden to the unpracticed eyes of the visitor.

This shelter is still regarded as being sacred, or as a place of power, by living Zulu traditional healers and Zonist prophets who come here to absorb its power and collect medicines from in and around the cave. Here patients are cleansed or baptised in the cascading waterfall whose own living energy flings the waters over the lip of the cave to continue its rapid journey down the steep slope close to the path and into the jungle-tangled gorge below. Pass below this waterfall on your journey into the heights of the mountain.

The second half of our quest takes us up some very steep country which is even negotiable by the unfit if taken slowly, enjoy the astonishing views from this open eerie. Within the upper and younger layer of sandstone below the escarpment is hidden one of the jewels of the prehistoric art world. Likened by world authorities in quality, detail, content and preservation to the paintings of Lascaux in France and Altimira in Spain, the paintings of Game Pass Shelter appear to move and flicker alive before your eyes.

So named, this shelter lies along the migratory route of large ungulates, such as the Eland, the largest antelope in Africa, and most sacred of all animals to the San. Vivid and life-like depictions of colourful Eland move across the rock face of this cave in migratory herds. Some of these involve hunting scenes, and one painting in particular is world famous. This is the so-called Rosetta panel of San rock art. Unlocking the mysteries of this panel is believed by some scholars to have unravelled the mysteries of the southern San religious life and landscape of their minds.

Note :
There is an abundant wealth of San Rock Art sites throughout southern Africa. We could arrange specific tours to destinations such as the remote Tsodilo Hills in Botswana - "van der Post's Panel" - or include visits to various Rock Art sites as part of one of our general tours.